My girlfriend is an artist and has always wanted to do oil painting. The reason she hasn't yet is because she says it is expensive and complicated.
Well, our anniversary is coming up so I wanted to get her everything she needs to do oil painting.

I know she will need:


Paint
Canvas
How to book


Anything else that she would need to get started? I am no artist so everything is foreign to me. Also links to stores/items would help out a lot.

Thanks in advance!

You could always try looking around for local art classes. Most larger towns should have one somewhere which would be a good starting point (although most do require you to come back a few times).

All you really need is the basic utensils you listed and a bit of imagination. As for getting started, just tell her to draw anything that catches her fancy that's lying around. Any form of the arts takes years to become proficient so tell her to not expect much straight away with her work (not trying to be mean lol, its just a fact).

Although a simple how to book might be a bit redundant depending on what type of person she is. More imaginative and care-free, than it should do just fine. If she is more of a details and instructions person, try and find a beginners technique or text-book styled book. Personal experience and experimentation is the best way to go though in my opinion :)

I don't have much (read: any) knowledge on oil painting, but I think you also need some brushes :P

I've never done oil painting before...but I don't imagine it'd be too much harder from using acrylics or watercolors...

But yeah, like Mushyrulez said, she's gonna need some brushes too, lolz. Make sure they're brushes designed for oil painting though. They don't have to be specifically for oil painting since some brushes can be used for several mediums(usually watercolors, acrylics, and oil painting), but you might want to get a bunch of different brushes(sizes, round tips, square tips, etc.)...

If she's an artist and has done other types of painting before, I don't think she'll necessarily need a "How to" book, but just some tips on what to and not to do with oil paints(like mixing, adding water, etc.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_painting
I think 1, 4, and 5 will help for that...

As for links to stores...:mellow: I don't live in your area so I wouldn't know...you could always order stuff from Amazon or Ebay...

Actually, I've just taken up oil painting as a hobby recently. I absolutely love it and have already done four paintings. :D I don't think it's as hard as everyone seems to think. I have ABSOLUTELY NO art skills, but my paintings, I think, are not tooooo bad. :heh:
I got my start at a free local art class, but it really isn't that complicated if you start by yourself. She'll need different brushes, canvas, paints, easel is nice, some sort of oil medium like linseed oil, and lots of rags/paper towels are a must! Mixing the paint can be very messy because it washes off so hard with water so the rags can be used to wipe off fresh paint from brushes or the canvas if you mess up. Oil painting is nice because you can pretty much erase anything at any time. The linseed oil or liquin (I use linseed but I think liquin is better) is some oily stuff that you mix with the paint to change the consistency and drying time. The most important thing to remember with oil painting that it takes FOREVER to dry, well more like a few days.
You can either buy a lot of small paint tubes in a pack which is nice but they run out quickly, or you can buy larger individual paint tubes. If you do that you have to know which colors to get. Here are the ones that I started with: titanium white, cadmium yellow, cadmium red, aquamarine blue, burnt umber, and lamp black. You'll be okay as long as you get some sort of red/blue/yellow/white/brown so she can mix all the different colors. Oh! and a pallete is helpful to mix the paints on, but not necessary if you have a board covered in foil or something.
All of this may seem really complicated, but it's so much fun and a great stress reliever! All of the materials do get kind of expensive, but just look for bargains and you should be fine.
Plus you can ask me any other questions you have. I'm not a complete expert, but I know people to ask. Happy painting! :D

You are my HERO!

That is exactly what I needed. She has canvas already but said that it wasn't the right one. I get to go to the states tomorrow so I will probably hit up the art store and see what I can scrounge up.

Thanks a lot!

Yay! I'm glad I could help! :D
The people in the art store you go to should also steer you in the right direction as to specific products.

I have this oil painting recently and still can not figure out to find information or background, including the artist's first name or itital first. The artist signature on the front of the painting says, "Kingman". Its now very interesting, as you say you seems to have an oil painting by KINGMAN a pointer and two partridges, to be some of the theories around, but no significant identity of the artist.