So, we are gonna start the first part of this course, which is nailing the basics. We’re gonna cover what are materials that you need for sketching and oil painting. We’re gonna talk about pre painting preparations, which is very hard to say. And then we’re gonna go into sketching and how to get agrees match as well.
So firstly, all of the art materials that I use to sketch and create paintings. So starting off with, if you’re not using a canvas, then the paper that I use is this Gaylen Rowney, a full, smooth, heavyweight paper. This is just for any sketching that you do to practice. This is really nice and thick paper. It’s got a really good texture. And I’ve been using it for years and I love it. So that I would highly recommend also all of these things. If you already have paper, don’t rush out and buy this specific stuff. You don’t need to. It’s just when you’re looking to replenish.
These are the things that I use. Or if you can see anything that’s missing that you might wanna get before you start painting, this is useful for you. Next is pencils. Any kind of sketching pencils will do. I use these Royal graphite pencils. This is an HB, but usually when I’m sketching, I would use something slightly softer, like a, 2, b, just because it rubs out easily.
Then next is an essential one, but I’m not gonna talk about it too long. But that’s a sharpener. You wanna make sure that your pencil, there’s nice shops that any shop now will do. You need a razor. And this one was actually a game changer. So I would really recommend this. And that is winter in Newton medium needed Patty rubber. You can get this from any art shop, but basically the texture of it is really different to other raises that I’ve used in the past. It’s just kind of, it is putty, so it kind of lifts the color up rather than, you know, when you get those like blue and pink erasers, I just, I find that they just rub the pencil marks in and it just turns into a gray mesh. So this is lips or the color of. And so that is really useful.
And now onto what I used to paint. So then onto painting materials. I tend to use Windsor and Newton canvases. So a cotton canvas, any canvas size that you want with, I always use one with an edge before. If you want a cheaper option, then I used to use a lot of canvas boards when I was first starting because they are much cheaper. So if you’re looking to experiment and you want to do lots of paintings, then I would recommend getting a canvas board as well. Can get, I feel like Canvas Sports, I’m less fussy about which brand I get. And again, Cassa has a really good range of them. Those, and then I’m gonna do, I’m gonna go into this more in a second but to prep my canvas, I use the Cap Art acrylic paint range, really good quality. And seeing as it’s only just to prime my canvas and I’m gonna paint over anyway, I don’t need a super high quality acrylic pain. So I have this. I would use this in Primary Blue, Cadmium Yellow, Cameo Red, and then Titanium. Y are all of the color paints of acrylic that you need when you’re getting started. Then also, it is useful to have a palette knife to mix your colors sometimes so that you don’t get all of the paint caught up in the brush. But I would say it’s not an essential. So TBC on, if you wanna get one of those, a big brush. So when I’m priming my canvas, I like to have a big brush. You can see I have just treated myself to a new brush, which was 895 from Cassar. But just any big brush that you’ve got, it just gives a really nice, like smooth tone rather than just like little tiny brush marks on your canvas. I don’t know. I just like using a big brush to prep my canvas. Then I love using these paintbrushes. I’ve gone through so many of them. And that is the master stroke angled shader. This one’s a size 6, but I love the size 5 is the best one that I use and the one that I use most often. And you can see that it’s got that angled nib and I’m gonna do a waversome tutorial as well in this course. So this is key if you wanna paint in the way for some style, but master stroke also do other shapes of brush as well, which are equally as good.
And then onto the actual oil painting. I love using Windsor and Newton Winton oil color. They also have smaller tubes if you’re just testing it out. But I find that the texture of this is really nice. It’s really smooth battery.
I’ve tried out more expensive oil paint and cheap oil paint, and this is always the one that I tend to go back to. And this next thing is so useful when you’re painting from home and or if you’re painting in a small space that you need to keep tidy and that is these like disposable pallets. So it’s just like a tear off. You can see that’s just one sheet and it’s kind of got a glossy finish, but it’s just a tear off palette so you can keep your space really clean. And then when you’re done with this, you just tear it off and start a new one. And I found these so useful. This one is artistic and I use the big size, which is 12 by 16 inches. So you’ve got a lot of surf surface area to spread your paints around. But I think you can also get 1/2 the size as well.
But to mention the colors that you need for oil paint, I always use, I’ll talk about this again later, but I always use titanium white. I use crimson, yellow, ochre, French, Old marine, cadmium, yellow, cadmium, red, ban on ban. And sometimes I’ll use a bit of Cerulean blue for the water, but I will go into color mixing in more detail later. And then I feel like this is the finale, but the secret source to oil painting and getting really smooth is color, is sometimes you get that straight out of the tube. But if you’re. Because oil paint dries quite slowly. If you have left your paints on your palette for a couple of days, which is absolutely fine, but you might find that they go a bit sticky and a bit claggy, in which case I use this refined linseed oil.
Again, this is Windsor and Newton. But if you literally pour, you can see that it’s kind of gross, but you can pour a little bit of this, which be a tiny bit of this, into the cap and then just dip your paintbrush in it. And then if you use that paint, then it would just, it just loosens up the oil paint. It does make it dry slightly more slowly, which is sometimes times a good thing, but it just loosens up the pain and makes it a bit more fluid as well. Helpful. And I’m ready to dive in to pre painting preparations.