The things I absolutely cannot paint without.

This is a thorough list of the art supplies that I currently use for creating my paintings. None of the links are affiliate links, they are just places I buy my stuff from.

Let’s start with the paint

I paint with South African paint for economic and environmental reasons. After trying out what is available, I choose Zellen. In particular, Zelcol Artist’s Quality Oil Paint, made in the seaside town of Kleinmond, not that far from where I used to live in Stanford.

I choose a limited palette, to limit how much paint I need to carry around with me when plein air painting, to limit how much paint I need to buy, and because a limited palette just looks great. Colour harmony is a thing!

These are my chosen colours:

Titanium white (always the big tube)
Arylamide lemon (or Cadmium yellow lemon)
Cadmium yellow medium
Yellow ochre
Burnt sienna
Alizarin crimson
French ultramarine
Phthalo blue

Medium

My favourite oil painting medium hands down is Cold Wax Medium. Zellen makes a 500ml tin that lasts me a few months. Yes, I am a total Zellen fan-girl.

Brushes

I love a scratchy bristle brush, and don’t wash them too often 😳. I clean them after using by wiping the paint off and dipping in turpentine. Occasionally, I use a boerseep (Afrikaans for “farmer’s soap”), or actual brush soap, and give them a good clean.

My favourites are Dynasty synthetic bristle brushes and have a collection of flats, brights, filberts and rounds.

I wrap them up in a Prime Art brush roll.

I buy them from Brush and Canvas. They were my local art shop when I lived in Cape Town and Hermanus, and they deliver for free for orders over R700.

Painting surface

I prefer to paint on HDF or MDF board.

I buy my board from a hardware shop and get them to cut it up into the sizes that I want to paint on. I lightly sand the boards and apply three coats of gesso to it, sanding again in between coats.

The gesso I use is, you guessed it, Zellen gesso.

Palette knives

Cheap and cheerful Prime Art 1010 palette knives are my go to.

Easel

I have a modern French box easel with aluminium legs to make it lighter to carry. I can fit all my paint, brushes, palette knives, little containers for turps, and a board clamps to the outside. I still need to take along another bag for my sealed brush washer and Cold Wax Medium, they don’t quite fit in the box.

If you’d like to see what my old plein air set up looked like, before I bought the French easel, watch this old video.