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Ask HN: How can I learn how to paint?

238 points by scanny ↗ HN
Hiya, Just wondering if anyone has any advice/anecdotes about learning how to paint?

I saw a thread a while ago about working with stained glass that got a lot of interest, and thought maybe the folk here might know a thing or two about this as well.

I have really gotten into looking at the works of impressionists ( https://artsandculture.google.com/entity/m03xj1 ) like Monet and Edward Hopper's early work, and would love to try my hand at it. If anything it would be to get more of an appreciation for the art, and as an emotional outlet after writing code every day.

I am pretty independent and would like to do as much as I can myself before going to a course and wasting someones time trying to understand things I could learn on my own, and have a better foundation for learning.

Any input would be greatly appreciated.

165 comments

[ 5.2 ms ] story [ 227 ms ] thread
Jemaclus
I know a lot of people who have just painted along with Bob Ross. Maybe that's an option?
bovermyer
Besides being a fun way to paint, this is also a relaxing, almost meditative exercise.
tabtab
Not when I screw up :-)
bovermyer
Haha, yeah maybe, but aren't those "happy accidents?"
tabtab
Ross's approach is probably closest to instant gratification: the scenes are intentionally designed to be easy, quick, and striking.

Water color can also be instant gratification, but you can't really paint over mistakes, unlike oils (if you wait for them to dry).

Looking online, people's early Ross-clone works are not so hot, but practice makes perfect. I would suggest picking one segment of a scene, such as part of mountain, and keep trying until you perfect it.

Take a break from the sub-scene for a few days so that you revisit it with a fresh viewpoint. Maybe rotate sub-scenes to rework. Staring at the same thing too long in one sitting can dampen one's objectivity, I've found. This applies to writing also.

Keep in mind that Ross used to crank out such paintings for Alaskan tourist shops en masse. He has the experience of many thousands of paintings, making it look easier than it is. I'm sure his first dozen were clunkers or took a while.

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tjr
I would suggest picking one segment of a scene, such as part of mountain, and keep trying until you perfect it.

I remember Ross doing a training video along these lines... the resulting painting at the end was not one whole scene, but a bunch of discrete components: trees, mountains, water, etc.

I did a few paintings in his technique years ago. I was surprised at how easy it was to produce something decent.

StavrosK
> Staring at the same thing too long in one sitting can dampen one's objectivity, I've found. This applies to writing also.

This definitely applies to photography. I'll spend two hours processing a photo, think it looks great, leave it and come back the next day. I'm invariably horrified at how overdone it looks and turn everything down to 50%. Then it's ready.

bonniemuffin
Painting along with Bob Ross is totally awesome. Even if it comes out badly (which it will, the first dozen times you try it), it's still super fun. He makes art accessible, unpretentious, and un-scary -- and meanwhile the skills can totally carry over into anything you could possibly want to paint.
adpoe
Here's what I did when was in my late teens & early 20s, and taught myself.

1. Copy famous artworks that you admire -- even just drawing in a notebook is great, to start.

2. Once you can copy art that you really like, start adding your own flair to things, develop a personal style

3. Experiment more & more

Just like with programming -- there are a ton of great books about how to paint, how to mix colors, etc.

You can buy books and work through them, whatever is most fun.

There are 2 key points, though:

  * The only way to get better is by painting... you'll have to paint a lot

  * You'll want to paint a lot +only+ if you're having fun.
So don't worry too much. Just grab some paints and enjoy yourself. It's a great hobby.

And try everything you can -- watercolor, oil, gouache, ink brush, encaustic, using the palette knife only, mixing with collage, pastels, all will teach you something. Just be consistent, and you will get good.

DJHenk
> The only way to get better is by painting... you'll have to paint a lot

As with any creative skill, especially the ones that involve fine motoric skills, one cannot skip the practice. The advice I once read about learning how to draw applies in some way to all of them:

"Every artist has at least a thousand bad drawings in them. It is best to get these out as quickly as possible."

spectramax
In order to paint, you must first learn how to draw. There is a ton of misinformation on the internet and in literature, especially the famous book - "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain Workbook" [1]. This is a completely wrong way to learn how to draw. It gets you to point where your results may look pleasing but your foundation is going to be weak and it will fall apart.

Let me explain.

