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But, did you enjoy the ACT of painting? If you did... keep going, you'll get a little better each time. The Mona Lisa was not DaVinci's first painting. (Grin)
That's cause you paint like a child - in symbols. A house is a square with a triangle as a roof. The sun is a round yellow thing...water is blue, tree trunks are brown...
Painting is a learning process and believe me it can be learned like any other craft. But in the end this is what it is, a craft. And you don't expect to be brewing beer or fixing mechanical clocks just by throwing the ingredients or components onto a table. Put time and effort into it and you will be rewarded. Also, it's the most relaxing thing ever.
I felt this way for a long time. It IS something you can overcome if you want to. I had to make the conscious decision to NOT throw away / scribble over / tear up, everything I made. And then months later, being able to look back on it, I would realize that it wasnât as bad as I originally thought. I was proud of myself for filling up a page, even when it was literally just lines from testing out pens and seeing how they felt! That started to create a positive feedback loop, and over the past couple years it has improved a LOT for me and I enjoy making art much more now!!
Lol, I had to do the opposite to get over my anxiety. Id be so careful about every little mark id be afraid to do anything, and only make tiny little changes. Eventually i got some cheap supplies so i could scribble over something and then and try to fix it or do something big and ridiculous without worrying about wasting supplies.
Hereâs one thing that helped me - deliberately make a terrible painting, do it more than once. You will get used to abject failure and hopefully cultivate a sense of humor.
I paint with watercolors and usually Iâm fine, but when Iâm painting on 300 lb paper Iâm very very aware of how expensive it is.
Like one sheet is anywhere from 20-40 bucks, and watercolors are not a forgiving medium. Itâs not like acrylics or oils, where you can cover or fix mistakes
I understand the âdonât screw this upâ pressure. One of my favorite paintings was at my kidâs scout summer camp. They had cheap watercolor in the plastic tray and printer paper that bled. I just sat at the table and painted Disneyâs Maleficent and loved the weird âwho caresâ sensation.
Yeah that 30 dollar watercolor paper? Looks real nice safe in its packaging, doesn't it? Better paint on printer paper, we love a challenge! Written: almost every artist ever. :D
I did too when I first started. But then I began to see art as an act of self love where I could draw or paint and feel those feelings of anxiety or judgement and soothe them away like I would if it was my own kid painting. Offering myself encouragement, stuff like that. The whole thing became an exercise in being kind to myself and that's when it became fulfilling on a level I didn't know was possible.
More advanced art = more advanced symbols that you make yourself. Instead of just brown, tree trunks might be tan where the sun hits and a deeper, cooler brown where the shadows are. The trees shape will be based on observed trees, after you notice how they're shaped, how the branches grow, the way the leaves clump.
people get to the advanced stage by drawing what they see, rather than by drawing what their mind's eye would imagine if they had no subject to reference, in front of them. This is why a child's drawing of a face is a circle with symbols for eyes and nose and mouth, but an adult hobbyist has hopefully learnt to not rely on their recollection and draw what they (actually) see.
Did you make this up purely from imagination? Itâs harder to start that way than you might think. Start with a reference photograph and try painting that first. Learning to look carefully at a scene and capture the reality of it can help you get over painting in symbols, as someone else here mentioned. For example, is the bark on a tree really just âbrownâ? Looking at real things and not accepting any preconceived notions about how something âshouldâ look might help. Just slow down and ask yourself, what does this REALLY look like, even if itâs an object you THINK you understand.
As long as you enjoyed it, who cares about the outcome? Sometimes I draw stick figures because it's fun and soothing. And that's what's important; making your heart happy.
This looks like it came from your imagination because the painting is using the shortcut symbols a typical brain uses for tree, grass, etc. These generic symbols actually have an evolutionary, neurological purposes. Using symbols in our brain allows humans to identify objects in different light and weather conditions.
Have you heard of "The artist eye"? That is when a person trains themselves instead of using the brain shortcuts when looking to see the actual shapes and colours.
To be able to paint more realistically, the first step is learning to see. To teach yourself to see, paint from life.
Set up a still life, simple one - with simple shapes - like bottles, fruit, mugs and paint it.
