How difficult is oil painting to, say, watercolor and acrylic?

All three types of painting have their own difficulties.

Are you thinking of taking a painting class?

@Tropical_Willie My partner is going to give a go. She sketches (quite well), but, hasn’t painted anything, yet.

She is started with oil, tonight. No classes.

The clean up is a little different as you can’t clean up with water BUT I love oils much more than acrylics. I find the texture and flow easier and the colours seem to pop more. I love that you add wood chips, saw dust…actually pretty much anything your imagination can come up with. I like the fact that they don’t dry very fast. I can scrape off what I want to.

YMMV :-)

I’m no artist, in fact im terrible at drawing. I can make some very nice graphics with the use of a computer, but otherwise am no good.

The only time I have had any success at all with “manual” art, was with oil paintings. I tried to follow a couple of Bob Ross videos, and the end result was not half as terrible as I thought it would be when I started.

I find I work best with digital art because I am no good, and need a lot of chances to get it right. On a computer, delete always deletes, it’s not like pencils that leave marks even when you erase.

In my unqualified amateur fumbling opinion, oil paints let you hide mistakes with much more ease than other methods, when it all goes wrong you get a second chance. Also, I find oil paints help you do gradient and bluring effects with great ease.

I only have experience with watercolor. When I first started, I remember finding the color white very challenging. It’s the absence of paint. Painting light as it falls on objects is really leaving the canvass blank.

@tom_g You just trippled my apreciation for watercolors.

I am a watercolour painter who has done acrylics and oils. As @Tropical_Willie indicated, each method has its strengths and challenges. I love how I can layer watercolours and how the paint moves. I typically only paint with acrylics when I can use a product called flow improver that makes the paint behave a little more like oils. I just did you paintings for my aunt (using watercolour)—each was one of her grandchildren. I would post a link if I knew where to post the photos . . .

@Jude

My wife has taught watercolor and acrylic painting. She has also used oil ( miscible no heavy turpentine ) for art contests. I have used watercolor and acrylics but not not contest quality like hers.

Prepare an area for dust preventative dry time.

I’m no pro, but I’ve done quite a bit of oil painting and find it many times easier than watercolors. Acrylics don’t appeal to me, so I can’t make a comparison. I love the look, feel, and smell of oil paints.

One day when I was in college I persuaded a friend to paint with me. We went down to the local art store and loaded up on turpentine and linseed oil, canvas board and brushes, and five basic tubes of Grumbacher’s. My friend had never done any kind of art work and could barely draw, but she got the hang of oils quickly and really enjoyed it as creative entertainment. We painted all night until the sun came up. It’s a great memory.

I like the fact that you can be as serious as you want with oils but you can also play with them as a novice and make something happen—unlike, say, an art like ballet or the cello, which no one can just pick up. I don’t think it demeans the work of the great painters in the least to allow raw amateurs to experiment with their medium. If anything, it gives birth to some small glimmer of appreciation for true artistry and craftsmanship.

@Kayak8, put them up someplace like Photobucket and then post the link.

Oils you can change and correct and paint over whereas with watercolor what you put down is usually what you are stuck with. I think oil painting is easier for that reason.

I do a lot of pencil sketching – and, therefore, not used to colouring my work. I’ve wanted to get into oil painting for years. I’ve dabbled in oil, acrylic, pastel and watercolour. I found I liked oil the most. I just like how it moves. How vibrant and heavy it is. I’d like to try acrylics again ..perhaps even watercolour. I didn’t care for pastel.

I don’t think there are easier ones than others. It depends on your style. I think your partner should try out the different ones. It’s a personal preference, I think. My biggest issue with oil painting is the higher cost.

This artist wrote a short article on the differences she finds.

My friend just painted a small oil panting for me. He said it took 2 weeks to dry completely

I’ve done all three types, and aside from the mess and the hassle of keeping brushes clean, oils are the easiest and most forgiving medium. Because they take so long to dry, if you make a mistake you can just re-work it, or just scrape it off and start over. You can’t do that so easily with acrylics or watercolour.

Here are some more comments:

http://www.fluther.com/104890/acrylic-v-oil-what-are-the-pros-and-cons-and-your/

Thanks @Jeruba That only took me a little while to figure out, but here are the results!

This is the first
This is the second

I usually slap mats on works in progress and photograph in process so I can get a better sense of the paintings. These are both nearly done in the photos. I am still hunting through camera and phone to see if I have photos of finished paintings . . .

My primary goal was to capture the personalities (the serious older child and impish younger child).

Those paintings are lovely @Kayak8. I am sure your aunt was thrilled with them.

