Oil Painting For Beginners

I've been struggling with the decision of whether or not to start learning oil painting. One the one hand: it sure sounds cool. On the other: messy, stinky, expensive. It also brings up the old "real artist" shadow issues... which I'm not going to get into here. BUT. The messy vs. cool issue has been holding me back.

But, today was the day! I had $75 in gift certificates to The Art Store, plus the store was having a major sale, PLUS I had a 20% coupon for those items not on sale. Today was the day.

After studying the 'beginner' books they had at the store, I made my selections (this took a long time). This is what I bought (as a reference for anyone else struggling with what to buy when you're starting from scratch)

• No-odor turpentine (turpentine substitute)
• Small bottle linseed oil
• Beginner Oil Painting booklet (bare minimum book - I'll order something more in-depth used off Amazon)
• A pack of five 6x6 canvas panels
• A pack of five 8x10 canvas panels
• A pack of five 3x3 canvases (because they were so cute)
• A pack of five 2.5x3.5 canvasses (ditto)
• 5 new brushes in a variety of styles, sizes and material
• Palette knife
• Cadmium orange
• Titanium white
• Phthalo green
• Ultramarine blue
• Burnt umber
• Cadmium yellow pale
• Alizarin crimson
• Phthalo blue
• Ivory black
• Permanent green
• Cerulean blue
• Cadmium red light

I also got a new kneaded rubber eraser and some brush/hand cleaning soap. The grand total for all this? $85. I spent $10 out of my pocket, and the rest was from gift certificates (thank you, thank you!!). I'm so excited. I don't know when I'll try them out, but at least now I have the supplies for when I am ready.

I'll post about my efforts when I haul this all out to get messy!