A ground or support is any kind of surface you can paint on. The choice of ground is in quite important because it determines in part how your painting will be perceived by the viewer.

Your support must satisfy a minimum of conditions. It must accept the paint well (i.e., the paint must stick in one stroke) without absorbing too much of the pigment.

The least expensive oil painting ground is treated paper. It is very useful for practice and even for doing certain commercial work. You can also buy canvas pads. These pads usually contain 10 sheets of medium tooth 5-oz cotton canvas that has been triple-primed with acrylic gesso. The tooth of paper or canvas is the degree of roughness or smoothness of the canvas. You can tape the oil paper or canvas pad paper to a drawing board. Make sure it is secure and does not shift when applying brushstrokes.

Next in line are the popular canvas boards or panels which are sheets of cardboard covered with inexpensive white painted cloth. These panels are very popularity because they are inexpensive (particularly when bought in bulk), easy to store, and easy to carry outdoors. They are however not permanent, i.e., they will deteriorate over time.

Good results can also be obtained from un-tempered Masonite or 3-ply chipboard prepared with three coats of gesso on the front and one coat on the back to prevent warping.

You can also use so-called museum board which is on the order of good-quality mat board. This board is quit absorbent but is inexpensive to practice on.

The ultimate ground for oil painting is canvas stretched over a wooden frame. It has wonderful elasticity and resilience, and history has shown that it has very good permanence. Canvas is of course more expensive but when you’re ready this will be your ground of choice and you’ll never want to go back to anything else.

You can buy commercially pre-stretched canvas. In fact, there are plenty of brands, sizes, weights, and qualities to choose from. Only experience will teach you which type of canvas is best suited to your style and subject matter.

Canvas cloth is either cotton or linen. The finest canvas and most expensive is made of linen, which stretches better and has a better tooth. Cotton can be a bit difficult to prime.

Look for cloth with an even weave. The canvas texture can be tightly woven and smooth to fairly coarse with an open weave. That means the tooth of the canvas can be fine or coarse and anything in-between.

If you paint a lot, even commercially pre-stretched canvas can become expensive. If so, you can buy rolls of primed or unprimed (raw) canvas. Then with stretcher bars you can create a support of a certain size. If you bought unprimed canvas, you still have to prime the canvas with an oil-based primer.

To save money you may be tempted to work on small canvases. This is not recommended. Unless you are an experienced artist, working on a small ground can easily result in tight, overly controlled paintings. So use supports of at least 16″ x 20″.

A Quick Introduction to Oil Painting Models

You will need:

Brushes

Turpentine

Palette

Oil Medium

Paints

Brushes – Good quality sable brushes. Don’t withhold on the quality here. Brushes would last longer with Oil paints than any other medium if you take good care of it.

Modern synthetic brushes could be even more excellent in quality, so don’t restrict your self in choosing only those brushes that are made from natural hairs such as sable. Look for painting brushes where the hairs swiftly spring back up when you bend them. Be careful about cleaning your painting brushes as if acrylic paint dries in a brush, it could be extremely difficult to clean it up.

Turpentine – Turpentine is used for lessening and cleaning brushes.

Palette A palette is a surface on which a painter mixes it colour pigments. A palette might be made of wood, glass, plastic, ceramic tile or even inert material and could vary highly in size and shape. The most usually known type of painter’s palette is made of thin wood board designed to be held in the artist’s hand and rest on the artist’s arm.

Oil Medium – These would speed up the process of drying the paints and also give slight gloss sheen. Turpentine could be used with some of the same effect.

Paints – It is suggested to use “Artist’s” oils. These are the top quality available in any variety with better pigmentation and permanence. Tubes come in different sizes but oils have good covering skill and would even last a long time.

Opacity – Sometimes marked on the tube, opacity shows how transparent the oil is. Red/Yellows are commonly the least opaque.

Permanence – Usually marked on a scale of 1 to 4 (often marked in stars), 4 being most enduring, and (longest lasting).

Hue – Could be exactly described as the Shade of the colour. Can sometimes relate to Opacity

Oil Painting: Making it Simple

Oil painting is simple, far simpler than drawing or even watercolor painting. If you could see something, you could paint it in oils. To create something memorable, however, you need to:

1. Formulate what you hope to attain, and plan a workable way to that objective.

2. Research the market if you desire to sell the work.

3. Approach the painting process in rational steps, which generally entail:

* Drawings to examine compositional possibilities.

* Blockedout charcoal/pencil/oil sketches to place tonal value

* Oil sketches to trial with various color schemes and harmonies.

* Preparing canvas and paint for the probable tasks.

* Varnishing, framing and hanging the work.