Learn How to Begin Painting

You can learn how to paint beautiful artwork right at home.

Start your art journey with this beginner-friendly guide. It will help you choose a medium, buy only the supplies you need, learn the basics of good painting, and complete your first step-by-step tutorial.

Whether you want to paint in oil, watercolor or acrylic, you can begin and grow your skills one painting at a time.

You can learn how to paint art with beginners tutorials and tips.

Enter the awesome world of painting!

You do not need:

Lots of supplies
Strong drawing skills
Years of experience

You only need:

A simple setup
One beginner tutorial
A little practice

How to begin painting:

Pick a medium - Buy simple supplies - Paint your first tutorial

Simple Beginner Path to Your First Painting

If you’re brand new to painting, start with Sections 1, 2, and 3 then choose one beginner tutorial in Section 5.

If you’ve already painted a little, feel free to jump straight to the tutorials and come back to the other sections whenever you need them.

1. Do You Wonder What to Paint?

Deciding what to paint is an important step.

When we begin painting it's important to choose subjects that truly inspire us. Paintings are personal. They are like a part of ourselves. Our feelings show through in a painting and they help us paint.

Keep a watch for things to paint.

The best place to start painting is with the things around us. When we see something often, we have a better idea of its form and colors.

Nature, pets, flowers, birds, favorite places, and everyday objects can all become beautiful paintings.

Look at things with an artist's eye.

Observe the color of things and how they change in light and shadow. Run your eyes around the shape of things, imagining you are drawing an outline.

Start a file of painting ideas.

Look for subjects in your yard, home, travels, or favorite photos.

If you don’t have time to sketch, take pictures so you can return to the idea later.

Need more inspiration? Visit Painting Ideas for simple ways to find subjects for future artwork.

2. Which Painting Medium Should You Choose?

You may actually try different types of paint to decide which one you prefer.

The most popular paint types are watercolor, oil, acrylic, and fast drying alkyd.

Watercolor is a popular painting medium.

Watercolor is easy to learn.

Each one has its own advantages, but watercolor and oils are two of the most rewarding mediums for beginners who want to learn step by step.

Watercolor is often used for delicate, intricate works. It makes wonderful paintings.

Oil dries slower, allowing the artist time to blend and rework the passages before it dries.

Acrylic paint is fast drying and relatively inexpensive.

Alkyd is fast drying oil paint. It is the best of two worlds. It looks and handles just like oil paint, but it dries completely within 24 hours.

Student vs. Artist Paint

Student quality paints are less expensive and they are certainly good for learning.

Artist paints (professional paints) are actually a better buy. They cost more than student paints because they contain more pigment. So, they cover better and produce more vibrant colors.

Visit an extensive explanation of these 4 popular paint mediums.

Choose Your Medium with a Few Simple Questions:

Do you want more time to blend and adjust your paint? Choose oil or alkyd.
Do you enjoy transparent, luminous color where the white of the paper shines through? Choose watercolor.
Do you prefer rich, opaque coverage? Choose oil, alkyd, or acrylic.
Do you want easy cleanup and no solvents? Choose watercolor or acrylic.

Then start here:

If you want watercolor, begin with the beginner watercolor tutorials.

If you want oil, alkyd, or acrylic, begin with the beginner oil tutorials.

Budget Supplies for Beginners

Start small. A simple kit is enough for your first paintings, and it keeps the focus on learning instead of shopping.

It's easy to learn to paint with:

Paint: All mediums start with the primary colors; red, yellow, and blue. Cadmium Red
Cadmium Yellow Light
Ultramarine Blue
Brushes: #8 and #12 flats for oil and alkyd | #8 round and a 1" flat, labeled for 'watercolor' | #6 round and 3/4" flat 'acrylic' brushes
Palette: an old kitchen plate or a Styrofoam plate for mixing paint
Paint on: paper or canvas labeled for your paint type
Clean-up: paper towels and water for acrylic and watercolor | Gamsol odorless mineral spirits for oils and alkyds

After a few paintings, you may want to try extra colors or brushes. It’s better to start small, paint more, and slowly add to your supplies later.

Before you buy anything else, here’s the one concern beginners have.

Do You Need Drawing Skills Before You Start?

No. You do not need to be good at drawing before you begin painting.

As you paint, you naturally become more familiar with shapes, proportions, and the structure of things. That means your drawing skills often improve along the way.

Some beginner tutorials let you trace a simple outline, and others show you how to draw the subject using very basic shapes. So don’t let drawing hold you back from starting.

Do we have to know how to draw in order to start painting?