In order to draw convincingly, you must first internalize the object in 3 dimensions. You have to learn how to "think" in 3D - more specifically, given an object, you must be able to draw it from any angle, with or without foreshortening, and with any arrangement of illumination and with any camera focal length. Start with simple shapes - they're boring but that is a __must__. Then, start stacking primitives such as cones, cubes, cylinders, etc. Draw 20 different views of the same setup of primitives. Do this everyday for 6 months and you will pickup how to think in "3D" so to speak.

If you follow [1], you won't be able to do this. You will be able to copy a photograph or illustration by recognizing shapes but that only goes so far. If someone asks you to draw the same thing from a slightly different camera angle, you're lost.

Learning how to paint then adds another layer about color harmony, texture and stroke style. But fundamental drawing skills are __critical__ in order to paint well. All bets are off if you're trying to do abstract art or non-representational art.

You can take Jeffrey Watt's classes or a full course [2] or follow a few channels such as Sycra [3] on Youtube.

[1] https://smile.amazon.com/Drawing-Right-Side-Brain-Workbook/d... [2] http://jeffreyrwatts.com/ [3] https://www.youtube.com/user/Sycra

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Smithalicious
This entire post sounds like a "hot take". There is indeed a ton of misinformation around and there is no reason to believe your post isn't exactly that, especially when you make undefended claims like "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain is a completely wrong way to learn".

I'm also puzzled that you explicitly put down dotrsotb but then go on to recommend Sycra, who recommends that book frequently...

spectramax
Obviously I don’t have data to back up my claims but I explain what’s wrong with shape-copying way of drawing.

Then, I go on to explain the litmus test for evaluating whether one has internalized the “3D” aspect of the object they are trying to draw. If someone can draw from a reference but can’t draw the same thing from a different angle - that means they’ve learned to draw based on that book that I linked.

Contrarily, you haven’t put forth a valid criticism of my post except highlighted that it’s a “hot take”. I am happy and willing to engage in a debate without calling/judging.

kokokokoko
It's all subjective in that most people who want to draw or paint, likely have completely different ideas of what being good at that is.

"Drawing from the right side of the brain" is basically just a brain hack to allow a person to essentially trace what is in front of them. To some people that might be the goal. To make a reasonably accurate copy of what is in front of them. For others they may want to be able to draw an accurate picture of something from their head. Others may want to create wild stylistic abstractions. The original post referenced impressionism. In that case a more informed knowledge of color and composition might be more helpful.

Personally, as someone who has spent my entire life drawing(and a chunk of it painting) I cringe at that advice to learn from that book. I have read it and it will definitely help someone to render and accurate version of a photograph or object in front of them. But it really boils down to a shortcut as opposed to fundamental learning. Its like teaching math with just a series of steps to get the answer without teaching the underlying fundamentals of what is happening. In the short term you'll test well, but in the long term your growth will be stunted if you do not also learn the concepts involved.

Hope that is a bit more clarification. And with all that said, for some people that book might be wonderful. I do think it is well written and I did enjoy it and I imagine others will as well. Its a fun read and set of exercises. Just wanted to give you a bit more perspective on the opinions presented.

With that said, the general advice given in what you are replying to is way over the top. No one needs to spend 6 months drawing cones in space. That smells like your typical exaggerated internet advice that tends to prevent people from taking the first steps.

Smithalicious
>"Drawing from the right side of the brain" is basically just a brain hack to allow a person to essentially trace what is in front of them.

I really don't agree with this sentiment mostly due to the way it is voiced. Yes, the core of "drawing on the right side of the brain" is learning to see objectively and draw what you see. I wouldn't call that a "brain hack" or say that is "essentially tracing" what's in front of them (since "tracing" is kind of a dirty word in art context). Even if it were, that by itself is a very valuable thing to a lot of people, since a lot of styles of drawing and painting boil down to essentially just that, whether it's drawings of nature, portraits, or still lives.

I would say that learning to see is a fundamental drawing skill and this book teaches you valuable things by forcing you to stop and consider what things actually look like.

Of course, that by itself isn't sufficient, but it doesn't need to be. Nobody is suggesting that someone use this book as their only resource. But I do think it's a good introductory book for people who have very little to no experience drawing.

