Painting for Beginners

by Marcia Burtt

Great news!  If you’ve never made a painting before you won’t be hampered by all the “dos and don’ts” that confuse and constrict people who have studied art.

Remember: 1) no one but you can make a painting just like yours; 2) you’ll truly enjoy yourself if you don’t worry about what anyone else would say or do; and 3) if something bothers you about your painting, change it.
Art is the one activity in which you make the rules.

Because they are quick drying and opaque, acrylic paints do not demand planning. Changing your mind constantly is not a problem and in fact can add to the spontaneity and freshness of the end product.
However if you prefer to plan you may draw out your design first in pencil, charcoal, or with thin lines of paint. Just remember that what you liked in linear form may not look as good to you when painted, so feel free to paint outside the lines or completely obliterate them as you go.

To begin, decide whether you prefer to paint from your imagination or from a photograph or from life.

If you like the idea of painting from your imagination, simply mix a color you love on the palette and put it on the canvas. Or use any color at all! You can paint over it any time. There is no right or wrong way to apply paint. Adding a bit of water makes the paint smooth and thin and it will dry faster. Putting the paint on thickly means it will take longer to dry. This could be an advantage as you moosh it around, add a tiny bit of another color, or just enjoy the texture. One patch of color can inspire you to use the same color elsewhere on the canvas or to add another color nearby.
Simply keep going, adding a tiny bit of one or both other colors, or white or gold, until you are happy with a section of your canvas. Then work on another part until the whole canvas is covered. Let it dry while you set it on a shelf to take a good look; turn it upside-down to see it with fresh eyes. (One professional trick: turn your back on your painting and look at it from five or six feet away in a hand mirror to get a new view.)
Continue working on it or call it done!

If you want to work from a photograph, turn the photo upside down and paint your canvas that way. You’ll see the actual shapes, angles, and colors much more clearly this way. Avoid trying to paint details; if you get large shapes fairly accurate in color and size you will be amazed when you turn your painting over. Turning the photo over periodically will let you know if there are parts you want to emphasize – then turn it upside down again and continue painting until you’re satisfied.

To work from life, try to keep from thinking what things are. Try to see them as simple shapes and colors. This isn’t easy, as we have spent our lives “knowing” what we’re looking at. Pick a simple subject, but try to see the colors, subtleties, and elegances of line in it. Try to overlook details.

Color: When it comes to color, work bravely and trust yourself to believe what’s in front of you. Don’t think, “green” and put down green when you see a tree – try to mix a color that truly matches the color you see. It might be a brownish-grey color, with barely any green in it. Here in California most of our trees are not actually very green. In any case, there are thousands of greens out there, each with its admixture of cyan, magenta, yellow, white.
As you create your painting, you may get a momentary sense of a color that you don’t see on extended looking. Trust that moment and put in the color. Your painting will become more exciting. Gaugin said, “If you see blue in a tree trunk, make it as blue as possible.”
            The relative lightness or darkness of the scene in front of you is what painters refer to as “value.” As long as the values in your painting are close to what you observe, you can use any color at all and the painting will still be readable. Matisse did a famous portrait of his wife that had a shadow running down her forehead, nose, and chin caused by light coming from two sides. The painting was called “Green Shadow” because he painted her skin green. Nevertheless it is perfectly recognizable and a famous piece of 20th century art.

Drawing: It’s not necessary to be able to draw accurately to make a wonderful painting. The best painter I know has limited drawing abilities. But if you want to accurately represent what’s in front of you, try this: imagine a horizon line and a line perpendicular to it. When you look at what you want to paint, try to measure the approximate angle from the vertical or the horizontal, and then reproduce that on your canvas. Try to compare the lengths and sizes of objects with each other so they are relatively correct too.
            Another simple drawing habit that works because acrylic dries so quickly is this: it’s always easier to draw the shape around what you are interested in. You can see the shape around a tree or fence post much more easily than drawing the tree or post itself. That’s because we are human and tend to see abstract ideas rather than particular shapes. Painting around something is called painting the negative shape. Using acrylic paints allows you to re-see an object or shape dozens of times until you get it the way you want by repainting the negative shapes.
            When I paint a tree, for example, I sometimes think of the blobby mass I first put down as somewhat like making a model out of clay. When I paint the negative shape around it to more correctly define the tree, I imagine I am cutting away the clay. If I cut away too much, I paint on more “clay” and do it again.

Technical matters:

Keep a spray bottle full of water nearby to keep the colors damp while you’re painting. Acrylics dry quickly so let your brush stand in water when you’re not using it; rinse it well if you’re going to take a break longer than a couple of hours.

Squeeze a small amount of each color on the palette or a piece of cardboard, leaving plenty of space between blobs. The palette is simply a convenient surface for mixing colors before you put them on your painting. It is quite all right to mix colors directly on the canvas or even to squeeze them out of the tube right onto the canvas. The only down side to this would be that you could get so much paint on the canvas it would take too long to dry or leave thick blobs you’d later regret.

