Doubly Perplexing
oil portrait painting
Daily painting: 365 day art project
Day 53

I have a new love in my life, and it’s called Williamsburg oil paint. O.M.G. It truly is the BEST oil paint I’ve ever used, and I’ve tried quite an assortment of brands:

Rating oil paint from 1 to 10..from best to worst 

1. Williamsburg – artist grade
2. Gamblin and Winsor & Newton- artist grade
3. Da Vinci – artist grade
4. Rembrandt- artist grade
5. Van Gogh – student grade
6. SoHo Urban – artist grade (supposedly)
7. Grumbacher – student grade 
8. Cobra Water Mixable Oils- student grade
9. Weber wOil Water Mixable- student grade
10. Reeves – student grade

I’m listing these in order of my preference. Gamblin and Winsor & Newton are equal in value, imo, both coming in second place. Da Vinci and Rembrandt aren’t too bad, either. The rest are pretty horrible. I’m speaking only from the usability aspect, and how easy or difficult it was to paint with them. I haven’t done a ton of research on pigment levels.  

When I first started oil painting about 5 years ago, I tried the student grade oils. My thought was I’d try it out with cheaper brands to see if I liked painting with oils. I highly suggest you don’t waste your money or time, and buy only artist quality paint. You’ll end up getting frustrated trying to use student grade paint, and you’ll probably throw the paint and your painting in the trash. It’s not worth the hassle. 

All these paints behave differently. While I love the acrylic Soho Urban Artist paints, the Soho oils are thick, clumpy, and sticky. It might be okay for impasto painting with a palette knife, if you’re a patient person. I do not recommend if you’re using a brush. It felt like melted marshmallow on mine. It stuck to my brush, and was somewhat stringy. I gave it a huge thumbs down.

Cobra water mixable oils are mostly oil with a bit of paint mixed in. Every time you squeeze paint out on your palette, you get a huge puddle of oil. Neither one of these paints are easy to use. 

Williamsburg is absolutely exquisite, and beats all the others, hands down. I didn’t need to use any medium or wax. Just straight out of the tube, onto the glass, mix, and paint. It has a light feathery feel on the brush, and the coverage couldn’t be more perfect. Not too thin or thick. The painting above was done in only one layer. The photo isn’t that great because I took it with my phone, but you get the idea. 

I’m going to have a difficult time using any other paint now. I don’t know about you, but to not have to fuss and fight with mineral spirits and mediums to get the paint just right is priceless to me. I’m so grateful to my sister-in-law for giving me this paint. Thank you again so much, Donna!! I’ve been wanting to try this brand for a long while, but the high prices made me hesitate. Now I know it’s definitely worth the peace of mind to spend extra on Williamsburg oils. The way I look at it, I’ll be saving money by not needing Gamsol, Galkyd or Dorland’s wax medium because none of these items are cheap.