Ask HN: How can I learn how to paint?

I took a painting class in college and was stuck at one point making the initial drawing. I thought about using a projector and tracing it, but of course I didn't want to cheat, so I asked my professor. She thought it was a great idea! It would give me a pretty good drawing, and get me into the actual painting.

Some of the paintings done in that class had great drawings, some were quite disproportionate, but what the professor was really judging was not how good people were at drawing, but at "painting". Painting isn't "drawing, but with liquid color", it's its own thing.

If we make the distinction between drawing and painting we also gain a deeper appreciation into modern painting, and the reason it has evolved to be more abstract. The assistant for that class was a grad student in painting who didn't draw at all, but was developing some of the coolest paintings I'd seen by focusing on experimenting with the viscosity of the paint, the texture, and the colors. A lot of famous paintings have _alright_ drawings, but amazing use of color, detail, texture, etc— the material.

I agree with the sentiments that you have to spend time working with the materials. That's the "space of what painting is". I'd also look into color theory— it really is about what colors you put next to another, how you mix, and

Tips and exercises (some taken from my class):

- Tip. Get both Titanium White and Zinc White (if painting with acrylic paints). Get lots of white, a lot of colors will be the tiniest bit of some pigment and a whole scoop of white. Titanium white makes colors duller than Zinc white— think Titanium if you want that "pastel" vibe, Zinc if you don't. It depends on your style but I'd recommend getting more Zinc white.

- Tip. Different size brushes will make things much faster. I rarely used my fan brush.

- Exercise. Find magazines and cut a little squares of colors you like in them. It can be anything, but it has to be printed (ei, no digital images unless you print them). Find a combination you like out of these. Some colors go well with each other, some not as much, though what "well" means also depends on the what you want to convey through them (think, pastels? strong colors? warm colors? etc).

Try to recreate these colors with paint, such that if you were to drop the square in the middle, you wouldn't be able to tell it's there.

Try painting something with these colors!

- Exercise. Practice color recreation by not worrying about the drawing. Project an image on a canvas, trace it, and then paint it attempting to re-create the original colors as best you can.

- Tip. Disregard detail. Don't worry about showing brush strokes. At a certain distance, or when focusing on certain things, detail doesn't matter. You can certainly see it in impressionism, but even paintings shooting for realism too. At a glance one could call this painting [1] incredibly detailed, but if you zoom in and really see what the artist is doing in the coat you can see very wide brush-strokes! The embroidery— that's not how embroidery really looks. Some parts are just the general color, a wiggle of the brush, and white dots here and there.

Adding too much detail can make things noisy and distract people from what they should be looking at. It can also drop you into an "uncanny" valley of sorts, where things are just weirdly sharp and feel like they lack texture. Control what the viewer should focus on, and know you can give yourself a break on anything else.

A bit of a long post, sorry OP. Hope you find at least parts of it helpful.

[1]: https://www.theleidencollection.com/viewer/self-portrait-2/

On top of that, draw draw draw. This will out tremendously when painting (which is adds onto the skill of drawing and being able to "see" things as an artist).

Draw and paint because you want to. I get the sense from your post that you want to learn to paint because it would be an interesting skill to pick up. I'd say try drawing something and see if you like it. Honestly, you may not. Don't do it because it's a neat thing to be able to do.

It tell you how to suspend your judgement and get into a state of flow while drawing. The same can techniques can be applied to painting. Also spend some on quality material, you don't need to have a lot, but make it quality materials that inspire you.

I would highly suggest you take a class. There's a lot of basic tech stuff you need to learn (how to mix paints, wash brushes, prepare canvases) and after that come the rudiments of drawing and color.

I would compare it to learning to play an instrument. You want to pick up the violin and just express your emotions in music after a busy day, but to get there you need some initial help about where to put your fingers, advice from a teacher who knows the kind of pitfalls beginners fall into, and a lot of practice that can sometimes be frustrating.

But when you get there, it's very rewarding and enjoyable. Good luck to you!

EDIT: it's also helpful to have initial instruction so you can navigate the thicket of art supplies. They can get very expensive and the wrong ones, or inappropriate ones for your level of expertise, will make painting a misery.