<p>I'm not an oil painter, but do remember that you'll also need mediums to mix into your oil paints as you work in order to control the thickness and transparency of the paint and to clean your brushes.</p>

<p>Five ounces is a fairly good-sized tube and I'd expect you'll have plenty as long as your paintings aren't terribly large and you keep the painting surface smooth rather than highly textured (impasto). Nine by twelve inches is a typical student size--large enough for ease of work but small enough to be manageable for a beginner. The colors you will usually need the most of are white, yellow, and whichever brown Bob has you using. The other colors (reds, blues) tend to be very saturated. In most cases you'll be mixing fairly small amounts of them with your medium or with white or yellow.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-01-07T20:34:15.720Z
2018-01-07T20:34:15.720Z
Cindy Skillman
<p>I'm part of a group of seven people looking to paint along with an episode of Bob Ross, and I'm trying to buy supplies for the group, but we've never painted before.</p>

<p>How far would a single 5oz tube of a given color (e.g. Alizarin Crimson) go? Would one of those be enough for seven people to do two paintings each?</p>

<p>We've selected one of the paintings we will be doing:</p>

<p><a href="https://i.sstatic.net/0EUbJ.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/0EUbJ.jpg" alt="&quot;Grandeur of Summer&quot; by Bob Ross"></a><br>
This is <em>Grandeur of Summer</em> by Bob Ross.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-12-22T02:29:57.197Z
I misread _group of seven_ at first
Matt
<painting>
How far does a 5oz oil paint tube go?
temporary_user_name
# How far does a 5oz oil paint tube go?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2017-12-18)

I'm part of a group of seven people looking to paint along with an episode of Bob Ross, and I'm trying to buy supplies for the group, but we've never painted before.

How far would a single 5oz tube of a given color (e.g. Alizarin Crimson) go? Would one of those be enough for seven people to do two paintings each?

We've selected one of the paintings we will be doing:

[![](https://i.sstatic.net/0EUbJ.jpg)](https://i.sstatic.net/0EUbJ.jpg)  
This is *Grandeur of Summer* by Bob Ross.

**Tags:** painting

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: I misread _group of seven_ at first  

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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_2 on 2018-01-07. Score: 1

I'm not an oil painter, but do remember that you'll also need mediums to mix into your oil paints as you work in order to control the thickness and transparency of the paint and to clean your brushes.

Five ounces is a fairly good-sized tube and I'd expect you'll have plenty as long as your paintings aren't terribly large and you keep the painting surface smooth rather than highly textured (impasto). Nine by twelve inches is a typical student size--large enough for ease of work but small enough to be manageable for a beginner. The colors you will usually need the most of are white, yellow, and whichever brown Bob has you using. The other colors (reds, blues) tend to be very saturated. In most cases you'll be mixing fairly small amounts of them with your medium or with white or yellow.


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