Some Beginners Advice

[Mark]

I haven't been painting for that long, but I have some serious drawing training under my belt, and long hours of painting study plus (not quite as many) hours of painting practice, so I hope you'll indulge me in my ramblings. Maybe someone will take my words to heart, and actually profit from my experience.

What I'm going to say is based on my own experience, things that I've learned the hard way from making mistake after mistake, but also from doing some stuff right. Take everything I say with a grain of salt, and always consult your physician before taking any medicine.

My first advice to beginners is nothing new: DRAW. Whether your aim is to paint realistically or not, LEARN-HOW-TO-DRAW. Practice it constantly, from life or from pictures. Copy great artists' works as frequently as possible. Get a good drawing manual, like the Bargue book or Loomis' books or Harold Speed's, take your pick, but work hard at it. Most of the same principles that go into painting also stand for drawing: lines, values, edges, the only thing missing is color. You'll be glad you did it when you start painting, after all, painting IS drawing with a brush.

When you get to painting, you can either jump straight into color or do as I did, and stick to grayscale studies. In order to avoid the coolish tones you'll probably get from Ivory Black or Mars Black, get something like Titanium White and Sepia instead. That's a really good way to get acquainted with oil paint without yet having to worry about color. Nothing wrong with color, of course. If you feel you're ready, go for it, but try to stick to a limited palette, like starting with White, Ultramarine and Burnt Sienna, adding one color at a time as you progress.

If you don't have someone locally to teach you, get some good books. Ones that I think are essential are Loomis' The Eye of the Painter, Harold Speed's Oil Painting Techniques and Materials, and last but not least Richard Schmid's Alla Prima. Mind you, actually seeing how it's done is MUCH better than reading about it, and will save you a LOT of time. Rent some painting videos if you can.

Get at least one good book on color theory. I'm not a Munsell advocate (nor a detractor), so I'll suggest Creative Color by Faber Birren. Not expensive, straight-forward, practical, very good.

Local Alternatives and usually available at all good Artshops in S.A. are the Walter Foster Books-How To Series and Artists Library.

As far as materials go, avoid student grade stuff. Get some good paint and brushes. If you want to save, paint on paper. All you have to do is get some heavy acid-free paper, and some acrylic gesso. Apply a couple of layers of gesso on your paper, on both sides if you want to avoid warping, and go to town. Your main concern right now is just to have a surface to practice on, and not have it too absorbent.

As for paints, a good idea is to buy big tubes of only a few colors that are staples, like Titanium White, Ivory Black (or other blacks of your choice), Yellow Ochre, Burnt Sienna, Burnt Umber, Cadmium Yellow Light, Ultramarine Blue, Cadmium Red Light, Alizarin (or a substitute). Keep it SIMPLE. Don't get every color in the catalogue. Don't worry about buying the very best (and usually very expensive) paint at first either. Even though I agree that student grade is not good enough, and will be yet another hindrance to a beginner, I believe there's no need for spending your hard earned cash on premium quality paints like Old Holland, Vasari and the like. If you have the money, go for it, it's not my problem. However, if you're not rich, believe me, it doesn't make that much difference. There's plenty of good archival oil paint in the market, and a lot of it is very reasonably priced, like Daniel Smith, M. Graham, Gamblin, Holbein, Sennelier, W & N, Rembrandt.

Overall, one of the most important pieces of advice I can give you is to STOP OBSESSING about what paint to use, what brush such and such painter uses, what color is the best for this and that. There's no need to worry about glazing, velaturas, Flemish techniques when you don't even know how to mix your colors or hold a brush properly yet.

Another thing to keep in mind is that copying the Old Masters or even current masters is not wrong. You can profit a LOT from doing it, and even if you trace it in order to paint you'll still learn plenty. Do it as often as possible, especially if you have the chance to do it in person at a museum.

The same advice goes to painting as for drawing: paint from life as often as possible. If you have to paint from photographs, learn how to get your own reference shots in a way that will help you, not hurt you. If you want to work exclusively from photos, you have to be as good (or better) at taking pictures as you are at painting.

Well, that's it for now. Of course that's all my personal opinion, not facts. YMMV. There's plenty more I'd like to say, but time is short.

Here are a couple of useful links:
http://www.fineart.sk (free .pdf downloads)
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14264/14264-h/14264-h.htmHarold Speed's The Practice and Science of Drawing
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=131117A huge list of links for free books for download

Don't forget to use the forum to its full extent. There are plenty of knowledgeable people in every forum to answer your questions, though you should use the search function before starting threads, as a lot has been discussed here over the years (none of what I've just written is new either).
The free reference library is a great asset too, so use it.

[Weeball]

That was some really good advice
Thanks!