Steel_Phoenix
Agreed. I'm a pretty solid artist who doesn't learn well from others, and I'll still praise the book. It had another lesson in it that I never see mentioned, one that was expanded on in Drawing on the Artist Within. Our mind has task managers that constantly assess what we're doing. They do scheduling, handle cost benefit analysis, etc. For someone who doesn't already have the right aptitudes, this can lead to a nagging voice in the back of your mind telling you that you aren't doing a good job, this is boring, you're wasting your time. Getting people to use some simple brain hacks to stop listening to their preconceptions and just draw what they see can bypass these issues long enough for some people to see that they're being their own worst enemy. It isn't a good book to teach you how to draw. It's there to help make sure you don't give up the moment you start.
protonimitate
This is a pretty strong opinion, and not necessarily correct.

>"Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain Workbook" [1]. This is a completely wrong way to learn how to draw

Do you have a source for this? This book has been recommended by a good majority of the drawing/painting professors I had (at a fine arts school). The entire basis of the book is "learn to draw by learning to see".

>Do this everyday for 6 months and you will pickup how to think in "3D" so to speak.

This isn't bad advice, but not doesn't correlate directly with learning to draw/paint from observation. This is a helpful exercise if you are looking to go more of an illustrative/modeling route. If OP is looking to draw from imagination completely, this would be helpful - but I would still argue that practicing from observation would build a better visual vocabulary than practicing basic shapes only.

>But fundamental drawing skills are __critical__ in order to paint well.

true

>All bets are off if you're trying to do abstract art or non-representational art.

Demonstrably false. Every single one of the abstract/non-representational masters have an extremely good grasp of "traditional" (i.e. observational) skills. Even Pollock knew how to draw from life.

To OP - I would recommend starting by drawing AND painting from life at the same time. There's no real reason to master drawing before attempting to paint, as painting is essentially drawing with color. That being said, drawing is a great way to force you do as much as you can with a very limited tool box (line, shape, texture, value, space (composition)).

Also - don't take anyone's advice as an absolute. There are thousands and thousands of ways to progress as an artist and not a single one of them is "correct". The only constant is to be persistent and self-critical.

spectramax
I am expressing my opinion about the book - I have read through it and it is a complete train wreck in my view. I also explain why I think it is a wrong way to teach new comers. Furthermore, I provide a litmus test of checking if someone has learned to draw from the "right" side of the brain. I do not need to provide a reference for an opinion that I am stating.

> "Demonstrably false. Every single one of the abstract/non-representational masters have an extremely good grasp of "traditional" (i.e. observational) skills. Even Pollock knew how to draw from life."

So did Picasso, Rothko, Richter, Burri and many more. But, I can also point to Bacon, Yayoi, David Hirst, etc. who have no interest or background in drawing skills.

My point was, by saying that "All bets are off", I meant that being able to draw well is not a necessary condition to become an abstract artist.

kazinator
Drawing is 2D; why would I need to internalize anything in 3 dimensions? Maybe you're thinking of a definition of "drawing" as in "accurately reproducing a 2D perspective projection of an anatomically correct 3D horse from any angle". But that's just a very narrow slice of the vast world of visual art.
dragonwriter
> Drawing is 2D

It (like painting, where this is taken advantage of far more often) is actually 3D, since it involves applying one or more layers of material of nonzero thickness on a base substrate, though it can be (and often is) treated as 2D ignoring that.

But, yes, the grandparent was focussed (perhaps excessively) on advice about how to do representational drawing of objects existing in 3D space as a prelude to painting, presumably focussed on similarly representational painting.

spectramax
It goes without saying that drawing is a way to represent 3D objects into 2D space.

Once the fundamentals are good - i.e. "accurately reproducing a 2D perspective projection of an anatomically correct 3D horse from any angle", you could develop your own style, make caricatures, cartoons, hyperrealism, figurative-expressionism, etc... You can have the freedom knowing that your skeleton (figuratively speaking) is correctly placed in 3D.

kazinator
> It goes without saying that drawing is a way to represent 3D objects into 2D space.

Drawing provides a way of representing 3D objects into 2D space; it's not what drawing is.

spaginal
In my youth I was training to be a portrait gallery artist and studied privately in artist studios throughout my twenties. I largely didn’t go that route professionally because 2008 happened and other opportunities presented themself, but learning to draw in order to paint is fundamental.

The single biggest issue novices have with art, whether painting or drawing, is edge control and handling values, everything eles is largely practice observing and studying.

The best way to learn edges and values is drawing, lots and lots of drawing, critiques, and master studies. A master draftsman can pick up a paintbrush and be proficient quickly, but it’s extremely difficult to skip that step if wanting to jump straight to painting.

