Why Oil Paint?

Oil paint is made out of pigment and linseed oil. You mix the two together with certain amounts of each; more pigment than oil.  "The world's first oil paintings go back nearly 14 centuries to murals in Afghanistan's Bamiyan caves, a Japanese researcher says." www.rawa.org. Based on this article oil painting came from Afghanistan in 650 AD. Oil paint is highly used because it takes a lot of time to dry. Artists can go back and wipe away a mistake more easily than with regular paint that dries much quicker. Artists use oil paint because of its versatility in texture, color, and what all you can do with it. The thickness of the paint is richer than most paint and because it dries slower artists can go back and change their work and not paint over hard old paint. Because of the texture of oil paint artists can make their artwork more realistic than what they would be able to do with other types of paints.