Artist Resources

My favorite oil paint brands are Michael Harding, Gamblin, and Winsor & Newton. Brands like Vasari and Old Holland are also worth knowing for certain colors.

What matters most is that colors vary from brand to brand. Some brands make a better version of a specific pigment than others. I don’t stay loyal to one line across every tube. I build a palette based on which version of a color actually does what I need it to do.

There are a lot of ways to build a palette. Different artists have different color preferences, and even the same color can behave differently brand to brand. But even with all that freedom, a good palette still needs some cohesion. It needs balance. Otherwise you are just collecting tubes.

A simple example is the Zorn palette—basically four colors: a black, a yellow, a red, and white. The black does a lot of the work blue usually does. It gives you a way to hit cooler notes and control temperature.

My own base palette is burnt sienna, ultramarine blue, and yellow ochre deep. Burnt sienna functions like a red, yellow ochre is a yellow, and ultramarine is a blue. It’s simple, but it’s balanced. You cannot build a palette that’s only warm and expect a believable interplay of temperature.

I also use permanent rose and phthalo green, which are extremely powerful colors—I’ll get into those separately. The main point is this: before you start grabbing colors, understand the premise of a balanced palette. Warm and cool options, and some version of primaries. You can break rules, but it helps to know why they work first.

I recently switched from Trekell to Rosemary & Co and haven’t looked back. The quality is excellent and the price is better—Trekell has gone up. Rosemary & Co ships from the UK, so shipping adds a bit, but if you order a bundle it’s very reasonable. I’d suggest ordering direct from their website rather than through a retailer.

In terms of how I use brushes, I generally start a painting with bristle. A #4 round is a good place to begin—some people go slightly smaller or larger depending on scale. I used to use filberts and flats more, and I still like filberts, especially more pointed ones. There’s no right or wrong there. It’s preference.

The bigger principle is the progression from firm to soft. The firmer the brush, the earlier it comes out, because it moves paint and covers larger areas efficiently. As the painting develops—more detail, more paint on the surface, smaller decisions—I move toward synthetic mongoose, and then eventually toward golden taklon or sable.

One of my favorites is the cat’s tongue. It’s versatile—you can use the edge for controlled lines and the body for broader passages.

One of the questions I get most often is how to prep a surface. Before getting into specifics, I think it’s more useful to understand why you’d choose one surface over another. Your surface should match your intentions—how you paint, what you’re drawn to stylistically, what you want the finished work to feel like.

A smoother surface makes it easier to get into detail and subtle shifts between strokes. You can control edges and small gradients. But it can also make it harder to build layers and harder to lay in simplified masses of color and value without everything feeling too slick.

A rougher surface carries more paint. It’s better if you want texture, drag, and impasto. The tradeoff is that subtle gradients and tight rendering get harder fast. Every stroke behaves differently depending on the ground.

So I’m not interested in championing one surface on principle. I’m looking for synergy between the ground, the medium, the brushes, and the kind of painting I’m trying to make.

For recommendations, Artefex is excellent—Anton has come through for me when I’ve needed great surfaces quickly. They do beautiful aluminum panels, which are among the most archival options available. If you’re making a finished gallery piece and want a custom surface, I recommend them. I also use a lot of cradled wood panels that I finish myself, and I paint on smoother oil-primed linens sometimes too. In general, I prefer a rigid surface over stretched canvas. I want a little tooth, but not much—enough to keep the surface responsive, allow for scraping, and get into subtlety.

The only medium I currently use is Oleogel from Rublev. I use it because the consistency is very close to actual oil paint—more so than stand oil or linseed oil, which can feel slippery or runny by comparison. Oleogel is essentially a thickened linseed oil with fumed silica. Think of it as clear paint.

In early stages I’ll add a small amount to help the paint flow better. As the painting develops and I move into semitransparent glazing layers, I use more of it. The more I’m working with transparent or semitransparent color toward the finish, the more Oleogel comes in. It’s versatile enough that I haven’t needed anything else.