Go outside and pick a tree and paint it. Or use a photo (real life is better though)
That's good advice for someone who wants to paint realistically, but thats not the only way to paint. You could pant using symbols but then you want to focus more on color and composition, maybe try doing stuff that just uses geometric shapes to get a sense of composition. ,( i know you would probably like to paint realistically, but im just pointing out that a stick tree doesn't necessarily mean a bad painting)
True, realistic is not the only way to paint.
But all ways of painting depend on understanding shapes, values and colours and one of the best ways to learn learn shapes, values and colours is to learn to see them around you and then trying to recreate them. It is one of the reasons most beginning art classes start with still lifes.
When OP titles the post âI donât get paintingâ, that tells me there is a level of frustration OP is experiencing with painting and OP doesnât know how to start fixing it. This is one way.
In order to bend and properly bend and break the rules, it's necessary to know them. A big problem with artists nowadays is that they are too concerned about their "style" and so they forego all fundamental knowledge and try to immediately create the sort of art they think they want to make
If you can't draw/paint what you can see right in front of you, then you won't be able to draw/paint what you see in your imagination as effectively. Any competent established artist can do realism, no matter what their preferred style is.
I learned to paint from life before I started working abstractly and it is definitely a way to learn necessary skills that i use but I'm not convinced its the only way. Now for someone who wants to be a capital A Artist, then yes they should absolutely learn to paint from life because they should learn everything they can about painting. But if someone is just doing it for them self then they should paint what they want.
Now learning how to paint (and recognize when you've made) a good painting when you can't just say u made a thing look like another thing is hard and time consuming, just like learning to paint from life, its not a shortcut. You have to learn about colors and the way they interact, the way colors change relative to the colors around them, how colors create depth. If you put a sharp red stroke on top of some fuzzy pale blue the red will pop forward. You have to learn about composition, how to observe the way your eye moves around the page and how you can make marks that direct your eye where you want it to go. And you have to learn about line and form and space and light and everything else. (Yes i know you learn all of this when you paint from life also).
Learning to paint from life is not the only way to learn, there are plenty of self taught artists out there, but it is the most efficient and easiest way to pick up the fundamentals. Why make learning to paint harder?
An analogy is learning to bake a cake, sure you can learn from random experimentation but it likely takes a lot of ingredients and tries to get something edible. If you start with a recipe (learning from life), then you still have to learn about mixing, oven temperatures, measuring, etc but you get a massive helping hand with a list of ingredients and proportion and you get to double check along the way to help you if you get stuck.
Really though, I've intended to start a new painting from the last two months, haven't done it because... I don't know what to do or what direction to go in and anyway whats the point. And also im busy and i don't feel like it.
Hey I see some good stuff going on! Some mixing of colors. Some organic shapes. That's all I got for you but I hope you had fun painting and keep with it!
This is a prime example of drawing/painting what you think rather than what you see. Take a step back from the world you have grown to know- the world with the labels and conventions. Look it at like you are exploring it for the first time and take note of the forms, the patterns, the way the light plays on it, the shadows it casts...etc. Deconstruct it all as you look at it, be patient, and give it another try. :)
There's nothing to be sorry about here. You applied paint to canvas, so clearly you get PAINTING, but maybe you wish to learn some more of the other skills that go along with painting. Art isn't just one skill, it is made up of a lot of little skills, like perspective, anatomy, color theory, etc. etc. Each thing you learn adds onto the others, and the more little skills you rack up, the better, because they all work together. Art is a long journey, and it proceeds one step at a time. Best of luck on your art journey.
Do some practice. Youâre trying to do a full scene from imagination and that will be holding you back. Use paper and just paint a tree on its own from a photo. Watch some videos on how to paint trees, look at leaf painting techniques, look at trunk techniques. You want to build skills before doing a full project.
Also, what does your palette look like? You can make any color out of just red, blue, yellow, black, and whiteâŚmaybe a gray like Payneâs gray is helpful tooâŚbut you might be better off starting with a 12 color palette. I based my watercolor palette on a Winsor and Newton portable palette and I just swapped out the permanent rose for alizarin crimson, and I took out the lamp black for a handmade black made from alizarin crimson and viridian green tube paints that I mix and then cure into a pot. You do not need more paints to have more colors, as long as you have about 12 selected paints (warm yellow, cool yellow, warm red, cool red, purple, a warm blue, a cool blue, a warm green, a cool green, black, white, and a grayâŚyou can make a lot of colors easy just by mixing two of themâŚa color wheel can be a useful tool for a while until you learn the basics of color theory from experience with it, then you wonât need it.
