Who knew making your own oil paint was this easy?

by Jen (August 8, 2008)

Paints for artists are incredibly expensive, which makes painting a difficult hobby to take up if your cash flow is tight. That’s a pity, because painting is fantastic brain exercise, therapeutic against stress and other negative feelings, and fun. And if you’re lucky, you’ll end up with homemade decor at a fraction of the price of buying art.

It turns out you can make your own oil paint for less than buying it in the store. If you make it on the fly, to be used as soon as you blend it, it’s ridiculously quick and easy to do. If you make batches for storing and using later, there are a few more steps to the process but it’s still very straightforward. Sinopia has the instructions here, and they also sell an introductory kit so you don’t have to start from scratch. Whichever way you go, there are a few initial investments: palette knife, linseed oil and the the dry pigments, and more if you make paints to store. Considering how quickly you can make small batches of the colors you need, it seems like making it as-you-go would be the best way to do it. The time you would normally spend blending paint colors out of tubes would be spent blending pigments with linseed oil.

Plus, the paint-making becomes part of the process and the fun. You’ll learn more about painting by instinct as you notice slight variations in the consistency from one batch to another. You can experiment with texture by making a batch that’s thicker and drier or one that’s more runny.

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