In it’s basic state, watercolor paint is thick and heavy, and is made workable by wetting the brush and thinning out the paint with water, or by otherwise mixing the paint with water on a palette. It’s a thin and light paint, easy to work with for beginners, though somewhat difficult to control. Having a good-quality paint to start with will help to avoid frustration when you get started. [2] X Expert Source Renée PlevyPortrait Artist & Educator Expert Interview. 7 May 2021. Sennelier paints are watercolors available in both pan and tube form, of a much higher quality than your garden-variety school-supply watercolors. Try the pan to avoid having to buy lots of paints separately, and having the convenience of all the paint in one place. Schmincke and Windsor & Newton are also quality brands that are widely available at craft stores.
Acrylic paints most regularly are sold in tubes, like oil paint, and can be mixed on a palette with simple water to thin out and mix to create new colors. Because it dries very quickly, it’s the perfect paint to layer, creating base tones to create depth and detail in landscapes, portraits, or other pictures.
Oil paint is also frequently sold in water-soluble bricks, which can be worked similarly to watercolor, and can be somewhat quicker-drying than traditional tube oil paints. Get a variety of primary colors and learn to mix your own shades to cut down on the cost. Unless you want to glob the oil paint right from the tube onto the canvas in thick, visceral blobs like the impasto paintings of de Kooning (awesome looking, yes, but super-expensive), in addition to the paint itself, you’ll also need to get some solvent to use as a paint thinner. If you paint with oil paints, you need to prime the surface first with basic acrylic primer, otherwise the paint will eventually destroy the canvas or paper. Any surface the paint touches, the palette or the mixing board, likewise should be primed to extend its life.
Food-based paints can change over time (or rot, depending on how you want to look at it). This can give your picture a time-based element, changing over the days and weeks after you finish it. Document your egg-paint before it starts to stink and throw it out in time, or acrylic-paint over it to keep it finished.
Food-based paints can change over time (or rot, depending on how you want to look at it). This can give your picture a time-based element, changing over the days and weeks after you finish it. Document your egg-paint before it starts to stink and throw it out in time, or acrylic-paint over it to keep it finished.
Use rounded-tip brushes for water-color painting. Flat-tip synthetic brushes are best for acrylic paints, while filbert-tip brushes are best for oil paints. You can experiment with different brush fibers, picking something that’s appropriate for your price range.
Use rounded-tip brushes for water-color painting. Flat-tip synthetic brushes are best for acrylic paints, while filbert-tip brushes are best for oil paints. You can experiment with different brush fibers, picking something that’s appropriate for your price range.
Choose a canvas appropriate for the type of paint you’ve chosen. Use stretched canvas for heavy acrylic or oil paints, and watercolor paper for painting with watercolors. Watercolor paper will hold up to the dampness of the paints without curling or weakening. Keep a variety of cups set aside for the purpose of wetting your brushes, cleaning them, and keeping water close at hand if you’re using watercolors. So you won’t have to clean them quite as thoroughly as your drinking glasses, set aside some old glasses for the purpose. Get a palette or paint tray. The best surfaces on which to mix your paints, thin them out, and check their consistency is either a white plastic or enamel paint tray. This allows you to have a nice white background to check the accuracy of the color against, and you can get one with user-friendly paint wells around the edge for a few dollars. Glass plates are a common alternative. [4] X Research source
It’s common to use an easel to paint, but not necessary. Find a hard surface, like an old clipboard to clamp your watercolor paper to, or prop a canvas up on a desk, covered with an old sheet or newspaper. Lay down an old sheet or newspaper on the floor, and any surface that’ll be in contact with the paint. You won’t have to worry about spilling if you’ve got a paint trap already set up, letting you concentrate on making.
Use contour lines to sketch the basic shape, and gestural lines to start getting a sense of the spatial relationship between the objects in the subject. The object will be made up of many little shapes, like many little paintings. Try to focus on the relationship between things. Locate the source of the line illuminating your subject and start looking at how the shade is cast upon the subject, and how you’ll need to capture it with color and line.