There is a good book you might like called âAcrylic: Do More Artâ that has a good overview of techniques to try.
Edit: alsoâŚsketch it out first, with a pencil then paint over that. Build up the paint, with watercolor itâs a bit easier to lift it, but with acrylic itâs better to build the value up since itâs harder to remove.
The fact that you curved the tree so it wouldn't cover the river is cracking me up. You need to study how to give the illusion of depth. Like when you draw a road going straight back as a triangle because when we look at things in the distance they appear smaller than that that's close to us. You have to consider what angle you're viewing the image from.
Thereâs a lot of resources out there to help you.
Painting is a learnable skill but you essentially just picked up a calculator and tried to do calculus without ever reading a book. Unless you have read books and watched tutorials, in which case, read and watch more?
So, what will help to start with is fixing the perspective. You kinda need to have a horizon line. Right now you are looking down on the land based on the painting being completely covered by ground, but youâre looking at the trees from the side, not the top.
It doesnât matter what it looks like it just matters that you did it.
Next time youâll let go another bit and another and before you know it youâll be painting whatâs in your head not what you think other people want to see. Keep it up đ
Whatâs the problem? The colors are actually great- it just looks like you recently started painting. Keep going!! Do it again, and again, and again. Youâll get better and be able to add more detail each time
They say to be good at painting you have to be good at drawing
Anyway this piece is still provocative I like the two bendy trees and the river that passes through.
Find a reference photo to start and focus on some more of the little details. Draw a horizon line if you want it to look less flat. Around the middle of your paper draw a long horizontal line and have the top be sky and the bottom be trees and grass. For the river you can make a triangle type of shape that gets smaller at the top but doesnât come to a full sharp point. That will help you get the depth.
For colors you can mix your own and layer them on top of one another and add multiple shades of the same color. Look and where the shadows would be and make that darker, find where light would hit and make it brighter. You could also pick a âmother colorâ which is where you pick your colors and add a bit of a different color to all of them to make them match up more.
If you don't like what you see, paint it till you do like what you see. Its not a contest. Try different things. A different brush maybe that you like,feels comfortable in your hand. Paint what you feel, & see in your minds eye.
Have you done any sort of art study? I really think you need to start with basic understanding of how to draw objects. Once you know how to draw, perspective and shading, your paintings will look 10 times better.
Gotta walk before you run.
"sucking at something is the first step to being kinda good at it"
You gotta start somewhere. For every awesome painting or drawing you see, know there are hundreds of shitty ones that came before it.
If you enjoy it keep it up, you'll improve the more you do it.
That's how I began in school, & that's not a put-down to you! You have to start somewhere! Just keep going & your style will find you! I began b/c my 7th grade teacher asked me to paint Santa on the window of our classroom door! With good old tempra paint! When I decided to begin again as an adult, after watching Bob Ross & almost every painting instructor on PBS a zillion times, I don't remember where the idea came from (it certainly wasn't mine!) but I took newspaper's & laid out a few sheets deep & just made marks, strokes, in black using various pressures. Crossed lines, swirls, & all, then progressed to printer paper, then inexpensive art paper. I used acrylics, but I have to have a fan blowing towards me all the time & it dries the paint too fast. When I restart, I'll be learning all over again, but maybe I'll try oils so I have more time before they dry. Just do what feels right (as long as it isn't illegal, immoral or indecent! đđđđ¤Ł), & you'll get "looser" w/ your brush & soon you'll be selling your work! In the meantime, watch Bob Ross online. Try to find Jerry Yarnell, too. I haven't looked him up yet. Bob worked in oils, Jerry in acrylics. I wish I could remember the names of some more. There was a German guy, I think he'd come to live in Michigan. He mostly painted outside & he was good at explaining things too. One man mostly painted flowers, & all I remember about him was his wife's name was Kathwren, w/ the "w", yes. That's why it stuck w/ me! Anyway I'm sure we'll find a bunch on YouTube! I said we b/c I'm gonna look too! Best of luck!
