Painting Supplies for Beginners

By Brenda Hoddinott

Choosing the right painting surfaces, brushes, soap, palette knives, palettes, and paints

This resource has four sections:

• Painting Surfaces
• Brushes for Artists
• Palette Knives and Palettes
• Selecting Paint Colors

Painting Surfaces

You need both a surface to apply paint to (such as a canvas board) and a sloped surface to place your painting on as you work (such as a desk or easel).

Canvas Boards

Large canvas boards can be intimidating for beginners. Instead, buy a few small canvas boards (Figures 1 and 2). Ideal sizes for learning fundamental painting techniques include:

• 8 by 10 in (20.3 by 25.4 cm)
• 9 by 12 in (22.9 by 30.5 cm)
• 12 by 16 in (30.5 by 40.6 cm)

If you decide to draw your subject on a canvas board before adding paint (Figure 3), you also need drawing supplies and a can of spray fixative (Figure 4).

Fixative prevents the graphite in pencils from bleeding through and ruining your completed painting.

When the fixative is completely dry, use a large brush to apply one or two thin coats of thin white paint or Gesso (Figure 5) to the canvas to lighten the pencil marks.

Sloped Surfaces

Any surface you choose to place a painting on while you paint needs to be sloped (Figure 6).

An easel (Figure 7) works beautifully for creating large paintings, but is not the best option for beginners who are practicing techniques with fine brushes.

A flat board propped up on a table (Figure 8) or a drafting desk with a slanted surface (Figure 9) allows you to rest your arm on its surface to better control your paintbrush.

Brushes for Artists

When you take a trip to any major art store, expect to be totally mesmerized and overwhelmed by all the different types of brushes (Figures 10 and 11).

You may see hundreds of shapes, brands, colors, and sizes. Thankfully, all paintbrushes have only three fundamental parts - each of which can help you determine if a brush is suitable for you:

• Hairs (sometimes called bristles) are on the end of a paintbrush and are the means by which you apply paint to your painting surface (Figure 12).
• Ferrule: is a cylinder (usually made of metal) that holds the brush hairs (or bristles) in their proper place, and joins them to the handle (Figure 13).
• Handle: is the part of a paintbrush held by the artist, and comes in different lengths (Figure 14).

Before you buy brushes, inspect them carefully to ensure that their:

• hairs don't come out when gently pulled.
• ferrules have no seams.
• handles are securely attached.

Brushes with any of these problems usually don't last for more than a few minutes. Also, they tend to shed, and their handles frequently break away from the ferrule.

You don't need to spend a lot of money on brushes when you're learning how to paint.

After all, the first challenge for beginners is to simply learn and practice painting techniques.

A large, soft brush (Figure 15) is perfect when you want to apply a thin layer of white or colored paint to the entire surface of a canvas.

A beginner's selection of brushes should also include:

• filbert brushes (marked 1 in Figure 17) are ideal for painting large sections that don't require clean edges.
• medium size flat brushes (marked 2).
• medium size round brushes (marked 3).
• script liner brushes (marked 4), the workhorse for creating clean edges, signing your name, and painting many types of fine details and textures.

The size and shape of each of these four types of paintbrushes plays a big role in determining how your finished paintings look. Each makes unique marks and is therefore suited for specific applications.

You can choose brushes with either short or long handles:

• Short handled brushes work best for artists who like to work close to their painting on small to medium canvases and/or prefer detailed subjects. A short handle is unlikely to hit you in the face as you paint.
• Long handled brushes are great for artists who prefer to work on medium to large canvases an arms-length away from their canvases. A long handle allows you to be farther away from the canvas and therefore becomes an extension of your arm.

Palette Knives and Palettes

Palette knives come in many different types and shapes (plastic ones are simply awful).

The working end of an ideal palette knife is an elongated diamond shape made of metal (Figure 18). Its handle is usually made of wood.

A palette can be any non-porous, flat surface (such as Plexiglas or thin finished wood). Another option is a disposable palette with tear-off sheets (Figure 19).

Acrylic paints have to be mixed quickly on a palette and then added to a wet palette before the paint dries.

A wet palette is a plastic container with a cover that is designed to store your mixed paint colors and keep the paint from drying too quickly.

You can save enough money in paint after only a few paintings to more than pay for this investment. When the cover is snugly sitting on a palette, the paints usually stay wet for several days.

You may not find a wet palette exactly like the one shown in Figure 20, but most stores that sell acrylics carry wet palettes.

In addition to a wet palette, remember to pick up a couple of extra packages of the special papers that are specifically designed to fit inside.

Selecting Paint Colors

The only tubes of paint you need to buy are primary colors (two different hues of yellow, blue, and red), raw umber, and white.

The following eight basic colors (Figure 21) can be mixed together to create any color you can see or imagine:

• White
• Alizarin Crimson
• Cadmium Red
• Ultramarine Blue
• Cerulean Blue
• Yellow Ochre
• Cadmium Yellow
• Raw Umber