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| Approaching Alamogordo Oil on Canvas Panel 11 x 14 in/ 27.9 x 35.6 cm Copyright Byrne Smith 2015 |
For acrylic and oil, rather than buying glass, wooden, plastic, or even paper palettes on which to mix paint, I use individual (12 x 10 3/4 in/30.5 x 27.3 cm) sheets of dry wax paper, also know as deli wrap. It comes in surprisingly small boxes of 500 sheets, and you can get it at the grocery and big-box bulk stores. I put a sheet in a plastic tray, and the paint will not penetrate the sheet even when mixed. It's cost-saving, and you throw it away when done. Works great.
Also for acrylic and oil, I buy inexpensive hog-bristle brushes in all sizes from No. 2 to 2 inches. Some painters say you shouldn't use natural-hair brushes because they absorb paint. However, I like the natural brushes because of the way I paint. I scrape and scrub with my brushes a lot of the time, and the natural-hair naturally is stiffer, which I like. That and that they're inexpensive--I go through a lot of them every year. I rarely paint with synthetic brushes; too soft for my taste, although I do use a rigger for occasional detail work.
Lastly, I buy all (OK, almost all) of my supplies and material--paint, brushes, canvas, mediums, easels, etc.--either when they are on sale or by using the manufacturer's or retailer's XX-percent-off-any-one-item coupon both online and at a real store.
However, I do buy "pretty good" quality paint. I don't buy the most expensive paint, which is supposed to be "the best" because of the pigment load. It may have the most pigment, but that doesn't mean it's "the best" (in my opinion), only that it's the most expensive. I cannot really tell the difference in my paintings done with "the best" paint and my paintings done with "pretty good" quality paint.
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