In some tutorials you can trace the outline from the finished painting like in this dog painting tutorial.

You can draw this butterfly step by step.

In others, like the butterfly tutorial, I guide you step by step through a very simple drawing.

Quick Start – Simple Drawings (5–15 minutes)

Start looking at things as simple shapes - a triangle for a Christmas tree, a square for a sandwich, or a circle for a ball.
Select 2-3 simple shapes you see. Ex. a book, flower pot, orange, etc.
Draw the outline of their outside shape (no details, just the entire shape).

When we get the shapes right, our subject automatically starts looking like what it is.

As you paint, you’ll gradually pick up more drawing skills, so don’t wait to be “good at drawing” before you start painting.

3. Essential Techniques of Oil and Watercolor

If you're eager to learn how to paint, understanding the essential rules and techniques can make all the difference.

Begin painting with the techniques to fuel your confidence as an artist. Explore essential techniques of oils and watercolor with a short painting of each.

Note: Acrylic and alkyd use the oil techniques.

How to Do Oil Painting

Oil painting offers a unique richness and depth for beautiful artwork.

This section will guide you through the crucial steps to create oil paintings, so you get the most out of this classic medium.

The Rules of Oil Painting

There are 2 rules for painting oil, alkyd, and acrylic.

Paint oils DARK to LIGHT and THIN to THICK.

Paint the dark colors thin.
Paint the medium values.
The lights and details are painted last with thick paint.

This short painting is an excellent way to get the feel of oil painting.

Supplies

Get your supplies and try it!

Phthalo Blue and white paint, you could also use a dark brown, black or Prussian Blue.

8x10" canvas or a canvas board in any size you have.

A flat brush is ideal for painting the edges of the mountains.

A good way to paint a landscape is to start at the top of the canvas and paint down. The closer items overlap those behind, thus creating distance.

Portraits or other paintings may be done in a different order.

Sketch the Large Shapes

Outline the large shapes with paint thinned with a solvent.

It's easy to make any adjustments by wiping off the thin paint.

Start Painting at the Top

Start painting the sky in the landscape tutorial.

Mix the sky color with your blue and white with just enough solvent to make the paintable.

Paint darker at the top and add more white as you paint down.

Smooth it out with a clean brush after painting the mountains.

Start Painting the Darks

Paint the mountains from the back to the front with THIN, DARK paint.

Each mountain coming forward is darker than the one behind. This creates distance in the painting.

The back mountains are lighter at the base to simulate the mistiness.

More Darks + Medium Values

Continue painting the dark values and medium colors.

Paint the reflections in the water with fewer color variations.

Paint the dark mountains first, then the medium value ones, and lastly the light sky reflection.

The dark reflections are slightly lighter and the light reflections are a little darker.

Details and Highlights

Paint the details and any necessary touch-ups.

Using a clean brush, blend the brush marks away in the sky to move it back into the distance.

Make any other final adjustments you desire.

Load your brush with THICK, LIGHT color. Stroke the highlights on the water horizontally.

How to Watercolor

Begin painting watercolor, it's an exciting journey that allows you to explore the delicate interplay of light and color.

In this section, we’ll cover the step-by-step process that will help you create watercolors with ease.

The Essentials of Watercolor

Watercolor is painted the opposite of oil painting techniques.

Do a light pencil sketch, then begin painting.

Paint watercolor LIGHT to DARK:

Start with light washes of color.
Paint the darker colors and glaze the washes darker where applicable.
Detail and finish; scratching out highlights, darken where needed, any small brushwork, etc.

This painting uses the primary colors of yellow, red and blue.

It was done using a round Black Velvet watercolor brush on a small watercolor tablet that's ideal for practice. Watercolor Supplies

Do a Light Pencil Sketch

Do a light sketch for the watercolor painting.

In a landscape painting, it is not necessary to draw every little detail.

Go for the big shapes.

Good composition places the waterline above or below the center.

Sketch the outline of the two big rock formations. The fore-ground rocks are painted in later.

Start with Light Washes

Turn the paper upside-down.

Start the watercolor painting with light washes.

Wet the entire paper except for the big rock.

Start painting at the horizon line with yellow, add red, then add blue.

The wet paper blends the colors as you paint.

Continue Light Colors

Turn the paper upright.

Start painting at the edge of the water with yellow and add red.

Then paint blue going down to the bottom edge of the paper.

This blue can be slightly darker than the blue in the sky.

Paint the Darks

Mix a dark color with a combination of red, blue and yellow. Paint the first wash on the rocks.

