What Oil Painting Material & Equipment Are Needed for Oil Painting?

(How to Start an Oil Painting on Canvas? Part 2)

On September 27, 2010 I have posted about the different methods for starting an oil painting, now that before we will jumping in with your first oil painting, it’s best to check if you already have all oil painting materials and equipments needed to start your first painting? (…drum please … then run to check…)

Oil painting is the best painting among all type of paintings considering its popularity and price. Oil painting can be stored for hundreds of years, such as a picture of Mona Lisa painting, by Leonardo Da Vinci. We can create oil painting with a variety of colors and it’s expensive compared to other types of paintings. Bare in mind that oil painting equipment is also more expensive than other painting equipment. Here are oil painting equipments and materials needed.

1. Canvas or Other Support
2. Oil Paint
3. Brushes
4. Mediums
5. Paint Palette
6. Palette and Painting Knives
7. Container(s) for Mediums
8. Easel
9. Charcoal or Other Drawing Tool
10. Varnish

Today, let’s talk about canvas first. Canvas, will be used as a painting surface. Canvas fabric is usually either made of cotton or linen, both will have different features. Cotton canvas have short fibers and features weak that aren’t quite as strong as linen when woven into thread and then into canvas. Linen is stronger and longer fibers hold together well when woven, making its life longer than cotton canvas. Therefore, most professional artists prefer linen canvas. However, some believe a well-made cotton canvas would last for a similar period of time as a linen canvas. And of course, because of its better features make linen canvas more expensive than cotton canvas.

There are 3 types of canvas that are widely used by most artist painters.

Stretched Canvas

Stretched canvas or pre-stretched canvas is the most convience, ready to use, already primed with the necessary undercoating for painting but it’s the most expensive one. Stretched canvases are mounted on stretcher bars which typically provide a 19mm or 38mm canvas covered edge which can be painted, this is beneficial as a painting on a stretched canvas can displayed on a wall with or without being framed. Stretched canvas varieties are available in many shapes and sizes depending on the kind of painting you wish to create. Some of the popular kinds include the cotton canvas varieties of the traditional profile and the deep profile, and the decorative and miniature canvas. Polyflax and primed linen are some of the other materials used in stretched canvas. It’s important to note different textures will create different colors effects..

Canvas Boards

Canvas boards or panels are cheap versions of the stretched type of artist’s canvas. They are generally made of heavy duty card panels to which the canvas surface is glued. The pulp board is a still cheaper alternative, featuring either a gesso textured surface or an embossed pattern. You can paint with oil as well as acrylic paints on these canvas boards. Pre-stretched canvas panels are usually covered in a cotton duck canvas surface. Due to canvas boards being only a few millimeters thick, all paintings painted on canvas boards require being framed – adding an extra cost – if they are going to be displayed on a wall.

Canvas Rolls

Canvas generally comes in rolls of 5 & 10m in length and 1 to 1.6m wide. Such canvas can be comprised of primed or un-primed cotton, Polyflax or linen. A sheet of canvas can be cut to size from the roll and once the painting is finished it can be mounted on stretcher bars. This can often work out to be the cheapest option; however, it is often considered to be less convenient, more time-consuming and requiring the relevant skills and tools are necessary to construct the final product. However, stretching your own canvas is good if you plan to create several paintings or plan to sale your art, it may hard at first but once you do, you will feel even more enjoyable with your painting.

At Samui Art Gallery, we use Linen Canvas Rolls. Which canvas are you using?


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