@Bellatrix Thanks . .. she was pretty overwhelmed with all the commotion surrounding her birthday so it was hard to tell at first. Now that they are matted, framed and hanging in her great room I feel more confident! :)

Like many things, the more difficult forms of painting are more rewarding.

Watercolor is the easiest, as it can be diluted and washed off with water. It is the easiest to spread, however I find it to feel rather lackluster.
Acrylic is good for when you want the feeling to be rather strong and contemporary.Of coarse it can be used for many effects. It is slightly more difficult to use than watercolor.
Oil is the most difficult. It needs special oils to dilute it and certain brands are difficult to spread. The end result (when use correctly) is fantastic and completely worth it.

@athenasgriffin As you described yourself as “a person who can barely draw a horse that doesn’t look like a moose” here I am curious about the substance from which you are making your comments about the difficulties of various painting media.

@Kayak8 I have experience with paints because my best friend is an incredible artist. She has managed to get me to paint along with her despite my extreme reluctance. I have no talent and my painting look awful, but that does not mean than I cannot appreciate the mediums.

I prefer acrylics,then watercolor of the three.
I do not like the way oil paints smell nor the clean-up.The dry time is way too long for me too.

In my opinion, acrylic is the type of paint that is the easiest to work with. Especially when you are wanting to do something that is mixed media. I like to mix acrylic with spray paint as well as sharpie and sometime photographs so my first choice would be acrylic.

If you are looking to just paint with one medium then I think that oil is a good choice, but you need to have patience in order to do well with oil. If you are like and like to see immediate results and give your paintings away for gifts in a short amount of time do not use oil. However if this doesn’t bother you – use oil; the colors are beautiful and the blending of edges is fantastic.

Watercolor is by far the hardest—you can’t scrape it off or overpaint. One shot is all you got.

Oil and acrylic similar except oil has beautiful smells and more opportunities to rework as the paint takes longer to dry. As a child, I learned oils from a teacher who would not let anyone even use oils until after one year of charcoal drawing, and then would not let us use black for several years [to see the colors in black]

For a great many artists, oils are a very difficult medium to control. I am an artist & I tried oils first, but I found that they simply did not work for me. So I switched to acrylics & I have been very happy with the results. I have perfected my techniques over the years & usually when I finish a painting, it is almost impossible to tell that it was done with acrylics instead of oils.

I personally hate working with oils. Oil paint, oil pastels… anything! Haha. People always swear by oil paints, but I just don’t see the appeal. I always end up so frustrated.The drying time kills me! Acrylic paint is my true love. :)

My husband prefers acrylic paints for the same reasons others have given: dry time, odor, ease of usage.

His favorite paints at the moment are Golden Artist Colors.

If you want to adjust the dry time, I know there are extenders you can add to make the paint dry slowly. But I think my husband mainly uses these for faux finishes that are applied over a large area and need more open time for blending.

These photos are from my husband’s recent gallery show. All of the paintings were done in acrylics.

@MissAusten I love your husband’s painting style! I also like Golden’s acrylics . . .

@Jude How did your partner like the art class?

Oils are a great medium to begin with. As a kid I liked them better for all of the reasons pointed out above (correctional/texture-etc).

Now? I’m way too impatient with oils. I despise the dry time. I prefer my acrylics to oil for a multitude of reasons. Number 1-smell, 2-clean-ability, 3-dry time.

Six hours of painting. Her first attempt.

Not bad. Did she enjoy it?

She did!!

@Jude I think she did very well!

@Jude that’s a really good first attempt. Lots of promise there.

@Jude Interesting. Did she work from a photo?

@anartist Yes. She is far from done (according to her).

@Jude lol I have pictures I drew 10 years ago that are still not done. Are you ever done?

@tranquilsea Haha! No really, she has to refine it quite a bit (her words). I’ll post the finished product when it is done. I got in trouble for posting this too soon. The g/f: You shouldn’t be showing people my painting when it’s not done!

@Jude I guess that’s my point: the painting looks pretty done to me but she would see things she wants to change. I’ve learned to call drawings “done” just so I don’t think about them anymore.

@Jude it has a nice fresh feel the way it is in your picture—she should be wary of overworking it.
Sometimes all the life and spontaneity goes out of a painting if it is overworked.

She worked on it some more.

@Jude Wow, the difference between the first picture and the second is pretty cool. I can’t wait to see the finished (or near finished) product. :)

Easy 1 to 3
1 acrylic
2 oil [but more time to rework]
3. watercolor [one misstep and you’re done—throw it away]

@anartist True, but part of the “fun” of watercolor is futzing with it and trying to fix the mistakes and making it really lousy before you decide to throw it away!

