Fine artist tries Cheap VS Expensive Oil Paints

I tried the most expensive oil paints I could find - Michael Harding vs my regular lame old Windsor and Newton. Do these actually make a difference in painting portraits?

Join my mailing list for upcoming online classes!

Join my discord:

My Tiktok:

My Insta:

Chapters:

00:00 Intro

01:24 Highest quality surface in the world

03:11 The Cheap Paints

09:35 Drawing/Setting Goals

13:19 Cheap Painting

19:17 Losers and nerds only

24:50 Expensive painting

31:34 Is it really worth it?

[iLOVEJDD]

Wish I knew this guy in real life, he seems super down to earth and cool

[Iwanttodrawachicken]

It's been 2 days since I painted, or been near the studio, and I still managed to get paint in my eye this morning. No. I don't think cadmium colours are safe for a klutz like me.

I enjoy your painting and solvent free as well. It's hard to find entertaining solvent free painters on youtube. Glad to finally find one. Thanks for the video.

[susanclark]

I am 77 and constantly searching for YouTube lessons. I appreciate your lessons. Assuring us that it’s ok to make mistakes and how to fix them. I can’t imagine getting to my age and not having a passion for something. Mine is art I have had many commissions for dog portraits for years but now I want to do portraits in oil. I have a lot of trouble blending the shadow to the bright Thank you and please don’t ever stop

[heidikarpa]

I think your bias is keeping you from seeing how much better the Hardy paint performed for you. It worked with your painting style and brush strokes so much more effectively. The color saturation wasn’t just it. You were able to achieve much more subtle color transitions and more sophisticated brush strokes. Mid-range and higher end paint has a place on every artist tool kit. Even yours. I love watercolor. High end paper helps me more because the watercolor behaves better on it. But I always have midrange paper for sketches, development, etc. it’s not all or nothing. Have your seen Caesar Santos on YT? I think you’ll like him a lot. You have a great channel. But the Hardy paint def. let your skills shine and showed you where you really are. Only using mid-range could actually be holding you back. It’s real. Great channel and great demos. Thank you!

[Beologe]

The fact, that you compare painting with sculpturing is awesome. It makes me think a lot more about values and get me easier in the state of mind where I understand what i have to do to create the illusion of something. i hope at least someone understands what i'm trying to say ><
Anyway: thank you. I learned a lot <3

[pontifexinferno]

I mean idk much about painting but the piece you did with the expensive paints looks pretty massively better to me than the mid-range ones. I still think you're right about not *needing* the expensive paints, but it's a significant difference.

[PatosdeGuadalupe]

I really really really love your paintings and your distinct style. Through the values you accomplish not exactly copying the picture which would betray the point of a painting. Instead you perfectly capture the essence of either the model or photograph and that is some thing I want to learn from you. The old masters as you can often tell didn’t copy exactly from life (in a photo realistic style) their subjects instead carry a curtain essence that can’t be exactly captured in a regular photo. I am learning a lot from you so thank you the internet allows me to learn from a modern old master

[Kyureme]

This channel deserves so much more attention here on YouTube. Btw I appreciate the use of old RuneScape music

[Blank_Immortal]

This might seem weird to say. But I don't have any artistic background coming to these. I am a photographer. But I love watching them because you talk about the main fundamentals of light and shape being far more important than the tools that you have with you and it really speaks. I've always been one to tell people trying to get into my line of work that for the most part what equipment you have matters far less than people believe. If you have form, shapes, light and structure down you will be successful. Those more expensive options in any artform should really just be treated as a ease of use/bump in quality once you already have your structure and fundamentals.

For me that means when I do portraits, unless I am using some really odd or niche equipment my results should end very similar. I can get the same shot with a camera I found on ebay from 2001 as I can get with my main rig that is brand new and expensive. But that's because all of the fundamentals of light and form are set down to a tack.

I imagine better brushes, canvas, paints etc probably make it easier for you to finish your work, but they are just tools to a means to an end. If you gave them to a new artist it won't magically make them a better painter, it would just make it easier for them to finish the same work with the same mistakes they already had.

[MrPigments]

Small correction but important, modern cadmium pigments do not contain enough soluble cadmium for them to be hazardous when ingested when in paint. The old ones are a different story(over 50 years old). Also cadmium pigments are synthetic, they are organic synthetic pigments, they are made a lot of the time with cadmium sulfide, sulfides, selenium, etc then calcinating them at high temperatures, then they go through a chemical treatment.
Cadmium/cobalt hues can funny enough cause more health issues sometimes depending on the pigments they use.
I can also provide links to sources on this but my information comes directly from toxicology agencies that I work with for paint toxicity testing. Inhaling them is still really bad.
We are trying to reduce the scare mongering of paints in my industry but its an uphill battle.
Either way don't consume paint.

We are trying to replace them because of the environmental issues with them and has nothing to do with artists or toxicity in reality.
The lightfastness is also on the tubes.
ASTM is a standard and they have organizations that do that testing. The chemical companies who produce that pigment do said testing, some companies also do the testing too. ASTM provides standardized samples for testing some materials but not provide actual testing.

[paulcorfield_artist]

I've painted professionally 25 years in oils. Started out just using cheap brands, would need maybe up to 7 or 8 layers to get complete coverage due to lack of opacity in cadmiums and whites. Cadmium hues have way less pigment, they're semi transparent, not just a synthetic version like you keep saying in the video. An expensive cadmium is very opaque, I can get full coverage in just one layer painting thinly with expensive paint. So my output and income is way higher than when using cheaper brands. I paint daily, 14 hours a day, 7 days a week but still buy hardly any paint. With expensive paint it just lasts way longer. I buy a tube of cadmium red or yellow only once per year, twice maybe for the yellow, my cadmium orange is 10 years old and still half full. My first small 8" x 8" painting of the year pays for my paint, brushes, canvas (oil primed linen). The other 50 to 100 I sell are all profit. Don't cut corners, not worth it. If you're a professional artist like myself then paint quality is way more than the 5%, , 10% or 20% advantage you say in the video.

[MawoDuffer]

To paint flowers, that higher saturation brighter color is a huge benefit. Painting a face might not show a difference at all.

[Kakiloaded]

This video alone has given me so much insight into the painters mind. I’ve been doing art for 7 years consistently now, and I’m just trying to get into painting, thank you so much!

[jllyjo]

would love a video solely on stuff more abt expensive and inexpensive canvas preparation stretching and frames ur channel makes it easy to understand and theres lots of conflicting info out there

[bettywildflower]

Winsor & Newton paints are so expensive in my country 🫢😂

[blakegoode]

And I agree that the last painting here is very nice and shows some nice spontaneous brushwork.

[EvilTim]

When watching the time lapses, I really get the sense that the entire process is the art, not just the painting you get at the end. The pieces actually taking shape is very satisfying to watch and each phase is aesthetic in its own way

[binmanugg]

I love your content! Its funny, chill and informative. But the whiplash between silently focusing on the details and "Skibidi rizz style roblox" dealt permanent damage to my psyche.

[Krabsssss]

Happy to see a great realist painter who has content as good as his paintings/drawings

[christianjaneczek]

Thank you for uploading such high quality content, I really appreciate it. I always wanted to get into painting with oil paints but there is still this little fright in the beginning. Your videos definitely help a lot and for that I am very grateful.