Cobra Artist oil colour value pack | 10 x 40 ml

Nothing to dislike. I've purchased several paints from this seller and they've arrived in perfect condition and ahead of schedule; this set was no different. Love it.

Molto meglio di quanto mi aspettavo

Best oil paints ever

I have been wabting to try oil paints after using acrylic paints for the last few years. Discovered that water-mixable oils were available and now have this set of paints. Very pleased indeed with them. Great set and great value. Only problem now is that any extra colors I want come in bigger tubes and are rather expensive.

I always try to understand the logic of the color choices in a set like these. But usually it comes down to the business wanting to, affordably, give artists a large selection of colors. And throwing in black and white to complete the set. The problem is that there are two groups of people buying art supply value packs. Art hobbyists or crafters, and oil painters. It might be useful to have two different sets, one for the crafter or dabber, and one for motivated hobbyist painters doing things like landscapes and floral paintings. For the most part, you can get what you want done with this set. I did separately buy a tube of cerulean blue because we need a real blue for things like skies. Ultramarine blue is a total landscape painter classic, but it can be a little dead looking when pushed to do more than it can. Ultramarine blue and burnt Sienna are excellent choices for any painting kit. You can mix those two together to get warm or cool darks, and light blues and browns and grays. And black. Very versatile. There are some colors in this kit that are problematic, unnecessary, or redundant. If you have a red and a yellow, you don’t need a full tube of orange. Because who is using a lot of orange? People painting pumpkins? Red is another one of those colors that are used for things like highlights or roses or in small doses. And if you are using it, you really want a RED red. A lipstick red. Not a pyrrole red, which is closer to an “almost ripe” tomato than fire engine red. It must have been an economic decision. Luckily, there isn’t a lot of red used by most painters. Even though it seems like it should be the most used. Unless you’re doing say abstracts. But you can get by with this red for the most part. Permanent red violet is another odd color choice. If you have a limited palette, why this color? If you’re painting purple, you’d have to mix this to get something closer to purple. There might be some flowers or something that could be painted using this color. It’s another color that isn’t super commonly used, and could also be mixed from existing colors (like a good red and a blue). Yellow ochre is a useful color for some artists. I could see why this was chosen to be in a collection of colors. But we do have two versions of yellows. I’m all for this, but if you’re on a limited set, I might toss the yellow ochre because you can mix other colors to get in that same direction. The problem with white paint is that the tube is used a lot, and it never lasts very long. Meanwhile, other paint like orange might rarely if ever be used. From an artist standpoint, it might make more sense throwing in a larger tube of white. Or two tubes of white and losing one of the useless colors. The permanent green deep seems like an odd choice for a green. It’s more like emerald green than say tree green, which has more yellow. Even though half of what I paint is green, I haven’t opened this tube at all. What is useful to create green is taking yellow and adding a little black. This is one of those black oil paints that is actually very dark blue. If it weren’t for how great the black mixes with yellow, I would also never use the black. But for crafters, black would be a basic. You can also make a nice landscape green (olive color) using orange and ultramarine blue. I'm mentioning this because there are going to be people who paint landscapes and they won't be able to figure out why that green in the tube doesn't look right. You can certainly use this as a starter set. Or if you’re changing from regular oils to water mixable because it’s less toxic to breathe, it would give you a good collection to work from. Then you can find out what colors you keep reaching for, and you’ll know what to order next. You’ll figure out what colors you use that aren’t included, and you can also grab those. For example, you can do a decent sky with a lightened ultramarine blue. But skies are sometimes a more brilliant blue. In that case, you would need say a cerulean blue (not included) for those instances. If you’re trying out oil painting, then this is definitely a good deal for a lot of paint. You might not be as concerned about being overly picky about things. Because you want something to learn skills with, and learn how to mix paint. It would cost substantially more money to buy 10 individual tubes of paint. Though if you wanted to, you could buy individual tubes of paint and create more of an exact match to what you will use, but fewer tubes of paint. The quality of the paint is good. My only criticism is with the selection of colors. Businesses selling things often aren’t using the product day to day, they are trying to sell paint. So they may not understand exactly how people are using the product. The selling point with this is of course value. And the quality and value are great. I also found that I only used water as the thinning medium because it was either a pain to use various mediums due to the oily consistency, or they made the paint take forever to dry. I got into the habit of misting the canvas with water before I started to paint. Then dabbing it enough so that water wasn’t dripping down the canvas. Then I could literally work directly from the tube and get good coverage. Or spray a little water into my paint, mix it up a bit, and paint that way. But it will be stubborn to paint onto a canvas panel without water on the canvas to grab the paint. Otherwise it feels like you're pressing the paint on. The pros are: Very minimal fumes. No requirement for toxic thinners. Can be wiped off to some extent if you make a mistake. And you can wash your brushes with a little dish soap and water. Some of the paints will stain brushes. So you might test individual paints using cheaper brushes before going to your $30 ones. The attached images were painted with this kit plus cerulean blue.