Oil painting

No, though it has a reputation that scares people off. Oils are actually forgiving in ways acrylics are not, because they stay wet for hours or days, so I can blend, push paint around, and fix mistakes long after applying them. The real beginner hurdles are slow drying times and learning to handle solvents, not the painting itself. Plenty of people start with oils and never look back.

Paint, brushes, a surface, a medium, and something to clean with. A basic set of student-grade oils (Winsor & Newton Winton is the usual recommendation, around €40 for a set) plus a couple of pre-primed canvas boards gets you painting. You need a medium like linseed oil to thin and extend the paint, and a way to clean brushes. Hog-bristle brushes suit oils better than soft synthetics at first.

Not necessarily, which surprises people. You can paint with solvent-free methods using only oil mediums and clean brushes with oil then soap, avoiding turpentine entirely. If you do use solvents, odourless mineral spirits (like Gamsol) are far less harsh than traditional turpentine. I switched to solvent-free years ago and never missed the fumes.

Because that is how oils work, and it is a feature rather than a fault. Oil paint dries by oxidation, not evaporation, so a layer can take days to be touch-dry and weeks to fully cure. Thin layers dry faster than thick ones. You can speed it up with a medium like Liquin, which cuts drying time to roughly a day. The slow drying is exactly what lets you blend so smoothly.

It is the one technical rule that genuinely matters for oils. Each layer you add should contain more oil (be 'fatter') than the layer beneath it, achieved by adding more medium to upper layers. Get it backwards (lean paint over fat) and the surface cracks as it cures because the layers dry at different rates and pull against each other. Beginners who ignore this find their paintings cracking months later.

You do not need to clean them fully every time. Because oil paint stays wet, I wrap brushes tightly in cling film or foil to keep them usable for a day or two, or suspend them in oil. For longer breaks, clean properly with oil then soap and water. This is one of the quiet conveniences of oils that acrylic painters, who must clean immediately or ruin a brush, never get.

⚠️ Solvent safety: Turpentine and mineral spirits give off flammable vapours that should not be inhaled in an enclosed space. Work with ventilation, keep solvents away from heat and flame, and never pour them down the drain. Oily rags can self-combust as they dry, so lay them flat outdoors or store them in a sealed metal container before disposal.