Galway art School teach local art classes in Galway at our purposebuilt art studio. In this section of our website we want to give our students some advice on start up art supply for your home art studio.

If you want to be taught how to paint at an art school Galway art school is your local place for art classes. We teach classes in acrylic painting and oil painting for adults, all suitable for beginners. In this short article we give some advice on starting up your home art studio.

Free and cheap art supply

When you are setting up your art studio at home, there are some materials that you can pick up for free or very cheap. Some of them might already be in stock in your household. First of all you will need cleaning equipment such as rags and sponges or scourers and a bucket or basin. Because of the toxicity of some pigments or solvents it is advisable to use the same ones for cleaning up after your painting sessions all the time. such as sponges that you use in the kitchen, one of which you can set aside for use in watercolour painting.
Then there are items like household brushes which you can use in all types of painting as an addition to your bought in art supply brushes. Depending on the type of painting you want to engage in these will assist your painting efforts. We use household brushes to add interesting textures to paintings. They might be used for splattering, for example, or to add some rough, textured brush strokes. Old brushes on which paint has dried can also come in handy for making certain kinds of marks like for example very thin strokes for objects such as grasses or crests of waves. Wooden sticks are used by some artists to scrape off paint before it dries, for example if they want to reveal a layer of paint underneath. Some forms of painting require a sponge, in watercolour painting for example sponge application is a technique in its' own right. Rather than buying an expensive sponge in the art supply store you can set aside a household sponge and make it work for you. For every type of painting you will need empty glass jars, which again you can use as wate rcontainers instead of expensive bought in ones. My favourite water container for sketching on the go using watercolor painting is an old yoghurt tub, one of the plastic 500ml ones. It's really light, it doesn't mind being squashed, and it holds just the right amount of water. I carry the water in a disused 500ml drinking water bottle with a sports cap which allows me control over the amount of water I dispense. Compare this for functionality and value to an expensive watercolour painting sketching set bought in store!
As mentioned above, you will need to cover your floor, especially for oil painting, and for acrylic painting, and here, too you might find a suitable material in your shed or basement, for example sheets of cardboard or corrugated plastic or similar. When it comes to pallettes, too, you can make use of items already in your household. We have often used old white dinner plates as pallettes, for example. Paper plates, too can come in handy, or enamel plates such as they sell in camping shops.  A lot of artists use sheets of glass for painting pallettes in the studio. Underneath the glass they place a white sheet of paper so that you may see your paint colours clearly. (Although some people prefer a mid grey tone to check their colours against, but that's a matter of personal preference.) You just might find an old sheet of glass in your garage or shed, (perspex can work just as well), perhaps part of an old window pane. Don't ever think you will be a lesser artist if you incorporate found items into your studio set up. They will help you save money, and give you the option to explore painting with less of a financial committment at first, before you might decide that YES, this hobby is for you. At that stage you might decide then to buy in an easel, where before you could easily make do using homemade types of bracing or frames such as an A frame made old from 2 by 1 or similar tiimer from the shed to support your painting on the table on front of you. Don't forget that art supplies are an industry with an intent to sell. You will not need every single item you will be led to believe you will.
Another idea for saving money on canvas is to look around auctions and garage sales for canvas in the shape of printed photo canvas which can easily be gessoed and then used as painting supports. One can also pick up frames cheaply that way. You might be able to pick up free paper for sketching and other interesting items for use in art supply at your local recycling centre.
You can make low cost painting supports by buying half inch 8 foot by 4 foot panels of masonite or even MDF from your hardware store (acid free is always best for longlasting paintings) and cutting them to the sizes you want, then painting them with homemade gesso, three coats, sanded inbetween. This is a great money saving option. Homemade gesso can be made from emulsion paint mixed with PVA glue for flexibility. If the sizes are larger, you can support them with underlying frames of 2 by 1 timber.

Items from the art supply store

Finally, there are paints and brushes and perhaps painting supports such as canvasses or canvas boards that you will need to buy in for your chosen type of painting. Again, I would advise to err on the side of using your common sense as to what you will really need in the beginning. Build up your stock gradually over time. Give yourself time before you committ to buying expensive items from the art supply store.Explore the hobby first to see is it for you.
Canvas especially is a very expensive item. You can save on canvas by preparing you painting project well in advance with sketches of varous types, for composition, tone and colour, so that you know exactly what you are doing whhen it comes to working on the canvas. This way you are minimising wastage.
I would say that you can start into home painting projects with as little as five tubes/ pans/ tubs of paint, and a handful of brushes. Some brushes can be bought cheaply. For example, I have started using a lot of synthetic brushes for watercolour painting. These are really cheap, and I find they hold shape quite well these days, depending on the particular fibres used, and some are better than others of course, but there have been great advancements made with synthetic brushes. generally speaking I find the white fibres hold their shape better and are suited to doing work with fine lines, and the orangey brownish fibres hold water and paint better, so I buy a cross section of cheap brushes. In the beginning I would advise you not to buy any expensive watercolour brushes. They are usually made from sable hair, which involves animal welfare issues as sables are mostly kept in less than ideal conditions. And, to be honest, I am often not imressed with the durability and quality of the fibres. For acrylic painting, (on average, and depending on what type of painting you want to do), synthetic brushes are ideal, because they create a smooth finish and allow your layer of paint to dry evenly. So stock up on some cheap acrylic brushes. Include a 2 inch flat for acrylivs which is greta for doing blends for areas such as skies. Check the brushes' resistance against your fingertips and palm of your hand to see which types suit you. For oil painting you will need a handful of hog hair brushes, maybe three filberts and two rounds of different sizes, and you might want to splash out one just one fan brush if you want to soften some edges or blend. That is enough to get you started. For watercolour painting you may want to invest in just one large flat brush, such as a one inch flat to be used for graduated washes. You could also use a hake brush, which can be bought inexpensively. Hake brushes are used to take off excess water, and to smooth edges between areas of different colour paint.
As for your five tubs of paint that I mentioned as a starter set, you could make a selection such as the three primary colours (yellow, red and blue) plus either paynes grey or black and white. If you buy good quality paints, you will be able to mix most other colours from those. I am saying most, because it will depend on whether you chose to buy warm or cold primary colours. Lemon yellow for example is a cold version of yellow, and cadminum yellow is a warm hue. They will mix differently. But that is okay. a lot about colour is about personal preference, so buy the types of primary colours you feel drawn to. One great advantage of working with so few colours will be that your paintings will 'hold together' very well, the colour in them will always look good. A limited pallette achieves automatic colour harmony. This is very helpful in the beginning stages of any type of painting. Later on, if you decide you like painting, you could extend your pallette and buy the opposite primary colours, i.e. where you bought cold ones, you could now buy warm ones and vice versa. Now, this is only one suggestion for starting off with a simple minimum fuss pallette. If you open any art magazine you will probably find a dozen or so more. It is the system that I have used and found successful for me, so I am passing this information on to you. I am sure however that over time you will develop your own preferences. I would always advise you to follow your heart with all the choices you make in relation to your painting hobby, including art supply, so start to listen to your heart right now.
Regards, Susanna Lambeck

We do more than teach art classes in Galway!
You might want to take a look at Galway Art School's latest venture:
www.enjoy-irish-culture.com

To read the start of this article click here.
To read about art classes at Galway art school, click here.
To find out about Galway Art School click here.

Galway Art School Limited of Tonemace, Corrandulla, County Galway, Ireland is a private limited company registered in Ireland, company registration number 508171. Directors: Colm Sweeney, Susanne Borner (German).
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