Ask HN: How can I learn how to paint?

I have been taking some video courses at New Masters Academy, and they've been pretty good, I would give them a recommendation. They are more focused on traditional more realism centered art, so it might not be exactly what you are looking for, but check them out.

https://www.nma.art/

- lay out a small inch grid over your favorite painting [throw a painting into photoshop on a tablet to have greater zoom]

- focus on perfecting the small squares only not the larger piece, the fun is jumping around from your favorite puzzle piece and not going in order.

- once you're done remove the grid and blend in the edges of each square to it's adjacent one.

The hardest part about painting besides the techniques is composition.

Whether your work is representational or non-representational, it's extremely difficult to go from what you have in your head to what you put on the canvas.

If you have a thought, an idea, or even an emotion you should practice putting _that_ on canvas. The technique will come as you paint more and more. YouTube can help for some techniques if you want to figure out how to do something.

Really, just start painting and the rest will come. Experiment with texture, shape, and composition. Don't worry too much about color. When you start getting better at composition the colors become obvious. I'd even recommend your first few paintings just stay with a single color.

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But I am with you; Bob Ross videos on youtube.

After looking at a ton of youtube videos, taking art classes, and even an in-person atelier (drawing in a studio while being guided by a "master"), by far the best art teaching I've come across is Evolve Artist[0]. It focuses on taking small steps to get the fundamentals down solid. I expect it'll take me a few years to get through the whole course, but I can already tell my ability to draw from life and handle brushes and paint has improved dramatically. There's a lot of personal feedback based on what you do, and I've found that to be a really effective way to improve with art.

I'll put my pom-poms down now. I'm not affiliated with Evolve other than being a student. And my goal after 20 years of web dev work is to be a professional writer/illustrator, so I'm taking this art thing pretty seriously.

[0]https://evolveartist.com/