Largely I don’t know your goals, if it’s just to paint for fun, ignore the advice, learn the technical side and enjoy yourself. If you want something nice looking as well, draw draw draw.

spike021
I'm fairly surprised this comment is at the top right now.

Honestly, while your comment probably isn't entirely wrong, I'd hesitate to say that painting is the kind of activity where a pre-requisite is learning to draw.

The concept of painting is bringing your vision to life on media. Whether that's a scene with obvious shapes or not. There are plenty of art pieces where drawing or knowing how to draw before creating the painting would've been unnecessary.

spectramax
You must have noticed why there are a lot of still-life studies in painting. Sometimes, starting out with a 4-shade monochrome palette. The reason for studying still life, classically by countless masters and in today's fine art courses, is that it teaches you about few things:

1. Being able to draw/paint from life. Still life objects are easily accessible without paying for a human model.

2. More importantly, household objects can easily be broken down into primitive shapes. Cups, Cans, Pots, Apples, etc..

3. It teaches you about illumination, finding values by "Squinting" and finding edge quality (soft, hard, lost, etc.)

Furthermore, the classical masters practiced "Chiascuro", i.e. high contrast and wide dynamic range light conditions that can be simulated indoors with still life. The reason why drawing is prerequisite for painting is that the act of application of paint depends on local values where your brush stroke is being applied to. In order to find the value of the color, you need to know the form. In order to know the form and how it is illuminated, you need to "internalize" the 3D aspect of the object. Therefore, always, drawing is 80% of the work in painting (80% to make a point, obviously, I don't know exact percentage).

gdubs
My training was more in the “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain” school. My dad, who was trained at the School of Visual Arts in NY, gave me the book as a kid. My drawing teacher in college also focused on representational drawing.

Personally, I still recommend “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain”, because I think it addresses the biggest hurdle: drawing what you actually see, instead of what you “think” you see.

Understanding underlying geometry and primitives is a neat trick, and one that can help with figure drawing. But, it can also make the work feel mechanical and lifeless.

I think there’s a balance somewhere in the middle.

As far as abstract work, I think a solid representational foundation is still important. Picasso, by the age of 13, could paint with incredible realism.

If anyone’s interested, here’s some of my “traditional” work:

http://gregorywieber.com/art/traditional.html

(Contains some artistic nudity)

andai
Thanks for the advice. From your art I got the sense that, "hey this is a cool dude"... then I found your Alan Watts pixel art :)
altsyset
That is some amazing painting you shared. Is there a way to download it? I would love to print it and hang it in my office.
dusted
I can't paint, but I do enjoy it, so my advice may not be of any help.

It is not so much about learning how to apply paint to canvas, it is much more about learning how to see, how to take what is in front of you, and strip it of concept, that's not a door, it's not even a square, theres something lighter there, something darker there, maybe there's a gradient going in that direction. Deconstruct until it becomes raw visual.

Then buy some paints (I suggest acrylics, they smell nicer and are more forgiving, and come on! 100 years lifetime is quite enough for our paintings!)

Buy some canvas, the cheap stuff. Buy some brushes, any set will do, but you should have large and small ones. You don't need a palette, a piece of cardboard is just fine.

Have fun! The process of applying paint to canvas is interesting in and of itself, so do that for a while before trying to make anything that looks like something.

I'm a somewhat frugal person, so my emphasis on using cheap stuff may not be relevant to others, but for me, it lowers the barrier of entry, because I'm not "wasting" good materials, it makes me able to start a painting with less of an idea, which means more often than I would otherwise. The blank canvas is perfect, nothing has gone wrong with it yet, it is not tainted by idea.. Smearing paint onto it is destruction for a while, I will be destroying the canvas, and wasting paint until it is done, and at that point, it will have no more potential, whatever it is, it is, and it will always be less than its potential, someone better could have done much better with those materials, so they were wasted, and that is why I need to use cheap stuff, to feel less guilty about wasting them. Because I waste them purely for my own pleasure.

Here are my pictures: http://chromophiliat.dk

justanothersys
There are so many interesting approaches you could take to enjoy painting as a programmer! Welcome to the fun: https://youtu.be/Up2-myTEviE

Definitely spending lots of time with yourself and your materials, working on pictures, is the easiest way to learn and trust your intuition, and have the best time.