The three primary colors always mix to make neutral colors that harmonize with the rest of the painting.

Finish Darks and Detail

Glaze darker colors on the rocks and the foreground water - about glazing.

Mistakes can be corrected. I pulled yellow off the distant water with a damp brush to define the waterline and then added a touch of blue.

4. Painting Fundamentals Every Beginner Should Know

Good paintings are built on a few important basics: composition, color, values, and a focal point.

You do not need to master everything at once. Learn one idea at a time, then use it in your next painting.

How Can I Design Good Paintings?

Composition is the arrangement of the parts of your painting. A good composition helps guide the viewer’s eye and gives your artwork balance and interest.

The rule of thirds is how to paint an easy composition.

Composition is easy.

The composition draws the viewers in and guides them throughout the painting.

The rule of thirds makes composition easy for the beginner.

It ALWAYS creates a good composition, so you can concentrate fully on the process of painting.

The painting surface is divided into nine equal portions. The main subject is placed on the lines or intersections.

This automatically creates balance and interest in your artwork.

Get more information on how to use the rule of thirds for good compositions.

Composition - Thumbnail challenge: (5–15 minutes)

Take any simple subject (a mug, a plant, a window).
Draw 3 tiny rectangles (about 2 x 3 inches).
Arrange the subject differently in each rectangle (close-up, from above, left/right).

Circle the thumbnail that feels most interesting. Why does this one work better?

How Do I Mix and Use Colors?

Color is one of the artist’s most powerful tools. As you learn to mix and use color well, your paintings become more lively, expressive, and beautiful.

Practice mix colors from the primary colors.

Color is fun!

Practice mixing more colors from the three primaries, red, yellow and blue.

Mix oil, alkyd or acrylic with a palette knife because it uses less paint.
Watercolor is mixed with a brush.
Use small dabs of paint and slowly mix bits of the darker color to the lighter color until you get the desired color.

Color can become one of your most precious tools.

Learn the ins-and-outs of how to mix colors.

Quick Start - Mix Your Own Colors (10 –15 minutes)

1. Put a small amount of each primary color (red, yellow, blue) on your palette.

2. Mix the secondary colors:

Red + yellow = orange
Yellow + blue = green
Blue + red = violet

3. Bonus: How to Mix Tertiary Colors

Yellow + orange = yellow-orange; red + orange = red-orange
Yellow + green = yellow-green; blue + green = blue-green
Blue + violet = blue-violet; red + violet = red-violet

Great job! You have mixed 6 new colors that you don't have to buy.

Common Beginner Mistake: Ignoring Values

One of the most common beginner mistakes is paying attention to color while ignoring values.

Values are the lightness and darkness of color, and they give paintings depth, contrast, and strength.

The most common mistake of beginning artists is ignoring values.

Values make impactful artwork.

Simply ignoring values is easy to do when we are just starting out.

When all the colors in a painting are close to the same value, the picture looks flat and dull, no matter how pretty the colors are.

When you use a range of light, medium, and dark values, your paintings become more interesting and impactful.

Values are used to suggest depth and distance, make objects look three-dimensional, and place one object in front of another.

As you are learning to paint, begin training your eye to notice light and dark values, not just colors.

Quick Start - Practice Seeing Values

Select 2-3 paintings you admire, at work, online, in a book or magazines.
Snap a photo of each one with your phone and convert the photos to grayscale (black and white).
Look for the lights and darks. Where are the lightest areas? The darkest?
Now do the same with 2-3 paintings that feel “unimpressive” to you. Compare the grayscale versions. Do they have less contrast in values?

Notice how much the contrast in values affects the impact of the painting. That's why values are called the backbone of a painting.

Try This -

Before your next painting, do a tiny value study with just 3 values; light, medium, and dark. Then use that as a guide when you paint in color.

You’ll see a big difference when you use a good range of light, medium, and dark values in your work.

How Do I Choose the Right Colors for My Paintings?

Each tutorial includes the colors used in that painting.

How do choose the colors for a painting?

This painting used only 3 colors.

For your own original work, a limited palette is often the easiest and most effective place to begin.

A simple way to choose your colors:

Decide on the main color for your main subject.
Choose a color that's opposite the subject's color on the color wheel.
Add a third color that highlights or complements the first two colors you selected.

See the details on how I chose the colors for the turtle painting.

Quick Start – Plan a Simple Palette (5–15 minutes)

1. Pick a subject you want to paint (for example, a flower or a cup of coffee).

2. Choose one main color for your subject.

3. Choose its opposite on the color wheel for your shadows and darks.

4. Add one extra color for small accents or highlights.

Next Step: Strengthen Your Fundamentals

After you complete one or two tutorials, visit these pages to strengthen the core skills that improve every painting.

