Having extoled the benefits of using acrylic paint, I felt I should add in others, starting with oil paints. Oil paint offers several advantages. These include rich durable colours and very slow drying time which can be used to great advantage and give flexibility. They are easy to blend, and they offer artists the ability to craft varied textures and effects.

So, these are my top five benefits of working with this medium.

1. Oil paints have a rich, butter-like consistency which is so delightful to work with. They have a deep and luminous quality which helps to create stunning and vibrant artwork.
2. Because oil paints stay wet for a long time this offers a huge amount of flexibility when blending paints as well as allowing you to scrape back though the layers for interesting transitions.
3. Oil paints allow you to create depth and texture in your work, creating a 3D effect you can build by using thick (impasto) layers. Impasto is a printing technique whereby paint is applied thickly to a canvas or board, using a palette knife or brush, leaving the brush marks as part of the finish.
4. The longer working time when working with oils gives as I said above a huge amount of flexibility when working but also it allows you to rework or adjust a painting days, weeks and sometimes even months later when you have had time to sit with the artwork.
5. Oil paintings have a timeless quality with a history which supports their durability. Having been used by masters for centuries, you know your artwork will stand the test of time. This, in turn, gives your oil painting a classic and some would say a more professional feel. Yes, there is a lot of snobbery amongst painters about the different media they work in.

I would suggest that you try all the different forms of paint and see how they work for you before investing a lot of money in them. I personally started out with watercolour, I then moved to oils and then to acrylic. I still enjoy using all three but in very different ways. Acrylic is my go-to paint because of all the drying times etc. but I also use watercolour too when I want to work out colour combinations and also when I want to hand colour lino or dry point prints I have made.

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