Practice your art

In part three of my series noting my observations from the podcast “Learning to paint”. I talk about the importance of practising your art. I discussed the reasons for these pages on the blog page Learning to Paint; part one Colour Theory and part two Composition are also available.

As if the picture doesn’t say it enough, then every one of the artists on the podcast definitely did. You cannot get better if you do not practice.

• Paint as often as you can, every day if it’s at all possible.
• Practice, Practice Practice – you can never practice enough
• Paint 100 paintings, maybe by 101 you will like what you’ve done.
• Don’t assume you can paint as soon as you pick up a paintbrush.
• Practice, Practice Practice – you can never practice enough!
• You don’t expect a musician to be able to play their instrument without practice, so why assume that of your art?
• All paintings have an “ugly” stage. Keep on working through it.
• Put the painting to one side for a day, week, years if you have to, one day you will come back to it and will have the experience to know how to finish it.
• Practice, Practice Practice – you can never practice enough!!
• There is no “right way” to make art, but there are ways to make it better.
• There is no “wrong way” to make art, but there are ways that can make it worse.
• Make a Study = Make a Copy. This means copy from the masters, recreate their paintings, learn what they did, how they did it, then take it to your creative practice and make your own painting.
• Practice, Practice Practice – you can never practice enough!!
• Knowing how to draw will help knowing how to draw with paint
  • But it is not necessary to draw in pencil first if you are confident with the brush
  • But if you can’t draw the basics, Learn
• Use photo references.
• Paint an image, Copy the technique and then learn from it.
  • Once you’ve done all that, find a similar image of your own and make a study.
• You are always learning, you will never be “done” with learning. Some new skill or technique will come up and you will want to know about that.
• When posting on social media – ALWAYS credit the original artist if you are displaying a study of their work.
• Credit an artist when you have been INSPIRED by their work.
• Practice, Practice Practice – you can never practice enough!!
• Expect to make mistakes
• Expect to throw stuff away / paint over it – learn from that
• Ultimately Practice – spend as much time on the canvas as you can afford to do, you will only get better with practice. 

If I am honest, practising is is probably the thing I struggle with the most. I want my painting perfect as soon as I step up to the canvas. I struggle with having to see the ugly stage, I hate not knowing how to do something, I loathe the idea of repeating an image time and again just to practice it. And yet if I could only get over that and listen to what I’ve written here I would be getting better. That said, I can absolutely see my own progress over the last few weeks, when I can dedicate time to my art, I can see what I can achieve.

Linked posts :

*** Learning to Paint *** Colour Theory *** Composition ***

Disclaimer: 

All opinions expressed here are my own.
I paid for any products discussed.
I received no payment and I am not affiliated in any way with any brand mentioned herein.