My Oil Painting Art Materials

My Oil Paints

The paints I love to use for my oil paintings, whether on canvas, board or over precious metal leaf, are made by Schmincke of Germany, the same company that makes the watercolor paints I love. The company’s motto is ‘Meliora Cogito’ – meaning “I strive for the Best”.

As artists we have so many choices of brands of oil paint. What we choose can have a great impact on the success of our work as well as our joy of painting.

For years I have experimented with many brands of artists’ quality oil paints in the search for a paint that does what I need it to do. Number one on my list: I want to paint with ease. I don’t want to battle with paint. I need my paint to move beautifully from my brush onto my canvas allowing me to portray the many surfaces and textures that encapsulate the vision I have for each of my painting subjects. The distinguishing ‘ease’ and ‘flow’ that I found in the Schmincke oil paints is mostly due to the careful balancing of the oil ratio in each of the colours. In my opinion, this characteristic sets Schmincke ahead of all the others I have tried.

For me, the Schmincke Norma®   oil colours are beautiful to paint with. I trialed many brands but Schmincke Norma®   stood out from the crowd. I was prepared to use other brands, but the Norma®  range were the most beautiful to paint with. They flow well, they are nicely balanced with the right amount of oil to reduce the likelihood of those ‘sunken’ areas we so often see. The pigment is dense and rich. 

Of the 24 colours in my oil palette, 23 of them are in the ‘Norma® Professional’ range, and one is in the Schmincke ‘Mussini® Finest Artists’ Resin-Oil Colours’ range. This colour is the Transparent Orange. I could not find such a luscious, vibrant and transparent orange elsewhere and it mixes beautifully with the colours in the Schmincke Norma® range.

You will find that the ‘Norma®’ range is somewhat more moderately priced than the pinnacle ‘Mussini®’ range, but I find that all 24 of the Schmincke oil colours I use are ideal for my purposes.

The 24 Colours in my Schmincke Oil Painting Palette:

To find where to purchase Schmincke paints there is a resource on the Schmincke website that is very helpful. It is a retail store locator for their paints worldwide, enabling you to find art supply stores near you. Just scroll down the following page to the ‘Retailer’ heading and search for your country & location: 

https://www.schmincke.de/en/buy.html

I am sure you will love painting with my palette of oil colours as much as I do.

Happy painting!

My Oil Painting Brushes

In addition to the information below, you will also find at the bottom of this page is a video which gives further insight into the reasons for my choice of oil painting brushes.

I am often asked which brushes I use for my oil painting.

Choosing the best oil painting brushes for the job is a little like guess-work when faced with the enormous selection of brushes available. Instead of that huge variety being helpful, the choice becomes very difficult if we don’t know what to look for.

Here is a comprehensive page dedicated to help you with your selection.

The brushes I have chosen to use for my oil painting are from an English company called Rosemary & Co. I want to share with you the shape and sizes of the brushes I couldn’t be without and give you some tips on the uses of each brush, while also commenting on the quality and versatility of the brushes I love to use.

Now I choose to paint in both mediums, and most recently I have been painting with oils on precious metal (24 carat gold and palladium) leaf. Most of my tuition, at in-person workshops, in online workshops and on my DVDs & Video Downloads, has related to watercolor, although I do have an oil painting DVD/Download in the pipeline and I’m currently mentoring online in both oil painting and watercolor painting.

Those familiar with my watercolor painting and teaching will know how much I love my da Vinci watercolor brushes. I now also love my Rosemary & Co brushes when I am painting in oils. 

When I experimented with various brands of oil painting brushes, those from Rosemary & Co stood out from the rest for my methods, techniques and painting style. They are an absolute joy to use and add greatly to the pleasure I have from painting. The quality and handling of each of the series I have chosen as my favourite brushes are exceptional and suit my purpose and needs beautifully. I’m sure the wide range and selection of Rosemary & Co oil painting brushes will suit the needs of all artists, from beginners to professionals.

As with my watercolor painting, when I paint in oils I paint in layers. Let me tell you about each of those layers and the brushes I use.

Layer One – ‘Imprimatura’ layer

Beginning with my first (Imprimatura) layer where I use the Rosemary & Co Evergreen Synthetic Short Flat Size 12 brush.

This is my favourite brush for many other purposes too. I can quickly lay in the amount of colour I need to tint my canvas (linen) or wood panel. I then smooth this out with a rag to give the exact amount of colour and marks I wish to form the base my subsequent painting. The rag generally leaves a light to mid tint of paint – rather than thick dark colour.  I often lift paint out the very lightest areas of my composition with the rag.