If you enjoy Impressionism, early American Modernism, etc. then you would probably also enjoy the range of practices that were inspired by them over the decades. Recently a rather important computer artist John F. Simon Jr. wrote a book: Drawing Your Own Path, which is great: https://www.drawingyourownpath.com

I’d also recommend looking into Harold Cohen’s work, and Casey Reas: https://vimeo.com/22955812

To go back a bit further I’d suggest the BW film Painter’s Painting, and Shock of The New, the BBC documentary series by Robert Hughes, both of which you can find on YouTube.

Just paint man and have fun exploring your emotions while broadening your knowledge of the ways others have explored theirs throughout time.

tudelo
I watched the first link. My first thought is that a pool makes for a very strange meeting space, especially for digital art. I know, pretty complex analysis.
2038AD
IMHO I would say start simple and work your way up. Begin with doodling and then progress to more careful drawing. It's often easier to copy another artist's work or to draw from a photograph. One advantage is you can draw lines over your reference imagine and make measurements. From there you can practice shading and get a sense of tone. Don't try to cheat by smudging with your finger. It may sound stupid but make sure you have a full set of pencils as you'll probably want to go darker that you can with a regular pencil. Once you're somewhat happy with that I would then move onto acrylic paints. You can draw out the image as before with measuring and then use that pencil drawing as a guide to paint over the top. Be careful when using black paint. It may just be the paint I used but attempting to make darker shades by mixing black would just give black. Once you're happy with acrylic paints I would then move to oil paints. Oil paints take longer to dry than acrylic paints which can throw you off. One of the great things about paint is if you make a mistake, you can simply paint over it :-) (though with oils you may need to be a little more patient). You may want to take what I've said with a pinch of salt as I've not painted in years and I'm out of practice with drawing. I still make collage-type images in Gimp though :-)
dragonbonheur
Bob Ross and Porfirio Jimenez videos on Youtube.
pvaldes
Just do it. Your errors will be your best teacher.
pcmaffey
I've been teaching myself illustration for a kid's app I'm making. It's such a different mental exercise than coding!

And yet... I found that I was getting stuck on things while drawing. It really wasn't until I started to bring some of my discipline and rigor from engineering to art making, that I was able to break through. Specifically, debugging what wasn't working with my art. Breaking it down, and trying new ideas.

So I would say, there's actually a lot of similarities in the practice of learning to make art and programming, even if the actual skills, sensibilities, and motivations involved are completely different. You're probably more equipped to make progress than you think.

potta_coffee
Art degree here, and fairly decent at it. I'd suggest that you learn to draw first. Having a good handle on rendering form and value (dark and light) are a necessary foundation for painting. You can start with painting but you're going to have to build that foundation while also learning a bunch of things particular to paint. If you want to try drawing first, Youtube is such an awesome resource.
xcubic
Do you have any specific channels to recommend on youtube?
crookshanked
BYOB painting studios are getting popular these days. Could be a good opportunity to experience a guided painting session.
tbirdz
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/

redmattred
A lot of communities have adult education classes that teach skills like painting for relatively cheap.
blue4
- 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.

tuxxy
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.

[dead] sneilan
I'm a programmer that paints.

I just paint what I want when I want to.

The key is to understand that creativity is like a seed that must be nurtured over time. Don't judge yourself if you're slow now. Judge yourself if you see exactly 0 improvement. 0.1% is improvement.

https://instagram.com/meowmixmachine/

danthewireman
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/

sogen
1.- start with Black and White drawings.

A pack of 10 Grayscale Pastels or Conté pencils are cheap.

2.- Trace and copy

3.- innovate

4.- Then go with Acrylics: it dries fast, works with water, and it's cheap.

brushes: Get about five different ones, don't invest a lot of money in them.

5.- Learn color mixing

6.- Trace and copy

7.- Innovate

bovermyer
Shopping list:

- small brush, medium brush

- cheap easel

- value pack of small (8"x10" or so) canvases

- one of those "cheap" acrylic paint sets that includes white, black, red, yellow, and blue paint.

1. After buying your supplies, find images of paintings that you like.

2. Copy them.

3. Repeat the first two steps for awhile.

4. Set up a bunch of inanimate objects, and paint those from life.

5. Repeat step four for awhile.

Also, DO NOT COMPARE YOUR WORK TO OTHERS'. Compare your work to your own previous work. You will only be perpetually angry or disappointed in your own work otherwise.

Source: I'm an artist.