No, I’m not thinking about getting into oils – but I’d like a little working knowledge of it. What would I need to just fart around with it for a while?
I don’t want to mess around with turpentine and linseed oil more than I have to, and I noticed that W&N has water-soluble paints, so maybe I can try those.
From what little I understand, besides an easel (which I have), I’ll need paints, brushes, a pallette, knives, and canvases. I saw one store had cheap canvases mounted on boards for a couple of bucks each. That’s probably better than canvas on frames, I’m guessing. I can get a pallette with paper sheet, which wil save me some cleanup. If I were to only get two brushes, which ones should I get? What color paints should I get? Titanium white is a given, but what else? Winsor red, Winsor yellow, and Ultramarine?
You will never mix a clean purple or green from mixing primary paint colors, so don’t try to do the “I’ll mix to get all the colors I need” thing. For brushes, uh, if you only want two I’d go for with a small round and a bigger flat one.
One thing I loved when I taught oil painting at summer camp (it was a fine art program) was canvas paper. It’s a thick paper with the texture of canvas that I gave to girls to practice with. It was great because I don’t think that any of the campers had used oil paints before and it was a cheap way for them to get a feel for how the paint worked. Another cheap short cut is wax paper. We always mixed the paints on it.