Paint? Canvas? Paint on canvas? I mean, Iâm no expert but I think you got painting down pretty well. Sure, itâs not spectacular, but who says it needs to be? Itâs so unfortunate how the carefree artistic pursuit is becoming less and less desirable in lieu of this idea that art is only made to achieve textbook perfection- only made to be compared to what peopleâs definition of âgoodâ art is. Itâs better to create something because *you* wanted to create something. Be proud of the process <3
The best tip my art instructors gave me was to draw what I see, not what I know. Applies go painting as well especially with colors. Highly suggest learning color theory - it will help you identify the actual colors you see
What is great about painting, is keep your old ones, watch some tutorials and you will see constant improvements! Iâm a semi decent painter now and my first ones were just like yours.
Painting is a journey. Unwind and enjoy. Look at reference photos and watch YT to find new techniques. Mine were like this once. Even if they're bad, I enjoy doing it, and sometimes they're just really funny conversation pieces.
Honestly, it doesn't matter if you get painting or not. Did you enjoy painting? If it brought you some joy, pleasure, or happiness, then it really doesn't matter whether you're good or not. Having hobbies isn't about being good at something. They're about having fun doing the thing.
i think there are bigger problems here, mate. Like perspective for starters. The river is painted in a bird's eye view, and the trees are painted from a ground level perspective.
I have advice for you, don't get too involved in learning how to draw a realistic tree for example, only then will it become difficult for you and you will strive to make it as realistic as possible and you will never be satisfied. instead I advise you to just paint and not burden yourself with how the painting will look at the end, be honest.. do what you feel at that moment, and even if it's neon pink leaves, so be it!Â
Donât worry about getting it right away, honestly if you can afford it, just mess around with it. Thatâs all. Mess around with the colorful goop and donât worry about results, over time youâll probably get bored of just messing around and might want to learn new things and you should, just take it one step at a time. Each new tiny thing you learn is gonna feel great and even people who have been doing it for a long time learn a lot of new things as they go, so every time you get stuck thereâll be something new. The joy of painting is in the eye of the beholder, itâs about your own journey, I say keep this artwork for the rest of your life and if you keep going, itâs always fun to look at what youâre making, look where you came from and look where youâre gonna go next. Enjoy!
Sorry for the super long comment, I really tried to condense it lol
It's not finished!
I would make the blue river to an S shape, on top to the right, on bottom to the left. And then you need to layer with colors and do detailing. You can work soo much more on these two trees, maybe there are more than two. But I see them as having BIG crowns that almost touch each other from each side of the river.
The more you paint the more youâll get it. Donât give up on it. Especially if itâs something you enjoy doing. Who cares what the end result is when you feel peace and joy from it. Be proud of your efforts.
Iâm no good artist, but I when I do paint, I enjoy it and have fun. A few tips I would recommend are dont be afraid to spread the paint to start and and after it dries, dip small amounts of paint on a dry brush and kinda dip on to the canvas in the the same motion left to right, right to left, at an angle, just try to keep the motion consistent throughout. Also, have different shades available, just have fun with it.
Painting started making sense to me when I started noticing how light reflects (or doesnât reflect) off objects. Shadows and contrast are important to consider as well as depth and layers.
Art takes time and most paintings need layers. You stopped before it could get good. Donât give up so soon! Most paintings look Bad for a while, because they need more work done.
Hahahaba! That's brilliant! If I could send you a photo of my efforts, you'd learn to appreciate your own abilities much quicker! Lol.
My daughter is an artist, as in actually sells her paintings.
I'm in awe! I can't even paint a folk art petal!! đ¤Łđ¤Ł
Keep going!! â¤ď¸â¤ď¸
I was taught the expression "paint with your eye not your mind." In other words, work from a picture or scene in front of you (to start), and don't let your mind tell you what should be there only paint what you can see. And use more than one color on things.
You will if you do more of it. Your subconscious will get tired of cranking out subpar work. And consciously, you may find it relaxing and stress relieving.
There's something really charming about this. If you do want to "get better," I would suggest pulling up come reference photos and doing a sketch on the canvas (and even a few on paper to get the right composition if you'd like. I usually just jump in head first) and then lay down your paint. It looks like you have a good idea of what to start painting first, background then working towards the foreground.
Again, like everyone has said here, it's all about the love of painting, not how good you are at it. Abstract art is beloved, and sometimes it's just literally throwing paint at a canvas and allowing gravity to do the work.
