How to Get Started if you want to be a Painter
Some beginner tips for someone who doesn’t know anything…
Have you ever dreamt of becoming a painter? Or do you just need a side hobby that takes your mind off the stresses of the world? Either way, painting might be right up your alley.
I’ve never personally dabbled in it because, well, the barrier to entry always seemed so daunting. You would need to buy paint, then have a canvas of some sort, you would need some sort of skill in drawing, and then it would get everywhere that you would then have to clean up afterwards!
But, as usual, paradigm really is everything!
What if you could get rid of all that hassle, and just concentrate on the ART of painting. That’s what I discovered when I took my first painting class at a local art shop.
NOTE: I come from an engineering background, so I have basically NO drawing experience or artistic skill whatsoever, so I had no clue what I was doing. So this was the coolest experience for me! Because I came away feeling like I could actually learn this.
Basically, if you find a local art studio near you, see if they have classes available! Because, they provide ALL the materials for you! You just sit there and learn the wonderful techniques of painting.
Right off the bat, just as we were sitting down, they recommended some good books to get started:
Our instructor said that those were both good ones to start with because painting was all about seeing the world differently and in a new way, and because you can often start small and still paint something beautiful and meaningful to you and the world.
He then launched into why and how he chose his subjects for painting. His name was George Scribner (https://www.scribnerart.com/) and he absolutely loved painting construction and turning those into elegant delightful paintings. Such an interesting concept that I never thought of before! and his paintings (if you look at his gallery) are gorgeous.
A painters job was to:
Take the mundane and turn it into poetry
Essentially a painting was like a dialogue with the audience and it always left more to the Imagination.
Two Components to Painting
There are 2 components when creating a painting.
A. Composition
This is probably the most important decision you’ll have to make as a painter: What’s your painting is about? What’s the idea?
What’s the principle subject you want to convey?
This by far, he said, was the MOST important question a painter started with. You HAVE to choose the HERO, everything else is just a supporting character.
What is the story?
You choose a subject based on what you want to share with your viewers. Essentially you are saying to your audience: This is what attracted me… I hope it attracts you too.
B. Drawing
Based on the subject you chose, you then choose whether it’s going to be mostly horizontal or vertical.
Lines → Values → Colors
He went on to explain that painting can be explained in a 3 part process.
1. The first part was what he called LINES. This essentially meant your Drawing Lines and what those lines were REALLY just:
The general outlines of objects and their general sizes in relation to each other.
How big something was, or how small, how far it was from the other object, and what general shape it was, whether it looked more like a square, triangle, circle, etc. Those were all the lines that you were going to use to get your painting started.
2. The second part of the painting process was what he called VALUES which in essence is:
The relationship between light and dark.
If you look at your hand and you went to go draw that hand with a pencil, you would basically start by deciphering what was a shade darker than its adjacent areas and start there. What is the lightest object? What is the darkest object?
The eye has more receptors for light and dark than any other receptor. So human beings are SUPER good at deciphering brightness and shadow.
You can go to any Blick art store and find a “Value Scale Finder” and it’ll help you with finding what values to start your painting off with:
3. The third part to honing your painting technique was the COLORS. The most important thing to remember about color was:
We all see colors differently.
This by far was the most subjective part of the painting process which is often why its the most difficult and most advanced portion of the class.
Simplify, Simplify, Simplify
If you have a very complex background, then get rid of most of the detail. In other words “soften” it so that your backdrop becomes the context for your chosen subject.
Don’t be afraid to Crop
Focus on your subject and if you’re working from a photograph, then don’t hesitate to crop until you get your subject into one of the “thirds” of the painting. You can use the Rule of Thirds if you want to so the subject is offset a little.
Balance, Vary the Shapes
It’s okay for you to look at the BIG shapes in your picture and to use those general shapes to make sure there’s a balance to your painting.
Pick Shapes not Things
A lot of us see a vase, and start attempting to draw a vase. But in actuality, you should really see its general shape not the object itself. Is it a rectangle? Is it a triangle? Draw that shape and then you can fill in the details later.
Use Silhouettes
The general outline of something is probably the most defined part, the parts within can usually be blurred a little and kept more abstract.
Do this painting in 30 minutes
If you were told that, you would definitely only draw the outline silhouettes and pick the most important details! Try that as a challenge and you’ll be forced to prioritize!
Start with your Primary Colors
White / Yellow / Red / Blue
These are the colors that you can’t get by mixing. These are always the ones you put on your painters palette because you can make the other colors from these 4 colors.
Be aware of the Color we’re all Bathed in
When you start your painting, just note if you’re out on a “sunny day” or in a “cool dry place” because there will be a dominant color that the entire scene is bathed in, so you might have a warmer reddish glow or a bluer colder shadow, so that will determine the eventual color you start with.
Relationship of Shapes — SIZE MATTERS
If you’ve ever wondered why most painters take their thumb or the edge of their paint brush, look at their subject, then look at their canvas, and then repeat over and over and over is because they’re trying to measure the general relationship of the shapes and the sizes in comparison so they can replicate it on their canvas.
So that is exactly what we did for our first class. We ignored the objects themselves and just started painting the shapes.
The Materials
We used water based paint so you could just wipe off the paint with a wet paper towel and start over.
Conclusions
All in all, it was a fantastic learning experience! I highly recommend going out and learning something that you’re a complete Newbie at because it really starts using different parts of your brain and gets you out of your normal routine! I felt like a kid again and the joy of learning something new has reignited my artistic passion!
:) If you enjoyed this post, please consider sharing it with others and scrolling down and recommending it with a heart. ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤
Jonathan Chew is a Disney Imagineer, Positopian multipotentialite, writer, coach, inspirational speaker, and work-in-progress. He lives in Los Angeles with his newly-wedded wife. He’s on Twitter @jonathangchew, is the co-author of Secrets to Being a World Changer, and is on a mission to “Chews” Joy.
