Winton Oil Colour is a very popular oil paint. It is a line of oil paints that is made by Winsor and Newton, the art brand and is based out of England (hence, the spelling of colour).The produce many fine art products that are used internationally, from the canvases to the tools themselves.

I use Winsor and Newton’s Winton Oil Colours primarily as my oil paint of choice recently. In this post, I will explain the oil colours, the options they provide, and what they can do for your oil paintings skills.

What are Winton oil colours?

Winton oil paints are permanent oil paints used for fine arts. They are considered the “cheaper” option for what Winsor and Newton offers. Winsor and Newton produces four types of oil colours. Artists oil colour, Winton oil colour, artisan water mixable oil colour, and griffin alkyd fast drying oil colour.

Winton oil paints come in the green pack, whereas artists come in red, etc.

The artists oil colour is the most expensive option for artists, and the Winton are just a little less. There is slightly less of a tonal range for the colors that you are able to mix with the pigment. Those two are the only ones that are a traditional oil paint.

The different paints you can get

There are four main sets that you can get for Winton oil paint. There is the 10x12ml set, 20x12ml set, 6x21ml set, and the 10x21ml set. The set of 20 has obviously the biggest range of colors.

What to start with

The reason why above I only list the sets available is because this will be the case for a beginner. A beginner will not want to start out with large individual tubes that they might not end up using. In the picture above, there is an example of a much larger sized tube that you can advance to once you have flourished.

I recommend as a beginner to start with the largest set available. It offers the smallest size of tubes (12ml) so you do not have too much of one color. This will get you adjusted to using the oil paints.

Then, as you adapt to the mixing compatibilities of the oil paint, then you can begin to use less and less colors. Most colors on the color wheel are made with just five bases. This means that you dwindle your numbers of paints down to this to increase your knowledge of mixing.

Next, you will move up to the 21ml tubes when you are using more paint, and less variation in color.

Winton oil paint and colour

Here is a picture of the largest variation in Winton options for oil paint. From these, you will then eventually be able to narrow down your colors to just the five as I mentioned above. You can learn more information about the color mixing from the hyperlinked color wheel article above.

Why is Winton oil paint so great for beginners?

I think that it is the best for beginners first and foremost because it is a good quality brand. There are many oil paints on the market that you will be paying a lot more for, and they might be worth it. However, when you are starting out, this is a great middle ground between extremely high quality and really low quality.

In terms of comparisons for Winsor and Newton oil paint products, these, like I said, are a classic oil paint. While being a classic oil paint, they are the easier to work with of the two options. You can adjust to the brand itself, while focusing less on the tonal depth that you might get from the artist’s oil colours.

Therefore, you can begin the learning process for a good quality oil paint while not psyching yourself out about using too “fancy” of a product!