Top & Best Oil paint Review 2022 – How to Select Ultimate Buyer’s Guide
Oil paint: How to choose the best in 2022?
Today’s article will be dedicated to you who need to buy oil paint and want tips for choosing the option that best suits your expectations and needs.
Oil paint has great notoriety in the market thanks to its versatility. With an oily base, it is available in a diverse range of colors. Slow drying, it is ideal for detailed work. It can be used for painting on canvas with brushes or spatulas, wooden surfaces, fabrics, and even metal for crafts in general.
Follow this Review and check out the main tips and information so you can fearlessly choose the oil paint that best fits your needs.
First, the most important
- Intended for use in painting and handicrafts, oil paint must be chosen according to the purchaser’s use objectives.
- In addition to the brand, quality, colors and size of the tube, it is essential to pay attention to issues such as performance and drying time to make the right choice.
- The values of oil paints will vary according to the make and model. It is possible to find more basic options for small quantities starting at R $ 10. More robust pots, of renowned brands and superior quality can cost more than R $ 300.
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Ranking: The 3 best oil paint options
Oil on canvas, wall, fabric or wood. If you are familiar with or intend to start practicing one of these painting modalities, you should already know that the first step towards the success of the endeavor is to choose a quality oil paint.
Whether in kits or loose tubes, there are many product options on the market, which can leave any consumed confused. That’s why we’ve separated the best product options to help you choose. Check out:
Buying Guide
Already looking forward to starting your next painting project after these suggestions from our Ranking? Calm down! Before clicking buy check out our Buying Guide.
In this section we will give you tips on models, forms of use, values and where to buy the product, so that you can make the perfect choice of oil paint to exercise your artistic side.
What is oil paint?
Oil paint is a type of oily based paint that is slow to dry. It usually consists of mixing natural or synthetic pigments with some type of drying oil. The most used is linseed oil.
Painting with oil paint can be done with brushes or spatulas, depending on the technique applied and the expected painting effect.
It can be of the opaque, transparent or semi-transparent type. Its consistency has little variation from one brand to another, but it can be changed with the use of solvents such as turpentine or petroleum ether, according to the artist’s needs.
The oil paint also allows the use of varnish to increase the gloss of the final result. The finish, however, can only be used with the paint completely dry.
What are the advantages of oil paint?
One of the biggest advantages of oil paint is its slow drying, which allows the artist to apply several painting techniques, in addition to a large window of time to work, change or correct his work.
This characteristic – which also allows the paint to be mixed in the most varied stages of painting – added to the large number of tones and colors available for the product, makes oil paint the ideal option for artistic works, from the most basic to the most detailed .
Versatile, oil paints can have several uses in addition to artistic painting and canvas. They can be applied to finish and protect wooden pieces and handicrafts in this material, as well as walls, boat benches, etc.
Resistant to the actions of time, it has a finish and bright, luminous and brilliant colors, ideal for indoor and outdoor use.
Benefits
- There are versions in different price ranges
- Weather resistant
- Can be used for various purposes and with varied painting techniques
- Slow drying allows detailed artist work
Disadvantages
- Poor quality inks can change color and crack over time
- Good quality inks can be expensive
How to use oil paint?
As we have already mentioned, there are several uses for oil paint, for decorative paintings , handicrafts, fabric paintings, among many other possibilities. But regardless of your goals, there are some tips that can optimize the work with this material. Are they:
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- Always use a surface to arrange and mix paints;
- Work successive layers over several days to build textures or achieve depth effects;
- Don’t be afraid to dare combining oil paint with other types of paint;
- When using the layered technique, increase the proportion of linseed oil used in the mixture for each layer, since the lower layers absorb the oil from the upper ones;
- If the bottom layer is over-oiled, the effect will be the opposite, which may cause cracks in the paint;
- Let the paintings dry with clarity. Otherwise, the oil may decant from the paint causing the work to turn yellow;
- To remove a fresh coat of oil paint or varnish, use regular alcohol as a solvent.
How to dilute oil paint?
As we have already mentioned, there are some situations in which the dilution of the oil paint is necessary. Therefore, the use of appropriate techniques and products is important to ensure the maintenance of the fundamental characteristics of the paint and to prevent it from presenting problems in the final result due to inadequate dilution.
With that in mind, the solvent should be used in a proportion of a maximum of 20% of the paint to be diluted. The correct way to dilute the oil paint may vary according to its category, brand, color and type of pigment. Therefore, prior research for the specific brand and color of paint you use may be necessary.
A universal tip is to avoid using linseed oil as a solvent for white and blue oil paint, which are colors that tend to yellow, which is accentuated by linseed oil. For these colors prefer poppy oil, which is less yellow.
And remember: most solvents have some degree of toxicity or flammability, so they should always be handled with care and common sense. Therefore:
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- Do not handle solvents near heat sources;
- Never use in spaces without ventilation;
- Isolate cloths and materials with solvent residues in closed plastic packaging, as the odor can be intoxicating even from a distance.
Check out the video of the channel “Fruto de Arte Artistic Materials” for more tips on how to use solvents with oil paint in artistic painting:
How much?
The price of oil paint varies according to the brand, product quality and bottle size. It is possible to find small bottles of 20 ml starting at R $ 10. Larger packages, of renowned brands and with superior quality can cost more than R $ 300.
Where to buy?
You can buy oil paint in physical stores that sell supplies for arts and crafts. However, it is on e-commerce platforms such as Amazon, that it is possible to find the greatest product variety in different models and brands.
Purchasing criteria: Factors to compare the different models of oil paint
Now that you have a lot of general information about oil paint, we will list some of the features that you can compare to recognize the best paint option for you to paint your canvases, fabrics or crafts. Are they:
- Colors
- Transparency and opacity
- Category
- Drying
Below we will detail each of these particularities, so that there are no doubts when choosing:
Colors
The shades of oil paints can vary widely from one brand to another, even in the case of paints with the same color name. This variation depends on the type of pigment used: natural or synthetic.
The color differences are noticeable, especially with the dry paint, when it oxidizes and reaches its final shade. Therefore, sample analysis may be the most reliable tactic for choosing and comparing shades.
Transparency and opacity
In addition to color variations, paints may have other variants, which will have a direct effect on their use and effects. Oil paints can be transparent, semi-transparent (or semi-opaque) and opaque.
In general, manufacturers use labels to indicate these product characteristics, where:
- Empty square : Transparent pigment ink;
- Half square crosswise : Ink with semitransparent pigments;
- Filled square : Opaque pigments.
Transparent inks will have smoother coverage, while opaque ones have higher hiding power, while semitransparent ones, therefore, are in the middle.
The transparent paints are indicated for glazes, and for the technique of layers (glazing), or when you want to add color to what is underneath. Opaque ones provide complete coverage of the surface on which they are applied.
Category
Oil paints can be professional or beginner. Some brands, however, offer lines of intermediate category paints. Check the table for the differences between the two main categories. But remember: in both you can find products of good and poor quality, so choosing reliable brands is essential.
Drying
The drying of oil paint, in general, is slow. The complete drying process can take 3 to 4 days, depending on the quality of the paint, its composition and the number of layers applied by the artist. The process, however, can be accelerated using cobalt-based drying products, specific for oil paint.
There are also oil paints that naturally dry faster, such as those made from pigments that contain lead, cobalt and manganese. These colors can be used mixed with others in order to speed up the drying process.
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