Paint Like a Millionaire
Something you may have heard your teachers say time and time again "paint like a millionaire" I didnt know what that really meant when I first started oil painting. As I student I had zero idea what I was doing. I bought what I was told I needed which later I found to be a huge mistake and waste of money. I ended up getting student grade paints and lots of hues having no understanding of what that would do to my painting. As I learned and painted more and more gaining more experience I found that I absolutely hated hues they were just a waste of space and I would never again purchase them. Well not on purpose anyway!
If you are going to be serious about painting you might as well pay the extra money for the real thing. I have some tubes that are 4+ years old and I am still using them but they are artist grade. Artist grade paints have more pigment in them and better binders which will allow you to get much more out of each tube. Paintings look much more vibrant and beautiful. Using the student grade can also really handicap your progress as an oil painter.
At first I painted so thinly and used very little paint so that it wouldn't dry out and be wasted on my palette but, then you just hinder yourself as a painter that way. I went on to have painting teacher after painting teacher picking up different tricks and techniques but the biggest one is to actually use your paint and lots of it. Sounds a little funny but as you have more experiences with other artists you come to understand its an actual thing. Slap it up there, get it on the canvas, show your brush strokes. If you use paint so thin that you can see the texture of the canvas your painting will not be as good and the viewer will be less interested. I found that people like it when you get loose and thick with your paint. The viewer also tends to gravitate towards paintings that are not perfect.
I still have a drawer full of student grade paints that I wasted money on and sometimes I use them just for underpainting purposes but even then I find it to be a waste of my energy to put that down on canvas so another use I came up with for the paints is to share them with beginner artists such as my 8 year old grandson who hopefully becomes an artist himself one day.
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