Paints on a budget – Seven money-saving tips for buying paints

Easy ways to save money on paints.

Let’s face it: paints are expensive. Most of us can’t afford to buy every color that we want in an artist grade brand. But here are some easy ways to stretch your paint budget.

1. Use the lower cost artist grade brands. Good news: there are some artist grade brands on the lower end of the cost spectrum: Turner, SoHo, White Nights. Your wallet loves these brands.

2. Use a limited palette. An option is to buy a small set of artist grade tubes. Using a limited palette can make paintings more harmonious, with fewer conflicts between the colors.

3. Buy half pans of select colors. Some artist grade paints are available in individual half pans, which are cheaper than tubes if you only use them sparingly or infrequently. Toss those half pans into an empty Altoid mint tin, and you are ready to paint!

4. For frequently used colors, buy tubes instead of pans. For the colors that you use every day, tubes are usually cheaper in the long term. You can refill a pan several times with each tube.

5. Use student grades. Artist grade paints are great, but student grades are good, too. Most student grade paint today is as good as artist quality was 35 years ago. There’s nothing wrong with using student grade.

6. Buy directly from art supply stores. You will usually find cheaper prices buying directly from art supply stores, either online or in the store. The art supply stores are able to purchase in bulk, and have less markup than resellers such as Amazon.

7. Look for sales. Most art stores have sales often. You will be amazed at the deals that you can stumble upon.

Related articles:

Choosing the colors for a limited palette

Artist grade vs. student grade

Tubes vs. pans