The pros and cons of artists painting media
My favourite type of paint for creating images as an artist is the traditional oil paints. Each type of media has it pluses and minuses. Watercolour and acrylic paints are also a popular artists choice.
The best thing about oil, least I think so is it is very forgiving. If you want to redoe the painting or even make a mistake you can simply go over it and cover the original painting or section with new paint. Excellent. Down side is oils don’t smell so great . Always best to paint in a well ventilated room. Also the paintings seem to take forever to dry. Some say a few weeks.
What this means in practice is don’t brush anything across the painting if you don’t want it marked up. This includes things like putting it in a plastic bag whilst your going to your art class on the bus. The black plastic bin bag may stop everyone on the bus oggling your big painting on canvas but it will be a smudged up mess by the time you get to art class, and all of a sudden your subject may look like they have had a chemical skin peel. If you have an accommodating art teacher willing to fix the mess this does help though.
Acrilics are similar looking to oils but have the added that they dry quicker. They are also cheaper to purchase. However they are not made the same way and don’t seem to work the same way as oils. For example when mixing the colours and thinning them out the reaction to the paint thinner doesn’t seem to be the same.
Water colours are less forgiving. One brush slip and your image can be ruined. No ainting over allowed. Unless you want a water logged mess all over your now soggy paper. Water colour is an art form in itself. It is about light organized strokes suggesting whatever image you would like to create. However you really need to be able to plan and know what that image is before you begin. Changing your mind as you go along will just not do.
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