What to Give an Artist
Choosing the best gift to give to an artistic friend or family member can be a truly uninspiring challenge. One of the things most often purchased for an artist on a gifting occasion is a complete paint set, with brushes and tubes or bottles of paint, some paint thinner, and other supplies for mixing colors and creating works of art. The problem with many of these sets you find in stores is, the paint in them is not good quality stuff. What you may think is an outstanding painting set may be far from it. You might assume that the handsome wooden case with brass hinges and a velvet lined interior look even prettier with all the beautiful, unsqueezed paint tubes resting in their places, but if what is in the beautiful tube is nonsense, your artist might as well be painting with sand.
When selecting a paint set for anyone, it would be best to stick to well known brand names in the art industry. Don’t go for the cheapest set with the most inside it. In fact, don’t necessarily go for the most expensive set with the most inside it. Consult other artists first, or read up online before you make any purchasing decision.
Thankfully, a few of your choices are universal. In any paint set you will want to find the following colors:
Alizaran Crimson
Titanium White
Burnt Umber
Phtalo Blue
Ultramarine Blue
Cadmium Red
Cadmium Yellow
Yellow Ochre
Raw Sienna
- These are the basic colors that are used by all artists to create even more colors and variety on their palettes. With these basic colors, a skillful artist can merge, blend, and smear his or her way from a blank canvass to a work of art. Without any of the colors above, variety in shading, shadows, and hues is next to impossible to achieve.
- Canvasses in varying sizes will be needed by your artist, who will soon want to put the new paint to use. It is probably best to buy canvasses in person, so that you can examine the quality of them firsthand. Just as with the paint, you will want to have an artist’s opinion on the type and quality of canvasses used. For the traveling artist who does without the luxuries of home, a direct tv rv kit is a great gift! It is a travel ready direct tv set up. And finally, a decent set of paint brushes is essential. No painter sets out to create a brilliant work with a single brush. Well, perhaps some do. But most artists use several brushes on a single painting. Go for variety in sizes, and be prepared to spend some money. Good, high quality brushes do not come cheaply, but will be a true investment.
the colors are the right basic ones, i have to emphasize how important it is to buy good quality paints though because if you get cheap stuff it is not going to work