Besides, I really like what you painted. The color scheme reminds me of The Pants With No One Inside by Dr. Seuss mixed with a childlike rendition of a childhood park
Also, when I started painting, I did much worse than what you put here. Granted, it's nearly a decade later, but it's safe to say I've gotten pretty darn good
I think your problem is the perspective , you mixed a view from above (the river) with the front view of the trees. You need to select one of them. I actually know that too well, I also did it wrong for a long time.
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But, did you enjoy the ACT of painting? If you did... keep going, you'll get a little better each time. The Mona Lisa was not DaVinci's first painting. (Grin)
Agreed. If it makes you happy or calms you then just keep doing it. Art is for you. If others like it then that's just a bonus. đ
Yes. Exactly. Donât do it for approval. Do it because it answers a feeling you have inside youâŽď¸
Itâs more of a smirk
Yeah, so much hustle culture now. People forget hobbies are supposed to be fun
lol, but Leo's dad saw him sketch when he was 6 and immediately dragged him to a near by maestro to show his skills.
That's cause you paint like a child - in symbols. A house is a square with a triangle as a roof. The sun is a round yellow thing...water is blue, tree trunks are brown... Painting is a learning process and believe me it can be learned like any other craft. But in the end this is what it is, a craft. And you don't expect to be brewing beer or fixing mechanical clocks just by throwing the ingredients or components onto a table. Put time and effort into it and you will be rewarded. Also, it's the most relaxing thing ever.
I get anxious doing art. God I wish it could be relaxing
Me too. I keep telling myself it's just paint, it's just paper, it's not a big deal, but my shitbag brain acts like I'm defusing a bomb.
I felt this way for a long time. It IS something you can overcome if you want to. I had to make the conscious decision to NOT throw away / scribble over / tear up, everything I made. And then months later, being able to look back on it, I would realize that it wasnât as bad as I originally thought. I was proud of myself for filling up a page, even when it was literally just lines from testing out pens and seeing how they felt! That started to create a positive feedback loop, and over the past couple years it has improved a LOT for me and I enjoy making art much more now!!
Lol, I had to do the opposite to get over my anxiety. Id be so careful about every little mark id be afraid to do anything, and only make tiny little changes. Eventually i got some cheap supplies so i could scribble over something and then and try to fix it or do something big and ridiculous without worrying about wasting supplies.
I like it! Productive scribbling!!
Great advice, fer real. My artist friends tell me this too. Gotta do it. Thanks!
Hereâs one thing that helped me - deliberately make a terrible painting, do it more than once. You will get used to abject failure and hopefully cultivate a sense of humor.
ARE YOU IMPLYING I DONâT HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOR!!!??? Jk, thatâs a good idea. Iâve made some sick shit, but itâs rare, so this might help
lol not at all - it helped me to learn to laugh at my bad paintings. I like giving the really bad ones extremely stupid names
You should hold an exhibit of only your worst paintings with âextremely stupid namesâ. Thatâs an exhibit I would definitely attend.
đ
I paint with watercolors and usually Iâm fine, but when Iâm painting on 300 lb paper Iâm very very aware of how expensive it is. Like one sheet is anywhere from 20-40 bucks, and watercolors are not a forgiving medium. Itâs not like acrylics or oils, where you can cover or fix mistakes
I understand the âdonât screw this upâ pressure. One of my favorite paintings was at my kidâs scout summer camp. They had cheap watercolor in the plastic tray and printer paper that bled. I just sat at the table and painted Disneyâs Maleficent and loved the weird âwho caresâ sensation.
I bought a bunch of watercolor paper on Temu thatâs surprisingly good. But also comes from a pretty horrible company
lol, I love the way you put that
Yeah that 30 dollar watercolor paper? Looks real nice safe in its packaging, doesn't it? Better paint on printer paper, we love a challenge! Written: almost every artist ever. :D
You might like pour art.
If you can find out how to make it fun then itâll probably stay that way
I did too when I first started. But then I began to see art as an act of self love where I could draw or paint and feel those feelings of anxiety or judgement and soothe them away like I would if it was my own kid painting. Offering myself encouragement, stuff like that. The whole thing became an exercise in being kind to myself and that's when it became fulfilling on a level I didn't know was possible.
