About r/oilpainting
In its own words:
r/Oilpainting it's a place to share your OWN paintings, we don't care if you are new or professional, all art are welcome. we only allow real oilpaints, not digital or AI generated, both will get you banned.
The community was created on Sep 22, 2011, which makes it 15 years old. Since Oct 26, 2026, it has gained 1,609 subscribers (+0.15%).
What sets r/oilpainting apart
Compared with other large communities, r/oilpainting leans heavily on images (64% of recent posts; the typical Top 100 subreddit sits at 17%). r/oilpainting is more of a browsing community than a debating one: 5.6 comments per post on average, well under the Top 100 median of 14.0. It is also one of the faster-growing big communities: its 0.66% gain since Sep 19, 2026 beats 91% of the Top 100.
Subscriber growth
Between Sep 19, 2026 and Nov 2, 2026, r/oilpainting went up from 1,060,411 to 1,067,452 subscribers (+7K, +0.66%). That is about 160 new members per day. The chart uses our weekly snapshots (9 so far), so it gets longer every week.
What r/oilpainting talks about
Across 92 recent posts (Oct 31–Nov 4), the words that come up most are “oil”, “painting”, “cactus”, “gaze” and “cowgirl”. Other frequent themes are canvas, paint, western, portrait, wip and working. By format, 64% are images, 24% are galleries and 11% are text posts.
Activity and best time to post
The public archive holds 109,542 posts and 616,104 comments in total, about 5.6 comments per post.
Rules of r/oilpainting
The moderators of r/oilpainting list 9 rules. In short:
- be kind
- Should be relevant to oil painting.
- Do not recommend hazmats w/o caveats
- Commercial plugging prohibited
- Tag NSFW
- Self Promotion
- Civilized Political Discussion
- First time oil painter only for beginners
- Crop Image Properly
How to join
Open reddit.com/r/oilpainting and press “Join”. Read the community rules in the sidebar before you post: every subreddit is run by its own volunteer moderators.
Frequently asked questions
How big is r/oilpainting?
r/oilpainting has 1,067,452 subscribers, which makes it the #991 safe-for-work subreddit in the SubMouse ranking. It added 7,041 members between Sep 19, 2026 and Nov 2, 2026.
How old is r/oilpainting?
r/oilpainting was created on Sep 22, 2011, so it has been around for 15 years.
How active is r/oilpainting?
Over its lifetime the archive counts 109,542 posts and 616,104 comments. In a sample of 92 recent posts we counted 81 different authors.
What is r/oilpainting about?
The community describes itself as: “r/Oilpainting it's a place to share your OWN paintings, we don't care if you are new or professional, all art are welcome. we only allow real oilpaints, not digital or AI generated, both will get you banned.” Recent post titles often mention oil, painting, cactus, gaze and cowgirl. Most posts are images (64%).
Is r/oilpainting safe for work?
Yes. Reddit does not mark r/oilpainting as an 18+ (NSFW) community, and its own rules forbid NSFW content. SubMouse lists safe-for-work subreddits only.
How do I post on r/oilpainting?
Join the community on Reddit first, then use “Create post”. r/oilpainting accepts both text and link posts, with images and galleries enabled. It has 9 posted rules, starting with: “be kind”; “Should be relevant to oil painting.”; “Do not recommend hazmats w/o caveats”. Moderators remove posts that break the rules, so read them in the sidebar before posting.
Which communities are like r/oilpainting?
Communities with similar topics include r/painting (4.6M), r/DigitalPainting (3.7M), r/houseplants (3M), r/Art (22.6M) and r/learntodraw (3.2M).
Stats from public data (data updated Nov 2, 2026; activity, rules and archive totals via the Arctic Shift archive, Nov 6, 2026). Point and comment counts are archive snapshots and can be lower than on Reddit today. SubMouse is an independent directory and is not affiliated with Reddit or the moderators of r/oilpainting.