Oil colors and the Foundations

Oil colors are a very old medium  they go back to the earliest days maybe the 800's. Before that Roman and Greek artist used ceramic chips to paint fantastic pictures.

Oil began as a ground color with an oil base and some fillers.  The ground colors were burnt sienna, coppers, cobalt blues, and bugs ground to make a red. (Sorry I am not a scientist.) But anyway experimental painters would grind other things to make colors and add turpentine. By the 1850's new chemical colors like ultra marine blue and thalo greens plus many others were added.

The smoother the paint was the better the painting was the longer the drying time and blending became so important. By the 1700's one or two business men began to take lead tubes and fill it with paint and sell it. In the 1800's it was common to find company's to buy paint and canvases from. Some artist still blended their own paint but that was rare.

Oils have transparent and opaque quality's, easy to blend and are more brilliant as it drys. Oil is usually thicker the better and more pigment it has.

These "Bob Ross" oils are special to his style of painting. They are thicker and will stick to a thin paint or the "Magic White".

That style is not typical of most oil painting. Lots of folks don't like the clean up but you get some great effects!