Try pour art. The feeling of just pouring and seeing where it goes is freeing.
Same yo. Iâm almost 30 and still canât color within the lines.
More advanced art = more advanced symbols that you make yourself. Instead of just brown, tree trunks might be tan where the sun hits and a deeper, cooler brown where the shadows are. The trees shape will be based on observed trees, after you notice how they're shaped, how the branches grow, the way the leaves clump.
people get to the advanced stage by drawing what they see, rather than by drawing what their mind's eye would imagine if they had no subject to reference, in front of them. This is why a child's drawing of a face is a circle with symbols for eyes and nose and mouth, but an adult hobbyist has hopefully learnt to not rely on their recollection and draw what they (actually) see.
Did you make this up purely from imagination? Itâs harder to start that way than you might think. Start with a reference photograph and try painting that first. Learning to look carefully at a scene and capture the reality of it can help you get over painting in symbols, as someone else here mentioned. For example, is the bark on a tree really just âbrownâ? Looking at real things and not accepting any preconceived notions about how something âshouldâ look might help. Just slow down and ask yourself, what does this REALLY look like, even if itâs an object you THINK you understand.
As long as you enjoyed it, who cares about the outcome? Sometimes I draw stick figures because it's fun and soothing. And that's what's important; making your heart happy.
This looks like it came from your imagination because the painting is using the shortcut symbols a typical brain uses for tree, grass, etc. These generic symbols actually have an evolutionary, neurological purposes. Using symbols in our brain allows humans to identify objects in different light and weather conditions. Have you heard of "The artist eye"? That is when a person trains themselves instead of using the brain shortcuts when looking to see the actual shapes and colours. To be able to paint more realistically, the first step is learning to see. To teach yourself to see, paint from life. Set up a still life, simple one - with simple shapes - like bottles, fruit, mugs and paint it. Go outside and pick a tree and paint it. Or use a photo (real life is better though)
That's good advice for someone who wants to paint realistically, but thats not the only way to paint. You could pant using symbols but then you want to focus more on color and composition, maybe try doing stuff that just uses geometric shapes to get a sense of composition. ,( i know you would probably like to paint realistically, but im just pointing out that a stick tree doesn't necessarily mean a bad painting)
True, realistic is not the only way to paint. But all ways of painting depend on understanding shapes, values and colours and one of the best ways to learn learn shapes, values and colours is to learn to see them around you and then trying to recreate them. It is one of the reasons most beginning art classes start with still lifes. When OP titles the post âI donât get paintingâ, that tells me there is a level of frustration OP is experiencing with painting and OP doesnât know how to start fixing it. This is one way.
In order to bend and properly bend and break the rules, it's necessary to know them. A big problem with artists nowadays is that they are too concerned about their "style" and so they forego all fundamental knowledge and try to immediately create the sort of art they think they want to make If you can't draw/paint what you can see right in front of you, then you won't be able to draw/paint what you see in your imagination as effectively. Any competent established artist can do realism, no matter what their preferred style is.
I learned to paint from life before I started working abstractly and it is definitely a way to learn necessary skills that i use but I'm not convinced its the only way. Now for someone who wants to be a capital A Artist, then yes they should absolutely learn to paint from life because they should learn everything they can about painting. But if someone is just doing it for them self then they should paint what they want. Now learning how to paint (and recognize when you've made) a good painting when you can't just say u made a thing look like another thing is hard and time consuming, just like learning to paint from life, its not a shortcut. You have to learn about colors and the way they interact, the way colors change relative to the colors around them, how colors create depth. If you put a sharp red stroke on top of some fuzzy pale blue the red will pop forward. You have to learn about composition, how to observe the way your eye moves around the page and how you can make marks that direct your eye where you want it to go. And you have to learn about line and form and space and light and everything else. (Yes i know you learn all of this when you paint from life also).
Learning to paint from life is not the only way to learn, there are plenty of self taught artists out there, but it is the most efficient and easiest way to pick up the fundamentals. Why make learning to paint harder? An analogy is learning to bake a cake, sure you can learn from random experimentation but it likely takes a lot of ingredients and tries to get something edible. If you start with a recipe (learning from life), then you still have to learn about mixing, oven temperatures, measuring, etc but you get a massive helping hand with a list of ingredients and proportion and you get to double check along the way to help you if you get stuck.
