Paint Economy

[TASmith]

I'm by no means an expert, and I encourage any mod to edit this, but since paint is so expensive, I figure I should list a couple ways you can save money on it.

1. Start with a limited palette. See how many colors you can mix with just three or four paints before you go on to others. The more exotic the color, the pricier it will be.

2. Know how much to use. Acrylic paint dries fast, especially if used sparingly. So, painting with large amounts, while seeming to be wasteful, actually prolongs your work time and can ultimately use less paint. Oil paints can be used a tad more sparingly. Watercolors can be placed on a palette and allowed to dry, and still reused indefinately - never throw out dried watercolors!

3. Buy lots of brushes. try and have one brush for each color you blend. It keeps you from having to remix a color over and over again, you won't have to wash your brushes so much, and your colors won't muddy so quickly.

4. Don't mix large amounts of one color into another! If you want an orange, don't add two big blobs of red and yellow. Start with a blob of yellow and add tiny dabs or red till you get just the right hue - and check as you go by dabbing a touch of it on your canvas where you want the orange, and see if it's good. Once you go overboard on one color, you have to add more of the other and back and forth until you've wasted it all. With time you'll be familiar enough with your colors to better guess how much to add.

5. Oil paint stays wet so long as it isn't exposed to air. So, if you keep your paints on a good palette, preferably a thick glass pane, you can saran wrap it (and I've even heard freeze it in your fridge).

6. Keep painting! The best way to save paint is to get as much as possible always on your canvas. Any time it dries, either on your palette or brushes, that's wasted paint - anytime you clean your brushes, that's wasted paint. If you were to paint with oils nonstop, then theoreticaly you'd never have to wash a single brush.

7. Keep your area clean and organized. Any paint you get on yourself, the floor, the easel, brush handle, etc, is wasted paint. The second you see a mess, clean it up, and see if you can't get some of the paint back on your palette. Paint loves to make a mess, and once it's on your hand, it's bound to spread throughout your home, car, pets, etc.

HOW NOT TO SAVE ON PAINT

- buying some crappy student brand that doesn't mix, dilute, apply, or dry properly, leading to endless frustration.

Hope this helps!

[rattsang]

i'd just like to add that trying to save paint can be false economy. if your not using enough paint you may be sacrificing the quality of your work. while all the points above are valid it should be noted that you shouldn't make do with a colour on your palette because your trying to save "precious" pigment. use as much paint as you need to no more no less.

also you should clean your brushes, i.e. wipe them clean as needed - you'll waste more paint by dirtying new pigment than you'll waste by wiping your brush.

[TASmith]

Good points all. Here's another thing - don't put your colors too close together on the palette! Red and black especially are not colors you want accidentally mixing into your other colors. Put some space between them. Also, put down two seperate dabs for white and yellow, and keep those separated. That way, you can work with one dab, mixing regularly, and still have a pure one for later, for those lighter colors.

[rattsang]

Good points all. Here's another thing - don't put your colors too close together on the palette! Red and black especially are not colors you want accidentally mixing into your other colors. Put some space between them. Also, put down two seperate dabs for white and yellow, and keep those separated. That way, you can work with one dab, mixing regularly, and still have a pure one for later, for those lighter colors.

good palette practice should have your colors arranged close to there neighbors on the color wheel as any spill over will not so greatly affect saturation. it is common practice to lay out your warm colors yellow, orange, red then your cool colors purple, blue, green then your earth colors, ochres and umbers. and then a pile of white for the warms and a pile of white for the cools. also really the only way to ensure you get pure white is to take it from the tube and use a clean brush, white dirties so easily.

oh and one of the most wasteful things you can do while oil painting is not use a medium, if you dont use a medium you will use about 10 times as much paint to cover the same area. use a medium not just spirits, an oil based one, this will give your strokes body and make the paint go further.

[TASmith]

What mediums do you recommend? Lately, I've been using only Liquin.

[rattsang]

liquin is ok although it is quite flat and is also expensive. i make my own mediun from linseed oil, damar and turps and it dries as fast as liquin. there are some great ready made quick dry mediums but you cant get them where i live.