I totally understand how overwhelming it can be as a new person to art - to painting- etc so if you feel overwhelmed at first, I hear you!

 My biggest suggestion is to first of all, buy just the following to get started:

*Black and White oil or acrylic paint

*Cold Wax Medium (IF you are working with oils)

*Two to Three oil (or acrylic) colors that you love (1-2 cool - meaning from the blues, purples or greens) and 1-2 warm, (meaning from the oranges, reds or yellows). 

*As far as tools and supports - if you can purchase a small pad of Arches oil paper (if working in oils) OR White acyrlic gesso (which can prep a surface for oils OR acrylics) - you can either paint directly on the oil paper OR gesso any other paper you have - it will work with the cold wax medium/oils or acrylics.

Keep things simple with regard to tools; go to the thrift store and go to the kitchen section and pick up some used spatulas (much like the silicone tools we use) and find an old credit card you can use for moving paint around (these tools best if working with the oils/cwm). If you happen to have some brushes, they can also be used with acrylics but if working with cwm/oils - you would need to thin your paint mixture in order to use the brushes and this would require a few mediums to add - let me know if you only have brushes and need to thin out your cwm/oils.

Please just go through the course first perhaps before you do anything. Look at it as getting an education about something very foreign to you before you dive head first. I don't want you to buy all the supplies right off the bat; in fact, the opposite! Until you've reviewed most of the course, I would just buy the minimal amount (as above) and start to PLAY and do NOT have any expectations of the result. You need to expect nothing of yourself if you have never painted before and give yourself LOTS of credit for diving in and doing this course! Just take things one step at a time, and when frustrated or when you have a question, please do not hesitate to reach out to our wonderful, caring artist community in our closed FB group!!