You can make any color you choose from magenta, cyan, yellow, and white. Most interesting colors are a mix of all of the primary colors in differing proportions. It’s fun and challenging to try to make colors you cannot name. Try to avoid thinking “green, red, blue” when painting. Keep in mind that white dulls the intensity of any color – but perhaps you want your colors less intense.
Interference gold is just for fun! Experiment and you’ll see why.

You can achieve subtle effects by thinning the paint and “scumbling” over what you’ve already done so some or most of the previous surface shows through. You can also mix a color you like, wipe most of it off the brush onto your rag, and drag the nearly dry brush over an area of your painting to get a richer color. Use a coat of thick new paint to revise or cover something you want to change completely.

To avoid contaminating a new color you are mixing with the last one you used, wipe your brush on your rag (an old washrag is perfect), dipping the brush in water between wipes. If you want a pale clear color, you may need to rinse your brush out between colors, but normally it’s not necessary.

Note: if paint dries in the brush (or on your clothes), alcohol will dissolve the paint if you soak and scrub.

PAINT BOX. Buy a fishing tackle box (NOT an art bin) with molded dividers--one compartment for each color. The molded dividers are important because paint can leak from one compartment to another if the dividers are the slip-in kind. Buy a box that forms a groove where the lid closes over the bottom. This is superior to a simple lid, which may allow moisture to escape too quickly. I like Plano model 6102.

SPRAY BOTTLE.   This is essential when painting outdoors. If possible, locate yourself under a tree. But when you’re in the sun, especially on dry or windy days, you’ll need to lightly but repeatedly mist your paints. If you paint inside for any length of time, add a couple of spoons of vinegar to the spray water to kill mold spores. Ultraviolet light takes care of this for outdoor painters.

FOLDING EASEL.

My first choice would be the original Jullian French easel with a full box. This is great if you never paint far from your car, but if you plan to carry your easel fairly long distances I recommend the Jullian French easel with half box. Buying a really good packpack you can fit this into will save your arms and back.

See http://www.dickblick.com/products/jullian-original-french-easel/

My recent experience is that even the Jullian easels are not as good as they used to be; however, I haven't found anything better and I still rely on this brand.

Note: especially if you use your easel a great deal, and particularly if you like to paint big, YOU MUST BUY AND CARRY WITH YOU a small Phillips head screwdriver. Each and every time you set up your easel, tighten the small screws around the hinge area. Even the torque of pushing your brush to the canvas repeatedly will cause these screws to loosen; if you let them get too lose they will eventually ream out the hole and you'll have to use a longer, wider screw to hold the brass to the wood. Soon after that the wood will split. All this can be avoided if you are disciplined about tightening these screws every single time.

FOLDING STOOL OR TABLE.  I use a simple folding stool to support the paint box if I’m hiking any distance. Closer to my car, I like a somewhat taller and more stable folding plastic side table made for backyards and picnics, available at hardware stores or places like Target or Costco. The strain on my back is less if I don’t have to bend over so far each time I pick up a dab of paint.

PALETTE.  Since it's impossible to remove dried-on layers of acrylic paint from the beautiful folding wooden palette which comes with the French easel, give the palette to an oil-painting buddy and make a throw-away palette out of two pieces of foam board or cardboard, cut to fit inside your folded French easel. Hinge the two pieces together to make a folding palette. This is lightweight and cheap, and can be used for months until paint buildup renders it too heavy. It’s not necessary to gesso it before using. I set this open palette crosswise on the drawer of the French easel, open the fishing tackle box on the stool, and then proceed to pick up bits of paint from the tackle box and mix them on the palette. This frees up my hands so I can use one to hold the brush and the other to hold a good cotton paint rag.

CANVAS.  I love white portrait canvas that will show brilliantly through a thin wash. Synthetic canvas is great for using with acrylic, although I have come to prefer linen. I highly recommend linen-covered panels from Tim Giles of New Traditions Art Panels. I like AC 14 linen, an irregular but fine surface suitable for portraits or landscapes.

PAINTS.  My palette consists mostly of cadmium and quinacridone colors. This is because you can always simulate any earth tone by mixing these colors, but if you use only earth tones you can never get a bright cadmium orange.

BRUSHES.  You can truly suffer trying to make a painting with bad brushes. A good brush is a tool that will help you easily accomplish what you want. My favorites are the Isacryl brushes by Isabey, and the University Gold brushes by Winsor & Newton. These are both synthetics, but they have plenty of snap and retain their shape for years. You should have at least one large (1” or wider) quality brush. I like brights because they are short and stiff; I like to carve shapes with their thin edges.

The method. Acrylic paint lends itself particularly well to working as I do, spontaneously but with a tendency to continuously assess and rework. I begin by using a large brush--an inch and a half or two inches wide isn't too big for a large canvas--to create large areas of color. I ordinarily skip drawing altogether, as I have found that I see and focus differently when I am using a tool that makes lines as opposed to a tool that creates planes of color. Even an excellent line drawing is doomed to be eradicated as I see the shapes differently with a brush in my hand.