by Sue Bluze

Created on: January 08, 2007   Last Updated: July 16, 2010

From experience I would say that painting with oils or acrylics are more are far easier for beginners to learn to paint with, rather than using watercolours which can be a very unforgiving medium. With oils and acrylics you can scrape off mistakes while they are still wet and and start again if you are not happy with your first or subsequent attempts. Or even if the paint has dried you can over paint anything you are not happy with [something the Old Masters did regularly]. Whereas with watercolours the mistake is often visible for all to see, and results in a half finished painting being consigned to the waste paper bin. In the long run it is less wasteful too.

There can be a lot of snobbery around the correct painting equipment to use and the beginner is often bombarded with a mountain of well meaning advice. My suggestion would be to start with 7 basic tubes of paint and use those to mix the shades you want. The 7 basic colours are Titanium White, Yellow Ochre, Lemon Yellow, Burnt Sienna, Burnt Umber, Ultramarine Blue and Crimson Alizarin. Don't waste your money on expensive starter kits as they often include colours you will never use or black, which when used makes the finished result look flat. Any professional artist will tell you there is no such thing as black in painting just different shades of grey! It's OK too to use the student variants of paint that are available to buy. They give an equally effective finished result, the only reason they are cheaper than the professional varieties is that they generally are made of synthetic pigments rather than the more expensive naturally occurring ones.

As for brushes hold them how you feel comfortable and experiment with the different types of brush that are available. I use watercolour brushes to paint with oils, I like the smoother more blended finish that these give rather than the more textured finish achieved with hog bristle brushes. Again dont buy expensive brushes until you have worked out which ones you prefer to paint with. Some books insist that you should have brushes of a certain length and hold them in a certain way, again its not necessary, go with what feels comfortable for you.

Once you have the basic equipment go and experiment and most of all have some fun with what you are doing. I find most people quickly decide which medium they find works best for them, however if oils, acrylics or water colours don't work for you don't forget all the other art mediums such as pastels, pencil, charcoal or even moving to something such as pottery or sculpture. Art and painting should be a pleasurable experience, don't worry about what others think, just enjoy your new hobby! 

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