I’d love to share some acrylic painting tips. I hope these painting tips allow to achieve more and paint better.
Giving up before seeing potential
I feel sad when some students discontinue classes just after one month. I can see the potential in attempts, but people with little experience in drawing and art usually don’t. All it takes is usually adding a few dark and light spots, adjustment of edges and straightening out a few shapes. In fact, any acrylic painting can be whatever the artist expects it to be if we keep working on it and don’t stop prematurely.
If you know how to, you can improve anything
I’ve said that before: nobody becomes master within a few hours. Nobody. I also do not want students comparing their first attempts in art: this makes absolutely no sense. There was a reason artists used to cover up their art with a cloth and show it to nobody until the artwork was considered ready and finished. There are easy adjustments which can change the painted image to a great extent. We add tiny bit of sparkling light, sharp edge of very deep dark area, and everything improves.
Patience and ability to take risks
Patience and ability to take risks are two very necessary features for anybody who’d like to enjoy creating visual art. I have told this before: time-lapse demos make people believe that this is exactly the way one paints: one, two, three and here we go. In reality, we sometimes need to go over and over one spot for many times. With acrylic paint, there are no limitations of adding layers. We need to apply many layers to achieve volume and visually attractive effect.
Applying color versus building it up
Smearing on paint in one color is not the same as building it up. I have quite often seen transparent trees and flat buildings, not to mention flowers without any volume. That means, there was no dark color blocked in underneath and the light color was used only in 2 tones. That cannot make a structure or subject look like it is having dimensions.
Think layers
Many people have difficulties thinking in layers: the most distant, underneath it all layer, the middle value layer, the defining layer and the highlighting and detailing layer. It is in the human nature to try getting it right away. I’ve observed how students sometimes start with details which should be implemented at the end. This approach is fairly essential in acrylic painting because we have to work from dark to light and from distant to close: that’s how the image evolves.
Keep the color on
The other problematic issue is holding color on the spot we need it to be. We are practicing painting on a spot techniques. Quite often artist gets carried away and keeps blending and moving paint around until it results in everything being the same color. It is very important to learn using brush for painting on a spot which is like running on a spot: brush it on, but don’t move all around the canvas.
Brush must be clean
Finally, as I’m washing brushes after classes, I can immediately tell which brushes were used by me and which by students. My brushes are almost clean or have the last color in it. Students’ brushes are usually full of many colors, quite often dark colors which we applied at the beginning of the class. That means, the brush wasn’t cleaned during painting. That results in muddy and dirty colors which don’t shine and lack brilliance. We must clean our brushes frequently!
Painting is easy and extremely rewarding
We must have patience and allow for some time to get where we want to be. It depends also on what our goal is. Any painting is nice and great if we do not expect it to become a top art just after a few classes or painting attempts. We can notice fear and indecisiveness in brush strokes which lack confidence. Therefore, taking risks and experimenting is very important, especially, in visual art. We have to be persistent and even stubborn. I hope my painting tips help you!
Inspiration:
Great article– thanks. Your painting is amazing.
Thanks Peter! I have lots of observations, I’ve been watching students for more than 30 years, so it’s fairly clear what causes the most problems. This painting was done as a workshop reference. I am experimenting with gold in some images time to time.
Craft! Completely understand, Inese. It takes time, confidence and patience. Thank goodness your students have your experience to draw on.
It sure does, and I feel bad when somebody gets disappointed when this doesn’t happen right away. There are exceptions, but most often it is repeating and adding new skill.
Very thoughtful and detailed post Inese. Thank you.
Thanks! I actually touched only the top because there are lots of other things which should be taken into consideration. One of these things is overloading a small size painting with tiny details, and that results from use of photo references. I will have to switch back to sketches or heavily edited images.
Thank you Inese for sharing your observations. Certainly hope I have absorbed some of it!!
Thanks Susan for commenting! These are very simple things which can improve any acrylic painting to a big extent. I will cover some time also how values are always primary and colors are only secondary.
Hi Inese,
Thank you so much for this post. Just as I was reading this, I was picturing all of my paintings wondering if and how I could add more dimension. Your post was most inspiring, and your golden trees are wonderful!
Laura
Thanks Laura! I’m so glad somebody finds it useful. My observations show that these were issues students were most often struggling with.
