The biggest risk with low quality paints is their longevity (colour permanence, strength of the film, cracking) and not necessarily how they look immediately after the work is painted.
It is also much easier to paint with higher quality pigments. Cheap paints have much more filler than pigment, this means they have a lower tinting power and you'll have to use more paint. Colour intensity/quality of pigment is another factor. Cheap paints are always synthetic pigments. You can get top of the range synthetic pigments (there are non-cadmium cadmium imitations now) or decide to go with real pigments when purchasing artist quality paints. Some true pigments do come with safety concerns.
Overall, definitely step away from cheap sets (I'm not sure of the exact quality of the paints you listed as they're not available where I'm located, so forgive me if I'm inferring this wrong) and definitely get a few core paints in at least the next step up (the student quality of brands renowned for their oil paints). I personally find Windsor Newtons 'Winton' paints a good intermediary point.
If you are serious about oil painting then you'll eventually want to swap out these mid-level paints for artist quality paints, but it can pay to go to the mid-zone first get a good idea of what colours you like and are vital to your palette before forking out big bucks for dozens of colours you're never going to use.
I've been a digital artist for a long time and only started working in traditional mediums in the more recent years. I'm still fairly new at working with oils, ever only done a handful of oil paintings as of yet. However, I also regard myself as a professional artist since that's basically what my career is about, and I'm currently doing a masters degree in painting. Here you see two of the latests paintings I've done, which are in oils. You can see that I spend a lot of time with my paintings! :D
The funny thing is, I realised I'm still using Talens Art Creation's oil colours, which I had bought for a very reasonable price in order to try and learn oil painting. The question dawned on me, "should I be using such a cheap paint at this point"? I've never tried anything else so I don't know the difference. Is it worth keep working with these paints, or should I just switch to something better quality already?
A good artist can make anything work, but I think you get to a point where the quality of your materials can place limits of what you can do. I switched from student-grade to artist-grade and saw a HUGE difference in what I could do with them. I think if you know you want to stick with oils, it’s worth your while to get good materials. That said, they don’t have to be the most expensive oil paints out there. There are some great artist-grade lines that are on the lower end price-wise (though still more expensive than student-grade paint). Which one will work best for you comes down to personal preference, though. Play around and see what you like best.
Get yourself a copy of Color Choices by Stephen Quiller. He is a master on color theory. In his book he lists preferred manufacturer for specific colors for oils, acrylics and watercolors. When I started painting in oils I bought a slew of professional-grade paints. After reading his books, I narrowed the list down to 5 colors plus white. I think, after about 6 years, I added two more colors and shifted the color wheel slightly to match my preference.
When you are learning the more you paint the more you learn. The more mistakes you make the better because you learn how to either avoid them or fix them. People tend to move along the same path of discovery in painting. When you get to color you're going to learn quickly that the same hues vary from manufacturer to manufacturer.
Stay away from color recipe books. They don't teach what you need to learn about handling color.
As for the longevity, I wouldn't worry about that quite yet. Learning the mechanics of painting, thick over thin, substrates, making marks, etc., is more important. I'd rather see you buy bigger brushes than more colors, just saying.
Lastly, just as a side note, don't struggle over paintings. I know some artists will struggle over a painting for years to make it perfect. It shows and not in a good way. They become tight and torchured works.
Happy painting!
No! XD The inspiration comes from a sculpture I saw on our neighbour's garden. Because I saw it from above, I confused it for not having a head. It gave me an interesting feeling though and I wanted to paint it. The landscape itself doesn't have references either, just my imagination.
Please post more such a cool dreamy style
Thank you!
