meeden oil paints, 24 color set (review)

I give these oil paints, 6 out of 10 acorns.  

Meeden oil paint set is a very affordable student-grade paint with good pigmentation and a predictable texture.  They dry moderately fast for oil paints (under a week for a thin layer) and are smooth enough to use without any additional medium.  

Being able to paint right from the tube makes them excellent for someone just starting out with oil paints.  There's less stuff to stress about and one can just get on with learning how the paint behaves.  It also saves money not having to buy extra mediums.  The small tubes are nice because we can paint a dozen small paintings to get the feel of oil painting but not soo much paint that we will feel obligated to keep using it when we are ready to upgrade.  

Another thing I like about this brand is the colour choices are close to what we learn to paint with in the European and North American painting traditions.  Nothing too outlandish and some really useful convenience colours.

The Meeden oil paints are like a smoother version of Winton oil paints.  I suspect Winton was the inspiration for the Meeden paints.


But can it paint a chicken?!?



I choose three colours (and some white I had left over from an earlier painting - paul rubens titanium white): Payne's Grey, Crimson Red, and Lemon Yellow.  These mixed to make lovely combinations without too much fuss.  Very predictable mixing given the pigments in the paint.

Now that I've been painting a while, I've gotten a bit weary of multi-pigment paints.  When colour mixing, I find single pigments easier to predict.  However, Meeden has gone the way that most student grade paints do, with some colours having multiple pigments.  But they did it well.

They also list the transparency (very useful) and lightfastness.  Although they don't state how it's tested.  But I think the more plus, the better the lightfastness.  

While mixing, there was a bit of... I don't know how to explain it well.  Like chalky but not creamy - like there is a lot of calcite in the paint that is changing how the light interreacts with the pigment.  Or possibly something else... like a lack of glow while on the palette.   This improved when the paint was on the canvas.  But it's something to be cautious of if painting impasto.



Already this paint has some real charm to it.  It's going to be great for painting outside.

Which is good, because it has a weird smell to it that I can't quite place.  Oil paint usually smells like vegetable oil that's been in the back of the pantry a few decades too long - a very natural smell.  This smells more synthetic, almost like glue.  I am suspicious and after a few hours of seeking more information online, I fail to find the Safety Data Sheet (SDS) for these Meeden Oil Paints.  Ever since my chicken ate my Prussian blue, I feel a bit paranoid when I can't find a SDS for paints.   (chicken was fine as that watercolour brand was more chalk than paint - a review for another day).  For a lack of SDS, I mark off two stars.  For a bad smell, I mark off another star.

As I paint, the smell dissipates.  

The other concern that I have is that the paints are all very much the same texture.  I noticed this when swatching and it's more obvious as I paint.  This is unusual in the higher end professional grade paints as each pigment has its own personality it adds to the paint.  Some are thick, others runny, some dry fast, others not.  Pigment participates a lot in oil painting.  But again, these Meeden oil paints are a lot like Winton - every paint has the same texture.  I wish I knew what the filler was.  In comparison, a paint like 1980 will proudly share their filler information.  Winton is harder to find, but SDS helps.  I just like to know why they are all the same texture.  

This can be a good thing if someone is just starting out with oil painting.  



As I am painting, I can get thick brush marks that stay put and thinner layers without any addition to the paint.  This is all right from the tube.  These three colours have turned out to be a nice limited palette for painting a chicken.  Although I am struggling a bit with values in the reds.  That's more getting used to how transparent, opaque, and pigmented the different paints are.  

For a one hour chicken and paint I've never used before, I'm quite pleased with how it turned out.  I didn't have to fight the paint and the biggest problem was getting to know the colour personalities to mix the colours and values I wanted.



The small size (and weight) of the tubes makes this perfect for my French Box Easel.  

Meeden oil paints would be the right paints for someone just starting out on their painting adventure or who wants something affordable for painting on the go.

However, when I run out, I don't see buying more.  These would frustrate a professional artist or dedicated amateur as they are pigmented at a good-student-grade level and have something unknown as filler that makes the texture too homogenized.