Need advice on oil painting!!! (Beginner) Please?

[Hans35]

Hi, I'm looking to start oil painting soon, but I don't really have an idea on where to start. It's not gonna be something expensive, just a couple of OK brushes, some paper and some oil colors.

However, I have some questions, and I really hope an experienced painter or someone with just some knowledge might be able to help me out. I've been looking at different sets from amazon, but since I can't post links, just copy the name of the sets into google, and it's the first one.

"Royal and Langnickel Oil Painting Art Easel Set" 27£ at amazon. which looks quite good for starters, what do you think?

And "Easel Artist Set-All Media-100 Pieces" for 43£.at amazon. which looks really good imo, but a tad expensive too. Is it worth the money? What would you recommend?

Thanks a million for input.

[url]http://www.amazon.co.uk/Royal-Langni...7122735&sr=8-7[/url]

and

[url]http://www.amazon.co.uk/Easel-Artist.../dp/B000Q7CLYU[/url]

[mako_]

I'd go local if possible and just get the cheapest stuff you can. If you've not painted before I'd just get a couple of brushes, couple of rags, some turpentine and a couple of colours. Say ultramarine blue, burnt umber and white. That way you can mix the blue and the umber to make a decent black (provided you're sparing with the blue as it's overpowering stuff) and do some B&W paintings to see if you actually take to painting before you buy a 100-piece set or something.

And forget paper, you need something that stands and can be stroked into properly, paper is way too flimsy to put oils on. Board is probably the cheapest/most readily available. MDF would do fine. To prime it you'll want some gesso, but a couple of thick coats of white house paint will do alright.

If you want to paint on a background of something other than white, buy/mix the colours you want and apply them, then let that layer dry. This will take several days probably. Then you can paint another layer on top of that, and if you want to loosen the paint or pull back to what was underneath, use dabs of turps on a rag.