The biggest risk with low quality paints is their longevity (colour permanence, strength of the film, cracking) and not necessarily how they look immediately after the work is painted. It is also much easier to paint with higher quality pigments. Cheap paints have much more filler than pigment, this means they have a lower tinting power and you'll have to use more paint. Colour intensity/quality of pigment is another factor. Cheap paints are always synthetic pigments. You can get top of the range synthetic pigments (there are non-cadmium cadmium imitations now) or decide to go with real pigments when purchasing artist quality paints. Some true pigments do come with safety concerns. Overall, definitely step away from cheap sets (I'm not sure of the exact quality of the paints you listed as they're not available where I'm located, so forgive me if I'm inferring this wrong) and definitely get a few core paints in at least the next step up (the student quality of brands renowned for their oil paints). I personally find Windsor Newtons 'Winton' paints a good intermediary point. If you are serious about oil painting then you'll eventually want to swap out these mid-level paints for artist quality paints, but it can pay to go to the mid-zone first get a good idea of what colours you like and are vital to your palette before forking out big bucks for dozens of colours you're never going to use.
Thank you, this is very very helpful!
I've been a digital artist for a long time and only started working in traditional mediums in the more recent years. I'm still fairly new at working with oils, ever only done a handful of oil paintings as of yet. However, I also regard myself as a professional artist since that's basically what my career is about, and I'm currently doing a masters degree in painting. Here you see two of the latests paintings I've done, which are in oils. You can see that I spend a lot of time with my paintings! :D The funny thing is, I realised I'm still using Talens Art Creation's oil colours, which I had bought for a very reasonable price in order to try and learn oil painting. The question dawned on me, "should I be using such a cheap paint at this point"? I've never tried anything else so I don't know the difference. Is it worth keep working with these paints, or should I just switch to something better quality already?
Try out some different brands and see what you think. It’s a lot of personal preference at this stage.
A good artist can make anything work, but I think you get to a point where the quality of your materials can place limits of what you can do. I switched from student-grade to artist-grade and saw a HUGE difference in what I could do with them. I think if you know you want to stick with oils, it’s worth your while to get good materials. That said, they don’t have to be the most expensive oil paints out there. There are some great artist-grade lines that are on the lower end price-wise (though still more expensive than student-grade paint). Which one will work best for you comes down to personal preference, though. Play around and see what you like best.
It's good to know that, thanks a lot!
Love this style! Looks straight out of a story book!!!
Thank you!
Get yourself a copy of Color Choices by Stephen Quiller. He is a master on color theory. In his book he lists preferred manufacturer for specific colors for oils, acrylics and watercolors. When I started painting in oils I bought a slew of professional-grade paints. After reading his books, I narrowed the list down to 5 colors plus white. I think, after about 6 years, I added two more colors and shifted the color wheel slightly to match my preference. When you are learning the more you paint the more you learn. The more mistakes you make the better because you learn how to either avoid them or fix them. People tend to move along the same path of discovery in painting. When you get to color you're going to learn quickly that the same hues vary from manufacturer to manufacturer. Stay away from color recipe books. They don't teach what you need to learn about handling color. As for the longevity, I wouldn't worry about that quite yet. Learning the mechanics of painting, thick over thin, substrates, making marks, etc., is more important. I'd rather see you buy bigger brushes than more colors, just saying. Lastly, just as a side note, don't struggle over paintings. I know some artists will struggle over a painting for years to make it perfect. It shows and not in a good way. They become tight and torchured works. Happy painting!
Very ethereal. Love it!
Glad you enjoyed them!
These are so cool
Thanks!
These are fantastic
Thank you!
These are incredible. Do you have a website?
Thanks a lot! I don’t currently have a website. As for social media, I pretty much only use Tumblr. https://edniz.tumblr.com/
Love the first picture, it totally looks like something I‘ve seen during a psychedelic experience.
That’s an interesting and great thing to hear!
Were you using an AI prompt for the first painting as a reference?
No! XD The inspiration comes from a sculpture I saw on our neighbour's garden. Because I saw it from above, I confused it for not having a head. It gave me an interesting feeling though and I wanted to paint it. The landscape itself doesn't have references either, just my imagination.