Among the usual paint media—acrylics, oils, and watercolors—my favorite is to paint in oils. I use them almost exclusively in my own work.
Years ago, I tried out watercolors, but I hated that I couldn’t repaint over mistakes. Once the pigments are down on the paper, they’re there to stay. I haven’t really touched them since.
As for acrylics, they’re all right. I use them as an artist instructor at Creative Spirits, where I teach step-by-step painting classes. (Update: as of February 2019, I no longer work there.) Because of my work there, I associate acrylics with teaching and the need to simplify and repeat. In that context, the high-speed drying is great, because customers can take home their work already dried. And I do have to admit, I don’t paint en plein air (outdoors) with oils, but I might if I used acrylics instead. Retarder gel, too, slows down acrylics’ drying for a longer work time, though not as long as oils. Acrylics have their advantages. But they’ve never been my favorite.
That leaves oils, and oils are the best. I love the smell of the paint—though the solvent odor isn’t so great. Or safe, for that matter. But I love that the paint stays wet on my palette in the airtight case for days and days. I love the paints’ buttery texture on a well-prepared canvas. The ability to paint thick or thin. The chance to come back to a painting in a few hours and pick up where I left off. The fact I can blend and blend without having to reapply a color, like I would with acrylics. The surety that I can set aside half-cleaned brushes for a time without them drying into an unusable lump. The glow of thin layers showing through each other. I just love oils.
And I like working on multiple pieces at once. I apply a paint layer and set the piece aside to dry. Then I work on something else. Then a third thing. By the time I’m ready to come back days or (sometimes) weeks later, the painting is dry and ready again. I get bored with a subject so quickly that I enjoy rotating projects. And I pretty much have to with that slow drying time. Though whipping out an entire piece in one sitting is pretty awesome, too.
All of that said, the reasons I love oils are more than just the paints’ qualities and workability. Oil paints have a history for me. I enjoyed them when I first started painting at age 9 with paint-by-numbers, and I enjoyed them even more in my college painting classes. My grandpa even painted in oils and oil pastels, and though I didn’t really get to know him, I inherited his supplies. Their scent reminds me of him sometimes.
I love painting, but mostly I love painting in oils.