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beginner painting tips

painting can be so therapeutic and rewarding :) i recommend starting with watercolor or acrylic as they’ll be the most user friendly. each has its own techniques and learning curves [ie working from light to dark with watercolors, acrylic pain drying darker]. familiarize yourself with their properties. you’ll need mixed media or watercolor paper pads, nothing crazy like canvas in the beginning, so you don’t feel obligated to reserve expensive materials for something “good”. but, in the vein of not wanting to waste materials, make sure you don’t let your fear of messing up prevent you from painting at all. as an artist on a budget, i understand it’s a hard mindset to break. but i do suggest setting aside a little coin for nicer paints and brushes if you can, though. a lot of stores will have cost-friendly things labeled “student grade” which are decent quality. (things like the chalky artist loft watercolors or 50¢ loose bodied acrylic paints may add to frustration sometimes but they aren’t impossible to work with.) the easiest ways to get yourself actually painting are to set up still lives or paint “en plein air” (landscapes outside). working from life is an invaluable skill and once you’re comfy with that, it will be easier to paint from photo reference. also, make sure you’ve got an understanding of value and contrast outside of color. make color charts so you understand how your paints interact with one another and you’re not in for a mixing surprise mid painting (i.e a color wheel, tints and shades, complimentary colors and how they interact etc). [esp because some “cheaper” paints will have other pigments mixed in. for example a cheaper red will not make a perfect purple when mixed with blue since it will likely have hints of yellow mixed into the red to boost the brightness.] overall, have fun <3 baby steps. work tiny and simple in the beginning and the rest will come to you with patience and practice.

@deardoveswings

Feb 20, 2025

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the basics:

qualifications: have been painting for my whole young life, sell my paintings, etc etc. im assuming you’re working with acrylics but this could apply to oils as well. sorry for the incoming infodump! lean to fat rule: this refers to the idea that you want to put down your “lean” layers (thin, watered down paint) first, and increase the thickness of your paint as you go, using impasto last. “impasto” is the application of paint in thick strokes that dry as raised, 3D texture. you wouldn’t want to put that first because you would struggle to correct mistakes or add details over it later. paint in BIG sections. what i mean by this is you want to be working on the entire canvas all at once, not focusing on achieving perfection on one bit while the rest is undeveloped. theoretically you should have all your shapes and the basis of your values blocked in before adding much texture or detail. this helps you measure balance and harmony within the composition as you go. another important part of this is to use as big of a brush as you practically can when painting large sections of color. i used to use one tiny brush to fill in huge areas of canvas. save your time and sanity by daring to go bigger paint dark to light. this is a rule that you can break depending on what you’re trying to achieve, but basically this means identifying the absolute darkest parts of your reference picture or thumbnail sketch and blocking those in over your underpainting first. this is the framework that you build the whole painting off of. be careful because this is very important towards establishing proportions, and prevents you from overpowering lighter sections of the painting later. don’t use black straight from the tube if you can help it. pure black, when overused (especially by beginners who use it to starkly outline shapes or use it in huge swaths) can really suck the life out of a painting and make it look chalky and dry. instead, i recommend mixing a custom black one of two ways: purely from colors, (roughly 30% blue, 40% red, 40% green), or adding colors to a premade black (when i do this it’s usually 50% black, 30% blue, 20% red, depending on the undertone of your black paint) color mixing: this can be tricky if you’re new to painting, pay attention to the undertones of your paints and be intentional about the temperature you want to achieve- if you want a warm green dont mix a cool blue and yellow, for example. it can be impossible to mix a vibrant purple with trad primary colors. don’t be too precious with your palette… if you’re working with acrylic that shit dries fast anyway so get messy. you can always squeeze more paint out to restore the purity of your color but a little mixing amongst your palette will make a more harmonious painting anyway. impressionism is your friend. painting is a trick of the light. a couple well placed brushstrokes vaguely indicating a light source or something will get you farther than hyper detailing something into muddled oblivion these are the most important for painting probably but the rest (composition, motor skills, proportions, color theory…) is learned from a general arts background which i assume you have since you’re in HL art, along with a lot of practice over the years that lets you get familiar with the behavior of the paint, your brushes, the surface, etc etc not sure if you mean IB HL arts? but i absolutely loved that class and have never been prouder of myself than when i had my exhibition and finished the artist study. wishing you luck and happy painting!! try to enjoy the process!!

@eatgraeps

Feb 8, 2025

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Buy a painting you can’t afford

@joekirwan

Feb 27, 2024

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