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Ask HN: How can I learn how to paint?

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Re: Ask HN: How can I learn how to paint?

#111

Post by watwut »

massivecali wrote: post #92
morley wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely there has to be some aesthetic guidance along the way? Up until my senior year of college, every writing course I took, I would never get any _aesthetic_ feedback on my work. In grade school, my grammar and spelling would get corrected, but otherwise, what I wrote was what I wrote. It wasn't until I took a sitcom-writing course in college that a teacher gave me feedback that would make my writing better: "this…

The problem with aesthetic guidance is it invariably leads to creation of 'product' over 'art'. Just because you can make a pretty painting doesn't make it art.

It still beating the "unable to create anything" state most people are in. Definitely I am. I would take ability to create pretty painting with mo art ability as it is miles better then now.

Re: Ask HN: How can I learn how to paint?

#112

Post by superpermutat0r »

kingkawn wrote: post #100
superpermutat0r wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like a very bottom up approach to painting. It requires tons of trial and error and time. The result is that only the most persistent learn how to paint well. If I were to try learning competitive programming, I'd much rather work through known algorithms and practice my problem solving, instead of trying to reinvent everything from sorting to iterative deepening search to number theoretic algorithms. I'd…

Tools too early in the process can seize control of the imagination. I agree completely; there is room for technique. But I prefer to let the student find where that room is by discovering something about themselves first, rather than vague promises of freedom that comes after satisfying arbitrary minimums. My preference as a teacher. A good student knows to overthrow my worldview when the time is right.

Well, it's definitely better if one has a teacher. Trial and error can be controlled and some direction can be given.

If I'm learning on my own I don't think I'd be able to find th e right direction most of the time.

Re: Ask HN: How can I learn how to paint?

#113

Post by ortusdux »

kingkawn wrote: post #59

I will tell you what I tell my students; To learn to make art you spend time working with the materials. That is it. When the urge arises to judge the quality of your work, it will be tempting to say this is good or this is bad. Take that energy that you might put into assessing the aesthetic and put it back into the materials instead. Persist and grow. Avoid aesthetic judgements, and instead produce work. Inevitably…

Reminds me of this advice from Ira Glass: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91FQKciKfHI

I often tell myself to 'mind the gap'

Re: Ask HN: How can I learn how to paint?

#114

Post by kingkawn »

superpermutat0r wrote: post #112
kingkawn wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tools too early in the process can seize control of the imagination. I agree completely; there is room for technique. But I prefer to let the student find where that room is by discovering something about themselves first, rather than vague promises of freedom that comes after satisfying arbitrary minimums. My preference as a teacher. A good student knows to overthrow my worldview when the time is right.

Well, it's definitely better if one has a teacher. Trial and error can be controlled and some direction can be given. If I'm learning on my own I don't think I'd be able to find th e right direction most of the time.

Stop trying to find the right one, that’s basically the crux of my approach.

Let it evolve outside of all that.

Re: Ask HN: How can I learn how to paint?

#115

Post by ericsoderstrom »

kingkawn wrote: post #59

I will tell you what I tell my students; To learn to make art you spend time working with the materials. That is it. When the urge arises to judge the quality of your work, it will be tempting to say this is good or this is bad. Take that energy that you might put into assessing the aesthetic and put it back into the materials instead. Persist and grow. Avoid aesthetic judgements, and instead produce work. Inevitably…

This advice reminds me of an anecdote from Art and Fear [1]. A ceramics teacher divided his classes into two groups. One group he told would be judged only based on the quality of the best pot they made, the other group would be graded based only on the number of pots they made. After the two classes had finished, the teacher noticed that all of the highest qualities works came from the class that was aiming only for quantity. It seems, at least for artistic/creative activities, simply diving in and making lots of attempts is the key to rapid improvement.

[1]: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/187633.Art_and_Fear?from...

Re: Ask HN: How can I learn how to paint?

#116

Post by forkandwait »

massivecali wrote: post #92
morley wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely there has to be some aesthetic guidance along the way? Up until my senior year of college, every writing course I took, I would never get any _aesthetic_ feedback on my work. In grade school, my grammar and spelling would get corrected, but otherwise, what I wrote was what I wrote. It wasn't until I took a sitcom-writing course in college that a teacher gave me feedback that would make my writing better: "this…

The problem with aesthetic guidance is it invariably leads to creation of 'product' over 'art'. Just because you can make a pretty painting doesn't make it art.

Well, some of us would be quite happy with pretty, and wonder if Art is all it's cracked up to be...

Re: Ask HN: How can I learn how to paint?

#117

Post by Dilacerate »

Others have this mostly covered it seems, but I'd add: it's easy to get discouraged when you start a painting, because everything looks rough, flat, and badly-proportioned. A lot of people tend to give up there, but the trick is to keep putting down more paint. Paintings by talented artists look the same as a bad sketch when they first start and only have one layer of paint down, but by the time a good-looking painting is done there are many layers of paint on it.

Re: Ask HN: How can I learn how to paint?

#118

Post by pault »

Years ago I found a thread on an art forum that started with the author saying he wanted to learn how to draw, and progressed from childish sketches of hands and spheres to master-level portraits. I can't find it for the life of me, but if anyone knows what I'm talking about I would love to get a link. :)

Re: Ask HN: How can I learn how to paint?

#119

Post by jason_slack »

I worked in an adult care facility. One of the patients, a 90 year old man, was a painter. He made so many of the pieces that hung around the facility.

We were friendly. He would talk to me. He would ask for me when he needed something. He told me I reminded him of his son.

He asked me one day if I knew how to paint. I said no. He asked if I wanted to learn. I said yes. He said go buy these supplies and show up here tomorrow morning. $500 later I was ready.

We watched Bob Ross literally for a week. Then he showed me how to gesso a canvas. Then we painted. And painted. And pulled all nighters like we were 20.

He passed away 2 months after. I still paint and I never would have otherwise.

Edit: just one funny thing I remember. This man asked my wife to the movies! She said yet. She went to pick him up but he was tired. They watched “Dumb and Dumber” (in 2017) and had popcorn. He fell asleep before the moves was 1/4 over. :-)

Re: Ask HN: How can I learn how to paint?

#120

Post by keithnz »

I'm a coder who learnt to paint, and what I did was attend a into course over a number of weeks and I found that was a really good way to do it (for me)... it was pretty cheap and it quickly broke my preconceptions. I went in wanting to be quite precise, and that is nearly the opposite of what you need to do. Painting is highly refactorable, mistakes don't doom your painting. A lot of the trick to painting is just to paint a lot and learn what paint does how it interacts with other paint and how you can manipulate it with various instruments ( brushes, etc )

If you are going to teach yourself, I reckon watching Bob Ross on youtube and try and follow along is not a bad way to go.

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