Use contour lines to sketch the basic shape, and gestural lines to start getting a sense of the spatial relationship between the objects in the subject. The object will be made up of many little shapes, like many little paintings. Try to focus on the relationship between things. Locate the source of the line illuminating your subject and start looking at how the shade is cast upon the subject, and how you’ll need to capture it with color and line.
Blend a small amount of color and paint a few test strips to see how it looks on a white background, rather than mixing up a whole tube of white and blue together to make light blue. Only make as much as you’ll need. Tint your bright colors with a small amount of white to soften them, or add black to create different shades of the color. Adding the opposite color from the color wheel to one paint will create a different “tone,” giving you an endless range of possibilities. Using a variety of contrasting value in your painting will help to create a more dynamic sense of color in your painting. Use many tones, shades, and tints, thinking seriously about color.
Use short little brush strokes and long even ones. Use as little paint as possible on your brush to get the value you’re looking for. Don’t saturate the page with paint. Use different brushes for their different effects, blotting, drawing, and stippling with them.
Bob Ross, everyone’s favorite television painter, was excellent at starting his paintings with backgrounds on the fly and using the imagination to get started. He usually found complementary colors and dry-brushed the background in nice sunset colors, then started filling in trees and other natural scenes without planning much of anything. It’s an excellent way to get started on a canvas.
As you start in on painting your subject, you need to work hard to make the flat surface look more dynamic and three-dimensional. Create perspective by spacing the objects appropriately. If everything is equidistant and the same shape, it’ll look flat on your paper, rather than dynamic. Things farther back in the subject should be proportionately smaller, while things closer up should be larger. [5] X Research source Some painters find it effective to put their painting upside down to examine it. The mind supplies a symbolic version of what you’re painting–in your mind, you know what an apple is, so you’ll tend to paint that version of the apple, rather than what you’re seeing in front of you. Looking from another perspective sometimes can help you see the shapes for what they are, rather than the symbols.
If you screw up a part by adding too much paint, don’t panic. Embrace happy accidents and integrate them into the painting. Don’t spend too much extra time layering over it, just let it be and look back over it at the end to see how it effects the composition. Keep moving forward.
It’s also important to stand back and appreciate the “big picture. " Pay attention to how your little moments affect the overall composition and the painting itself.
Try studying color theory a bit to get more of a sense of how to use color, if you feel like your picture is looking flat.
You don’t have to live at the foot of a mountain or in the middle of the desert to paint beautiful landscapes. Head to the backyard and find a good angle on the shed, or an adjacent field with an interesting perspective to start your landscape. With the rise of Transcendentalism and Naturalism in the 1800s, landscape painting became elevated to a high level of appreciation and status, though painting the outdoors has been common since the Minoan period of art history. Nowadays, it’s common for landscapes to portray human influence–roads, billboards, even cars.
In general, the portrait is all about detail: some of the most successful Renaissance portrait artists were even originally trained in etching and gold-work to become accustomed to working small. [6] X Research source There’s no wrong way to paint a portrait. Study life drawing to learn about capturing the human form in the proper proportions and movement. Consider working from a photograph to avoid making your subject stay still for hours at a time. Or, go the old-fashioned route and sit them down with a glass of wine and some classical music to keep them relaxed. Self-portraits are also a common and vibrant form to explore. Set up a mirror and paint what you see in it. Find your inner Rembrandt.
Classical still-life painting involves its own particular symbolic tradition and themes, with simple-looking table scapes representing complex metaphorical tableaux, called vanitas–Latin for vanity. [7] X Research source The collection of flowers and foods, ephemeral and natural things, are sometimes meant to signify mortality, while the classical Golden age of still life painting use opulent displays to celebrate wealth. In some regions, harvest collections would be assembled to celebrate the completion of labor and agriculture.
Whatever your materials or your subject, feel no pressure to paint representatively, or “accurately. " Want to paint caricature or exaggerated cartoonish versions of your subjects? Go for it.
