how to start a painting: Use five easy steps to start any art painting

Painting is fun!

Set aside time to paint.

Painters progress rapidly when they paint regularly. Dedicated artists have painted daily for generations.

Have a special place for painting your art.

If it's possible, have an area where you can leave your paintings things out.

Make a place for your own home art studio. You will be more likely to paint often.

After you learn how to start a painting, practice by painting regularly.

The more we practice, the better we paint!

Paint from your own photos.

A good place to start painting is to paint something you see around you. We are familiar with our surroundings. 

We do a better job of painting the things we know.

You may have photos you took on your vacation, a photo of your pets or flowers, etc.

Please Note: Photos from a postcard, calendar or a magazine are under copyright laws.

Do not copy them directly without giving credit to the photographer.

Artist's paintings are also copyrighted.

The best bet is to use your own photos.

We may go on line and use free images that have no copyright restrictions.

Painting is Joy!

When you are thinking about how to start a painting, decide how much time you are going to spend painting.

If your time is limited, smaller paintings are a good choice.

Painting smaller will still give us the satisfaction of completing a painting.

Large paintings will often take several sessions before the painting is complete.

Small things like hummingbirds or butterflies normally go into a small format. Landscape and seascape paintings are usually painted larger.

This drawing was done on paper first.

Do watercolor drawings on a separate piece of paper.

Then transfer the drawing to your selected painting surface with graphite paper.

If you are good at drawing, you may lightly sketch the drawing on the watercolor painting surface.

Do the drawing without erasures, so you don't damage the painting surface.

Use a graphite pencil. A hard pencil is better to use, so there will not be extra graphite to show thru in the finished painting.

This drawing was done on the canvas.

Do an outline sketch of the composition.

Paint the outline with thinned yellow paint directly on the canvas.

If you don't like a line, rub it out with a rag or a paper towel and paint it again.

Pale yellow lines are easy to paint over. The yellow will not show in the final painting.

If there is a lot of detail in the painting, do the drawing on paper first. Then transfer the drawing to the canvas.

Do not use carbon paper for the transfer. Graphite paper is best.

Choose a painting color scheme.

It's good to not use all the colors from our paint box in one painting.

There are so many beautiful colors, but two to five colors will create a harmonious painting.

Select a painting color scheme that will give cohesiveness and punch to your paintings.

A painting with too many colors is disconcerting. The viewer's eye doesn't know where to go.

Many additional colors can be mixed from the selected two to five colors.

The hummingbird was painted with only four colors.