Composition in Art
Values in Painting
Focal Point in Art
Color Wheel / Color Theory
How to Paint Good Art makes the fundamentals easy.

5. Grow Your Skills with the Beginner Tutorials

Whether you're drawn to the fluidity of watercolor or the rich textures of oil paint, these tutorials will equip you with the skills and knowledge to start painting these popular mediums.

The best way to learn painting is to paint. Step-by-step tutorials help you practice real skills to grow as an artist.

If you are new to painting, choose one beginner tutorial below and set aside time this week to paint it.

If you already have some experience, you can browse the full tutorial library.

Beginner Oil Tutorials

If you want more time to blend, soften edges, and build color gradually, start with one of these beginner oil tutorials.

These lessons are also helpful for acrylic and alkyd painters.

Start Here: Oil Painting for Beginners

Learn to begin painting oils with a step-by-step tutorial.

An oil tutorial for beginners

Next Step: How to Oil Paint

Learn to paint oils with a step-by-step tutorial.

You next oil painting lesson

Beginner Watercolor Tutorials

If you enjoy transparent color and lighter setup, begin with one of these watercolor tutorials. They introduce simple techniques in a gentle, step-by-step way.

Step 1: Your First Watercolor

A step-by-step tutorial of watercolor for beginners.

Start with watercolor for beginners.

Step 2: Next Watercolor Painting

Learn more about how to paint watercolor while painting this beautiful Angelfish.

Paint 3 basic watercolor techniques.

Want to Paint Your Own Idea Instead of Following a Tutorial?

If you’re ready to create your own paintings, start with these two pages:

Step 1: Plan a Painting
Choose your subject, colors, materials, and a simple drawing.
Step 2: How to Start a Painting
Learn what to paint first and how to begin your first layers.

Frequently Asked Questions

We’ve covered what to paint, what supplies you need, the fundamentals, and your first tutorials. Here are a few more quick answers to common beginner questions.

How Do We Clean the Brushes?

Be sure and clean your brushes before the paint dries in the brush!

Clean brushes are a joy to use.

Watercolor and acrylic brushes clean-up with water.

Swish the brushes in a container of water. Acrylic may require some mild soap the get all the paint out.

Oil paint is cleaned up with odorless mineral spirits. Gamsol is recommended for studio painting.

Lay the cleaned watercolor and oil brushes flat, horizontally to dry.

Don't put them upright to dry, stuff will run down into the ferrule and eventually ruin the brushes.

Is Oil Painting Harder Than Watercolor for Beginners?

I don’t think oils are harder (I’m a bit biased, because I learned with oils!). Oils dry more slowly, which gives you extra time to blend and adjust. Watercolor is beautiful but less forgiving, because it dries faster - making adjustments harder.

You can learn to paint in any medium with a good teacher and some patience - choose the one that excites you most.

How Do I Set-up My Painting Place?

The two most important things you need in your own art space are good light and ventilation. Aside from that you'll need a place to keep your supplies.

When I started painting, I kept my supplies in a fishing tackle box. We don't have to be fancy, just convenient - so we are ready to paint at any time.

Get some easy tips on setting up your home art studio.

How Long Does It Take to Learn How to Paint?

There’s no single answer. How fast you learn depends mostly on how much and how often you paint. For example, one person might paint once a month for 6 hours, while someone else paints four times a month for 1½ hours each time.

The more frequent painter usually improves faster, because skills grow with regular practice, not just long sessions.

How Often Should I Practice Painting as a Beginner?

Daily painting puts our learning into warp drive!

Many of us can’t paint every day. But painting once a week is a fast track to steadily becoming a confident, proficient artist.

The key is to paint as often as your schedule allows, and keep coming back to it.

Is Student Paint a Better Buy?

Student paint is enticing because it costs less.

We have to use more student paint to get the same vibrant colors as artist paints. Why? Student paint contains less color pigment and more other ingredients.

If you do opt for student paints, Winsor Newton student paint has excellent colors. Their student oils are labeled "Winton", and student watercolor is "Cotman".

If any of these painting concepts feel unfamiliar, visit the glossary of art terms for simple definitions used throughout painting.

You Can Learn How to Paint

Let your creativity flow!

As you explore the different techniques and subjects, focus on the joy of creating and allow each painting to teach you something new.

Don’t hesitate to experiment, express yourself and find your style. That's the joy of painting!