Interesting that “all it takes is really just some adjustments bc that is how it is with writing. What weakens writing is usually just a few techniques one has not gotten down and repeats (and repeats). So when we clean (up) those few brush strokes, the whole piece takes on a different color. Patience and the willingness to take on risk. Aren’t these the path to success in all meaningful endeavors? The gold leaves are simply breathtaking.
Thanks so much! I would say patience and ability to take risks is a big deal, very true. I have also noticed that most often these are the only features lacking. That might be due to the internet sending out the wrong message or just because we can watch all kinds of videos where people are doing so many things with such an ease, one gets the impression that everything MUST be easy, effortless and entertaining. In fact, the beginning of any endeavor is work, patience, perseverance and consistency in correcting our own mistakes and fearlessly making new ones, or we won’t have any progress.
I love the fearlessness you speak of in “failing”. If teachers (including homeschoolers) and parents encouraged more of that, the world would be a totally different place.
Being afraid of making a mistake is a huge problem. While nobody of us does things to get them wrong or to make errors in the process, that happens. The more somebody does something, the more mistakes could happen. Therefore, it’s extremely important, we know how to handle our mistakes: just disregard, correct, start from new, so on. The worst part of this is that people are so afraid of being wrong or doing something wrong, they become extremely tight and there’s very little progress because this fear can be paralyzing.
I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work. – Thomas Edison
Exactly! I wish we all could implement this attitude!
I would love to take a class with you. I imagine I would improve enormously.
You certainly would! LOL It’s ok you paint just on your on because there is progress as long as we are interested in achieving whatever goal we have set for us.
Hi Inese, Could I register for the next acrylic painting class on Thursday evening starting Feb 11th? Connie
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You sure could, I will mark that. I will see how it goes, it might happen that during February I will have only Wednesday. I will let you know when I get to talk to current Thursday class.
Great advice! I think a lot of people (myself included) make the mistake of thinking that painting is easy… But as you say, there’s a lot more to it than that, and it takes time and patience to get it right! I love your golden leaves picture too 😀
Thanks! Painting is a very logical thing and with more or less efforts we can always figure out how we can achieve what we want. That involves mistakes, corrections and adjustments. The biggest misconception is probably to just smear on whatever color wherever and hope it will work. Instead, we have to very intentionally use whatever it seems right for the purpose. It definitely takes patience and time. It is so that watching time-lapse painting the feeling one gets is: it can be done within 10 minutes. That is misleading and, therefore, somebody less persistent feels disappointed. How so? Why didn’t it happen? It doesn’t normally happen with the first brush stroke. However, every single person can draw and paint because we can draw before we know how to write or are able to speak and we can draw and paint even after we have lost the ability to speak or write. Painting conveys thoughts and ideas better than spoken and easier than written word.
That’s so true! I’ve recently started to draw again, because I’ve found its the easiest way to get ideas out of my brain and communicate them to other people. At first I was nervous – my sketches are far from perfect – but now that I’m learning how to improve them, I’m really enjoying it!
I’m glad to hear drawing and sketching works for you, but when we think about it, drawing really is the easiest way to communicate many ideas which would be hard to describe in words. Have a great week!
Exactly! I dread to think what would happen if I had to organise custom orders without doing a sketch first! Enjoy your week 😀
I do sketches and drawings for all commissions, it certainly makes things easier and there are less misunderstandings.
Beautiful painting (:
Thanks! I appreciate you stopped by!
I haven’t painted in over thirty years. Now I am going full tilt this year with acrylic on wood. Loving it. Never had a lesson….just will. Thank you for encouraging people to never give up! Hope you have a minute and swing by to check out some of my work. Your work is excellent!
Thanks for your kind comment.
I agree that we can get accomplished anything if we want it genuinely.
I was most likely born with the gift of being able to draw, nobody ever told me to do it, but I just draw with whatever I had straight from a very early age. I didn’t have special pencils or papers, I would draw on anything.
Unlike you, many people have some kind of illusion that once you take a class, painting will happen from itself. It won’t. Painting or drawing becomes what one has put in it.
I am originally from Europe, and I like less technical and less theoretical approach. I find the North American way is too full of rules and must-haves and must-dos.
I am for artistic freedom which doesn’t require perfection or hyper-realistic (unaltered careful and meticulously detailed reproduction of a photo) results. I never cared for details which my eyes cannot see.
I am happy for everybody who has found his/her way to art and has started or has resumed painting or drawing. That is the link between device driven existence and purely natural human perception of reality. I have never met a person who regretted they did art or learned painting. Never. Art can be and become everything.