I then allow my paint to dry.

For my Second Layer I use the Rosemary & Co Ivory Synthetic Series brushes. I love this series – it is ideal for this layer. It is robust and strong but capable of delivering fine paint layers as well as thicker layers – all with expression. This Ivory Synthetic Series brings me choices I wouldn’t have thought possible with my previous hog hair brushes from other manufacturers.

The flex and spring back allows me to deposit varying amounts of paint with ease and confidence. I can lift paint as well as deposit paint – push/pull paint to ensure my painted surface is just how I want it to be. The Ivory Synthetic Series Long Flats are ideal for laying in colour and also for creating and cutting into edges. All sizes work so well – from narrow to wide – these brushes feel like they are an extension of my arm.

Layer Three – Establishing Colours

My third layer often requires some quick flicks – as well as more deliberate strokes where I establish my colours, in blocks of colour suggesting basic colour shifts to describe the form of the objects I am painting. I also build up my colour in this layer.

Often quick cross-hatched strokes with Rosemary & Co Evergreen Synthetic Series Long Flats and Filberts allow me to describe form, deposit colour quickly as well as suggest wonderfully expressive, loose backgrounds, hair, grasses etc with speed – and with ease.

Rosemary & Co Evergreen Synthetic Series brushes are ideal for all of these things and so much more – they are so expressive and reactive, reflecting all I want to capture within each brush stroke. I also use Ivory Synthetics in creating this layer too.

Layer Four – My Fine Tuning Layer

This is the layer where I refine my shapes, form, transitions, edges, lines, detail.

For this layer I use the Rosemary & Co Pure Sable Domed Filbert Series 81 brushes. These are the brushes that pull my paintings together in the final stages of finessing my work. This final layer is what gives my paintings the professional edge I need for my work.

In this layer, I want to draw attention to the main focus of my painting. It is here that these brushes come into their own as I put them to work to help me describe the surfaces, textures, light, shadows, establish the edges and finer details that carry the emotion and a true sense of substance in my work. These brushes allow me to give the impression of ‘presence’ to the main focal point in my painting. I can create subjects that give the impression of soft, smooth skin or the rough texture of rusted metal. You can feel the slip of satin fabric or sense the emotion of a tear in an eye.

These pure sable brushes are very versatile too as they also allow me to establish the less defined, ‘suggested’ loose brushstrokes that describe the supporting areas. These are the areas that allow the main focal point to take the leading role in my paintings.

For this fine tuning stage of my paintings I mostly use:

Rosemary & Co PURE SABLE

• DOMED FILBERT series 81 Sizes 4, 6 & 8

I also find the Ivory Synthetic Series helpful in this fine tuning stage to refine edges, line and shape.

LONG HANDLED BRUSHES

All of the brushes I use are long handled brushes.

CONCLUSION:

I guess I have become a bit of a ‘brush-a-holic’ as brushes have such an impact on the success of our paintings. For this reason I am now very particular and passionate about the brushes I use.

I will never forget how daunted I felt when I  first stood in front of a plethora of oil painting brushes in an art supply store. Where to start? Which to choose? I knew nothing about oil painting brushes so I bought a few different brands, fibres, shapes, sizes to try. Not happy, I bought more and then more. Some were okay but many were not.

Those early brush purchases made me feel oil paint was a difficult medium and one that would take a long time to perfect. I persevered with the inexperienced choices of brush purchases I made. But I found painting in oils did not bring me the pleasure I hoped it would. A real bug-bear of those early purchases was brushes that readily lost their paint from the handle. Often into my oil paint!  Ahhhhhh!

In my years of oil painting, I have trialed many brushes and brands. I haven’t looked back since discovering these Rosemary & Co brushes. They are so responsive and help me to express the excitement I feel about my varied subject matter and the inspiration that compels me to capture it. I have now been teaching painting for nearly 30 years.

One of the joys of sharing all I know about painting is being able to help artists choose the best materials for our purpose. ‘Best’ does not have to mean ‘the most expensive’ – as you will come to find out for yourself.

After trying numerous brushes, fibres and shapes – it is a true pleasure to help artists find absolutely superb brushes for oil painting that are priced realistically and attainably. I imagine Rosemary & Co must have set out to create brushes of the best quality that are not only affordable but also add enormously to the joy of our painting experience.

Rosemary & Co brushes are available from their website (www.rosemaryandco.com) and can be shipped world-wide.