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Where to Buy Oil Painting by Numbers for Adults?

Are you looking into getting your own paint by numbers kit, but you are not sure what supplies are the best for you? If you have seen painting kits using oil paints advertised a lot, you might be surprised to find out that they are not, in fact, the best choice for painting by numbers. In my opinion, there are plenty of other better options, but what is it that makes oil paints such a bad choice?

For those of you who are already passionate about painting by numbers, this is a good opportunity to learn about what to use or not to use in your artwork, in order to get the best results.

It is even better if you are just getting into this hobby: it can give you a good perspective over certain types of paint, and a better idea of where they are actually used.

What are oil paints?

First of all, in order to make an informed decision, you should learn about the differences between different types of paints. Each type has its own features, making them better or worse depending on the way you plan to use them.

Just as the name says, oil painting is nothing more than using paints with an oil base. In the older times, this was the best tool for artists, and without it, we wouldn't be able to enjoy paintings such as the Mona Lisa, or Picasso's work.

Nowadays, we have plenty of alternatives to oil paints: there are acrylic paints, watercolors and many more, and whichever you choose depends a lot on what you use it for.

While in oil paints the pigments that make the colors so vibrant are mixed in with oil bases, in acrylics they are mixed in with polymer solutions. Because it is so easy nowadays to produce plastics, you might see acrylic paint becoming more and more accessible.

Oil paints, compared to acrylics, are much better for those dedicated artists that are willing to spend days and days on one painting. Although it is easier to blend oil colors, for a more painterly aspect, you can find many techniques to imitate oil painting texture using acrylics in your own projects.

Difference with acrylic paint

In my personal experience, that makes using acrylics much easier especially for beginners, as it's easier to paint even layers. With oil paints, I tend to make some layers much thicker than others, giving the artwork a messier look, which is not something I was going for.

Difference with watercolors

Watercolors are water-based paints, and because of that they are much thinner than oil paints, and they dry so much quicker. As they dry much slower, when you use oil paint mistakes are easier to correct, and you can layer up colors easily.

Watercolors are much cheaper than oil paints. Now only that, but in order to paint with watercolors, all you need is a special paper, which is easier to get than the canvas and supplies demanded by oil paints.

Are oil paints good for paint by numbers?

Although you may have seen it advertised on some websites, oil paints are really not good for paint by numbers, and there are many reasons for that.

Oil paints might not be the best choice for you if you are looking for an easy and cheap free time activity.

Painting with oil-based products requires so much preparation and so many additional supplies, such as solvents, special brushes, rags, a primer that helps the paint stick to the canvas and a large painting space.

Spending so much more on expensive supplies defeats the purpose of painting by numbers, which was created in order to make this hobby easy and accessible for anybody.

You should also know that the pigments found in oil paints are actually very toxic for you: when you paint using oil-based paints, solvents such as mineral spirits and turpentine fill the air around you with fumes that are dangerous to breathe in.

These solvents contained in most oil paints are incredibly hard to avoid as they are very common. Again, painters usually manage to avoid this by using good ventilation in larger painting studios, but it is usually not worth it for beginner painters when there are so many safer alternatives.

You might also find that finished paintings using oil-based paint usually get a slight yellow tint to them after a long time.

It usually gives a really old aspect to the painting, so if this is not something you're looking for, then you might want to consider alternatives. More than that, Oil painting also takes a considerable amount of time, as it takes longer for the paint to actually dry out.

Again, if you are just looking for some relaxing, non-time-consuming free time activity, you should consider alternatives for this type of paint.