This seem to be my year to paint in oil. Since I've never taken an oil class before, I signed up for beginning oil painting class with Andrea Kemp at the Denver Art Students League. I've also signed up for a figure painting workshop with Darren Kingsley at the Bay Area Classical Artist Atelier (bacaa.org) in June.
One of the first thing I did this year was to research about oil paints. They are so expensive so I thought I should be more knowledgeable about the different brands. I've asked several people at the Denver Art Students League and most people uses a variety of brands, often depending on which brand is cheaper or on sale. I also got mixed opinions about student vs artist grade oil paints. Many people said student grades are fine. They just have bit more filler and less pigment but they are much more affordable. Others encourages to buy the best because the artist grades has better tinting strength and a little paint goes much further.
This week I started taking my oil paints to my life drawing sessions and I decided to only bring white, burnt umber, and burnt sienna just to get comfortable sketching with the oil. I bought some cheap Daler Rowney student grade oil paints that was on sale at Hobby Lobby and found myself struggling with mixing colors. It just seemed colors gets muddy rather fast when I mix with white. I thought I find out for myself the difference between student grade and artist grade by mixing a color chart using the three colors. I used paints from the Daler Rowney Graduate oil, Rembrandt, Permalba and Sinnelier. I've also tested several Titanium whites from Daler Rowney, LeFranc & Bourgeois, Winsor & Newton, even a tube of Flake White from Grumbacher. The result as expected the artist grade paints were much more intense. It required less paint to mix the desired value and able to get a wider range of values. The Rembrant oil paint had the most intense color. The Permalba was pretty close but looses it's intensity quicker as whites being added. The Sennelier seemed more transparent and not as dark compared to Rembrandt. The most interesting thing I found was that the Titanium white is very cool. It turned Burnt Sienna quickly to cool red/pink. Flake white on the other hand, maintain the warm tint as more of the whites are added, which is very desirable. What's more interesting is the Daler Rowney Titanium White didn't cool down Burnt Sienna as quickly, probably because of the less pigment of the student grade. This is actually pretty good because Flake White contains lead.
The color chart exercise was pretty educational. I think for my practice sketches, the Daler Rowney paint will work for me. although I will probably bring a tube of Rembrandt Burnt Sienna to get the more intense brown.
