Which Oil Paints to Buy

Often when you are starting out it’s difficult to know what tubes of paints to buy with the huge array of paints available.  Each main manufacturer will have student ranges and artist ranges.  The Winsor and Newton student range is called Winton and the Daler Rowney student range is called Georgian.  There are of course other manufacturers that you may prefer to use.

The main difference the artist range will be both better quality colours using better quality pigments with more intensity of colour.  Being a professional artist I use a combination of Winsor and Newton Winton range and the far superior Winsor and Newton artist range.  Below is a range of colours that I recommend you buy as a base collection:

French Ultramarine

Deep, intense, semi-transparent, violet blue used a great deal to tint other colours, but mixes with Alizarin Crimson to make rich violets or with yellows for good vegetation greens.  A slow drier.

Prussian Blue

A strong, cold, green blue with tinting power. Good for shadows.

Cobalt Blue

Bright, rich blue which makes a good clear sky blue.  Also very useful in creating flesh tones.

Cerulean Blue

A highly opaque sky blue leaning towards green rather than violet.  A quick drier.

Sap Green

A good ready-mixed, semi-transparent yellow green. For best results for greens – mix yourself.

Use Cadmium Orange and Violet to neutralise greens.

Cadmium Red

Bright, opaque red, developed to replace the very expensive Vermillion.  Mixes with cadmium yellow

to make a rich orange or with blue to make dull browns. A slow drier.

Alizarin Crimson

A truly luscious deep red Crimson.  Makes a rich transparent glaze though only moderately durable

in very thin washes.  High oil content makes it a slow drier.

Cadmium Yellow

A strong, powerful yellow which has replaced others, such as chrome yellow, because it is permanent. 

Soft consistency, it is a slow drier.

Lemon Yellow

A deceptive colour, when first squeezed out.  It is a bright, cool, useful yellow, making a range of dazzling greens when mixed with cobalt or French ultramarine blue. A slowish drier.

Naples Yellow

An opaque colour. Good for skin tones.    

Yellow Ochre

An opaque dull yellow which is a useful mixer - for example, with blues to produce subtle landscape greens.

Burnt Umber

Looks most unexciting when squeezed out, this is an essentially strong, dark, warm, permanent earth

colour.  Often used in underpainting as it is quick drying.

Raw Umber

Another quick drying, permanent earth colour which is a yellow brown.  Almost transparent, it is useful

for underpainting.  A very good mixer.

Burnt Sienna

A transparent, reddish warm earth colour with many uses for mixing warm tints & broken colours. Quick drier.

Raw Sienna

A yellow brown made from natural clay containing iron oxide.  A quick drier.

Titanium White (plus Mixing White – softer and oilier)

Whiter-than-white, made to replace poisonous Flake White. Should not be used extensively in underpainting.

Black is not essentially needed. Try using Paynes 

Best wishes

Lee