Here would be my 2 cents on what I found pro and con about the mediums you mentioned:

Oils:

Pro
• You can work and blend longer because it stays ”open”, or wet longer.
• You can cover easy without colors under ghosting through, it is very opaque.
• Oils are very lightfast so you don’t have to worry about your paintings fading over time.
• You don’t need to frame behind glass.
• You can correct mistakes, take out or alternate parts of the canvas, or scrap off areas of muddy colors.

Con
• It stays wet longer, even when you are done; you have to wait to frame it.
• Some people do not like the smell of the linseed oil and other mediums used for thinning, blending, etc.
• Cost can be quite expensive for good quality colors, brushes, and canvas.
• I find oils really work best on canvas.
• If you are not good at mixing colors you can get muddy colors pretty easy.

Acrylic:

Pro
• Fairly cheap, even for quality colors.
• Dries fast.
• Can cover mistakes easy.
• Fairly opaque.
• Cleans up with soapy water.
• Permanent, and waterproof when done.
• With proper prep and finish, can be painted on a wide variety of surfaces.
• Can be airbrushed.
• Can be framed the same day as completion.

Con
• Outside of airbrushing blending is slow and best done dry-brush.
• To make the colors ”pop” you need a clear water varnish or some other finish.
• Dries too quickly unless you use a medium to control the dry time.
• Harder to keep brushes in good shape especially if you miss any paint in cleaning.

Water color:

Pro
• Very quick and fluid.
• Can be airbushed
• Less material to take if working plein air.
• Needs quality paper or the work will suffer.
• Brushes very expensive (you don’t want the cheap stuff).
• No need to frame behind glass
• Better for small paintings.

Con
• Hard or impossible to hide or correct mistakes even with high quality paper.
• Can only be done so large, limits in size.
• Takes more skill than the aforementioned mediums.

@Hypocrisy_Central Some good lists there and I agree with nearly everything; just a couple of things I’d change:

Regarding acrylic blending: the best way to do this outside of airbrushing is to use a retarder medium which slows the drying and makes the paint more fluid without diluting the colour.

Watercolour framing: A watercolour painting does need to be behind glass because unlike the other two, once dry it is not waterproof so it’s much more delicate a surface. You can’t wipe a watercolour clean if it gets dusty. Acrylic paintings do not need to be behind glass.

The biggest “pro” for acrylics, for me, is how versatile they are. You can apply it thick like an oil painting or you can water them down and use them like watercolour paints. Oils can be thinned too but they don’t behave like watercolours when thin; they become more like a glaze, to be applied layer over layer. Again you can buy mediums for acrylics to make them behave in a similar way giving them even more versatility.

I’d argue that watercolour doesn’t really need a great deal more skill than the other two, but it does require more confidence; to work fast and not over-work the picture towards the end. Removing colour if you make a mistake is not easy but it’s achievable if you are quick and careful; a dab with a clean brush or q-tip and clean water is usually sufficient for a small mistake, or even to make highlights.

^ Regarding acrylic blending: the best way to do this outside of airbrushing is to use a retarder medium which slows the drying and makes the paint more fluid without diluting the colour.
I can concur with that, I guess I looked at it through my use of it. If the piece is rather small and the detail to be blended is as well, I tent to find more blending medium going to waste than to use the dry-brush technique. But if the pice is large enough IMO that is one way to go, however, for me the crème de la crème for smooth blending in acrylic is airbrushing it.

A watercolour painting does need to be behind glass because unlike the other two, once dry it is not waterproof so it’s much more delicate a surface. You can’t wipe a watercolour clean if it gets dusty. Acrylic paintings do not need to be behind glass.
Good points, I was seeing it as once hanged in a secure area I was not expecting anyone to subject it to water or anything but I guess if they dropped a cup or glass of liquid something, sometimes those drops can fly a great distance.

Removing colour if you make a mistake is not easy but it’s achievable if you are quick and careful; a dab with a clean brush or q-tip and clean water is usually sufficient for a small mistake, or even to make highlights.
Another true point, however I found a lot of it depends on the quality of the paper; some you can, other you can’t because the surface of the paper degrades, or the color soaks in immediately.

@Hypocrisy_Central “I was not expecting anyone to subject it to water or anything ”
Its not just the risk of spilling liquid on it. It’s the general humidity present in the air that damages it too. A frame with glass, sealed at the back with tape, keeps most of the atmospheric moisture out.

“I found a lot of it depends on the quality of the paper; ”
Very true, which is why you should only use best quality paper for watercolour. And be very, very gentle; don’t scrub the surface, just apply a little water and let the colour dissolve into it, then dab it off with a soft, dry brush. Some pigments, especially reds and pinks, will stain the paper though, and there isn’t much you can do about that.