Think of practically any object under the sun and there will be an oil painting of it somewhere.

You can even get an oil painting of an oil painting; some artists will reproduce an oil painting of an old master. That's certainly a much cheaper option than buying an original!

I've actually had quite a few reproduced like this, including several old masters by famous artists that I particularly liked and one or two of paintings by not so famous artists. In fact, I'm building up quite a collection and sometimes the biggest problem is finding somewhere to hang them all!

You can even have your favourite photograph transformed into oil painting form and I have had a number of these converted to oil painting form as well. They look so much better than a photograph and also make the ideal gift.

Various Chinese artists will reproduce oil paintings and most of the paintings are actually very good. Original Chinese oil paintings though can always be detected by anyone with the slightest bit of experience. They tend to exaggerate the colours for some reason, maybe they think this looks more attractive, but the result is that you end up with colours that just should not be there. It is easy to see what I mean if you study one or two.

Sometimes the result can be almost comical. I remember an ostentatious friend of mine showing off an oil painting he had recently bought (which he probably paid a fortune for) but after a couple of seconds admiring it I turned round and told him it was Chinese. Well, I won't go into the details of the reply!

However, from the huge selection of themes available, my favourite will always be those based on the seashore.

The seashore depicts tranquility and calm, a naturalness unaffected by the effects of time. Various artists over the years have reproduced this in their paintings. Ivan Aivazovsky, the 19th century Russian artist, was one to note, with several excellent paintings including the appropriately named 'Seashore', 'Seashore.Calm' and 'Sunset at sea', all painted in the 1840's.

Aivazovsky actually created several thousand oil paintings in his lifetime and many can be seen in Aivazovsky Hall at the State Russian Museum, St Petersburg, Russia.

Hardly the same standard or quality as Aivazovsky, but still extremely desirable, is the painting 'Dunes' by the 1920's German artist Horst Alter. With his mastery of light it is truly one of my favourites. Other artists to note include Shchedrin as well as Adamson, the artist infamous for his oil painting of the seashore.

Many other great artists have included the seashore theme in their works. Tastes obviously vary among different people and what one person will enthuse over, another's reaction may be luke warm.

Time and research are the keys to locating an oil painting that one will admire for a lifetime. Never buy in a hurry just for the sake of buying, or simply to fill that empty space on the wall. An oil painting should be treasured, as well as admired.

I've made substantial use of the internet to locate such an example and indeed I've located many fine examples over the years.

Whilst an oil painting can represent an excellent investment if chosen carefully, if I've seen one that I particularly like but can't quite afford, I've cheated and commissioned an artist to create a replica and nobody except an expert would know the difference!