Canvas Painting

Art Supply Resources

There are many places you can find your painting supplies.  Local craft stores and artist supply houses will have many of the supplies you are looking for.  When you want it to come to you, there is always the Internet.  You need to compare prices when shopping on line for your paint supplies.  Here is a list of some of the better web sites that carry an excellent variety of artist's tools.

Blick Art Supplies

ASW Express

Mister Art

Jerry's Artarama

There are so many things you will want to get.  It will be like a kid in a candy store to look at all the wonderful items for sale.  It is best when you are first starting out to save some money and purchase student paints.  This will allow you to become with the different mediums without breaking your wallet.  You can build up your stock a little at a time.  The paints actually go a long way.  You just have to become familiar with your paints to understand thinning and liquefying.  Very few times will you use a paint straight out of the tube without mixing it with another color and some turpentine, linseed oil, or turpenoid.

The oils or additives also act as an aid in drying the oil paints. You do not need to worry about this if you are using acrylics. They are designed to dry quickly.  An amusing note of interest is what your tubes of paint will go through when painting.

New paint tube                                                 Old paint tube

You may think this will never happen to you.  It happens to all of us all the time.  You just have to get used to it.  My mother was a professional artist for over thirty years.  I still have visions of her coming out of her studio with paint up to her elbows, holding a squished up little tube and muttering about only needing an "itty bitty dab of the stuff".  It was when this happened more than three times in a week that we went to the art shop to pick up more paint.