How to Start Painting: Beginners Guide

HOW TO START PAINTING? : BEGINNERS GUIDE

Everyone wants to paint and enjoy his or her time. However, there are lot of things to think about especially when one start to begin painting. Common questions and confusions pop up such as Which medium to use? How to begin? Where to start? This can a daunting phase and most people get really lost in this phase. My post will provide you with the right tool and tips required to start painting as hobby or as a business. Starting with a water-based medium such as acrylic is easiest. You don't have to deal with toxic solvents, and cleanup plus maintenance is much easier. The main difference between acrylic and oil is that acrylic dries fast so it takes less time to complete a work. Oil takes time to dry and is therefore easy to paint over and work in layers. The final oil painting output is just mind blowing.

MATERIALS NEEDED:

ACRYLIC PAINT:

Acrylic is a very flexible, durable, and excellent medium for beginners. Acrylics can be used thinly, like watercolor, or more thickly, like oil paint. They dry fast and can be painted over easily. They are water-soluble, requiring only water to thin the paint. Cleaning is easy with just soap and water. There are different grades of paint for students and for professional artists. Professional grade paints contain more pigment, but student grade is fine to start out with and easier on your budget. Start with just a few colors in order to learn how to paint values and get the feel of the paint before adding more complex colors. Start with acrylic painting set. It include all the basic colours to start painting and it is inexpensive compared to buy single tube paints. From a few colors, you can make an endless array of shade.

BRUSHES:

Brushes come in different sizes and shapes. Brushes size vary from brand to brand. Buy a brush with synthetic bristles (size 16 or ¾”). Try a starter set to experiment with different brushes. If you spend money for a good quality brushes then it will be worth as they keep their shape better and do not shed the bristles easily, resulting in long life. You can start with bigger brush (size 16 or ¾”) and use smaller brushes for details or smaller painting process.

PAINTING BASE:

The best and nice thing about acrylics is that you can paint on many different surfaces. Primed canvas panels are great because they are already primed, they are light-weight, and not too expensive. Other inexpensive options are paper on a board or pad, cardboard, wood, and of course, there is always stretched canvas available. You can try with any of these. But in the beginning you can use Paper. The paint goes on more smoothly if you also prime these with gesso first, but it is not necessary with acrylic.

PALETTES:

There are a wide variety of palettes available in the market such as glass palette, wooden palette, plastic palette, well palette, disposable palette paper. Some inexpensive palettes can be easily made at home by using our house hold things such as aluminium foil, butter paper, paper plates or even a wide plastic container.

OTHER MATERIALS:

You just need a few more things to unleash your dream in painting: containers for water (i.e., large yogurt containers, or beer pong cups or plastic cups), any cleaning cloth, a paper towel for wiping and drying your brushes, a spray bottle to keep your acrylic paints from drying out, a palette knife to mix acrylic colors, tape or clips to attach your paper to a board, and an easel or table for support.

That’s it! You're ready to start painting!

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