I have decided that I want to start painting.

this is what happens when you stop fapping

Follow your dreams!

i do 24 x 36 reductive paintings in the basement. always oils. sold a few in art school and thought i was the next bacon. wasn;t to be. now, just for my own sanity and joy.

It's a lot more technical than most people think. I've only painted models and sculptures in acrylics which, at least to me, are far easier to paint because the model provides the basis for creating texture and light sourcing through color manipulation. On a piece of canvas it's hard for me to think and portray an image with one fewer dimension, so the most I could ever really do was stuff like trees and rocks. Landscapes and anything with depth always looked off.

You should buy really fucking cheap supplies until you find out if it is a real passion or an impulse. I had an impulse to start watercolor painting a couple of years ago and I lost interest in a few weeks. I'm glad I did not make too significant of a capital outlay for it.

I would suggest using water mixable oil paints. Windsor & Newton make the standard set. They're a tad more expensive than normal oils, but you'll save money on solvents, which are tough for a beginner to use anyway. They're also much cleaner to work with. If you're just starting, I'd recommend buying some really cheap canvas boards in small sizes to get a feel of the paint. There's no need to waste a good canvas for something you're bound to screw up in the beginning anyway. Once you do get a feel for it and want to paint on canvas, use the thicker gallery wrapped canvases that are at least 1" thick. They'll be sturdier and the frames won't warp or stretch as bad. Most of the thin canvases are meant to be used for student projects anyway. In terms of brush, get quality brushes. You only need a few sizes at most, so don't buy many, but buy ones that will last. You can go broke buying shitty brushes that go bad. A good brush can last years. Kolinsky hair brushes are the best, but by no means necessary. http://www.dickblick.com/products/da...sable-brushes/ The Blick Master Series is a good alternative. http://www.dickblick.com/products/bl...istle-brushes/ Do you have any idea on what you want to paint? That might useful to help.

I second the water/oil paint. It gives you the satisfaction of oil without the fumes and mess. I have artist friends who use nothing but house paint. Seems to be common. It's cheap.

It won't (or shouldn't) cost you nearly as much as a RPBL suit. It depends on what you're painting really. If you want to paint figurative paintings, smaller brushes are better. Brushes are measured in width and length. The more width, the more paint it carries. The longer the brush, the more "whip" the brush has which leads to smoother, elongated strokes. Flat headed brushes are more accurate for blocking out areas of color. Pointed tip (round) brushes are more precise for lines and curves. Filbert (semi-circular head) are best for textures, like the gills of a fish. Fan tip brushes are for thinner textures like grasses. You shouldn't need more than 7 or 8 total brushes and depending on what you're painting could get by with 2 or 3. A larger house brush or foam brushes can be useful for very large areas as well. Make sure you clean your brushes really well. The store will tell you what's the best for that.

In terms of colors, most art stores will have the introductory set of water mixable oil paints. There should be about 7 colors. Usually a brown, black, white, cerulean blue, bright red, forest green, and a yellow. Watch out for using too much black. You don't need nearly as much as you'd think. Say for instanced that you wanted to mix the perfect gray tone that was halfway between white and black. Logically, you'd think you'd need one part white and one part black, but in reality you'd need about 2 parts white for 1 part black. Mixing colors and managing the amount of paint you use is the hardest technical part of painting.

I started very recently myself--bought acrylics and a few giant canvasses. I've only painted three paintings in my entire life, and they all look more or less like this (but I'm really enjoying it when I can make time to do it):

That one is actually on an 8.5x11 piece of copy paper. I haven't used any of my canvasses yet. I'm planning on eventually doing something like that on a 24x36, though.

I would establish a practice. But with painting I think an educational foundation--at least technical--would bring up one's game.