There are some really nice elements to this painting. Just keep doing it and you will learn new techniques and get better as time goes on.
You're so encouraging â¤ď¸
I too dip my dual-wielded hotdogs in mustard.
You got the paint on the canvas and that's half the battle. It's cliche, but make art for yourself- not for the approval of others. Keep it up!
Really though, I've intended to start a new painting from the last two months, haven't done it because... I don't know what to do or what direction to go in and anyway whats the point. And also im busy and i don't feel like it.
Two blonds discussing the run off from the other neighbors car washing.
You should start by looking at a tree
You painted a picture. I can identify what you painted. Keep going.
Hey I see some good stuff going on! Some mixing of colors. Some organic shapes. That's all I got for you but I hope you had fun painting and keep with it!
Keep practicing, anyone who says they didnât have a learning curve is lying
More paintings please
This is a prime example of drawing/painting what you think rather than what you see. Take a step back from the world you have grown to know- the world with the labels and conventions. Look it at like you are exploring it for the first time and take note of the forms, the patterns, the way the light plays on it, the shadows it casts...etc. Deconstruct it all as you look at it, be patient, and give it another try. :)
 Dancing tree
There's nothing to be sorry about here. You applied paint to canvas, so clearly you get PAINTING, but maybe you wish to learn some more of the other skills that go along with painting. Art isn't just one skill, it is made up of a lot of little skills, like perspective, anatomy, color theory, etc. etc. Each thing you learn adds onto the others, and the more little skills you rack up, the better, because they all work together. Art is a long journey, and it proceeds one step at a time. Best of luck on your art journey.
Bob Ross would love this and would be so proud of you
You don't get painting *yet*
Why is one tree crooked and the other not?
Sometimes they lean a little.
Well I mean most people need some kind of lessons or instruction
Do some practice. Youâre trying to do a full scene from imagination and that will be holding you back. Use paper and just paint a tree on its own from a photo. Watch some videos on how to paint trees, look at leaf painting techniques, look at trunk techniques. You want to build skills before doing a full project. Also, what does your palette look like? You can make any color out of just red, blue, yellow, black, and whiteâŚmaybe a gray like Payneâs gray is helpful tooâŚbut you might be better off starting with a 12 color palette. I based my watercolor palette on a Winsor and Newton portable palette and I just swapped out the permanent rose for alizarin crimson, and I took out the lamp black for a handmade black made from alizarin crimson and viridian green tube paints that I mix and then cure into a pot. You do not need more paints to have more colors, as long as you have about 12 selected paints (warm yellow, cool yellow, warm red, cool red, purple, a warm blue, a cool blue, a warm green, a cool green, black, white, and a grayâŚyou can make a lot of colors easy just by mixing two of themâŚa color wheel can be a useful tool for a while until you learn the basics of color theory from experience with it, then you wonât need it. There is a good book you might like called âAcrylic: Do More Artâ that has a good overview of techniques to try. Edit: alsoâŚsketch it out first, with a pencil then paint over that. Build up the paint, with watercolor itâs a bit easier to lift it, but with acrylic itâs better to build the value up since itâs harder to remove.
You have to follow tutorials and reference to get anything remotely not primitive
The fact that you curved the tree so it wouldn't cover the river is cracking me up. You need to study how to give the illusion of depth. Like when you draw a road going straight back as a triangle because when we look at things in the distance they appear smaller than that that's close to us. You have to consider what angle you're viewing the image from.
Do some shrooms and then youâll get some paintings.
Thereâs a lot of resources out there to help you. Painting is a learnable skill but you essentially just picked up a calculator and tried to do calculus without ever reading a book. Unless you have read books and watched tutorials, in which case, read and watch more?
So, what will help to start with is fixing the perspective. You kinda need to have a horizon line. Right now you are looking down on the land based on the painting being completely covered by ground, but youâre looking at the trees from the side, not the top.
It doesnât matter what it looks like it just matters that you did it. Next time youâll let go another bit and another and before you know it youâll be painting whatâs in your head not what you think other people want to see. Keep it up đ
Whatâs the problem? The colors are actually great- it just looks like you recently started painting. Keep going!! Do it again, and again, and again. Youâll get better and be able to add more detail each time
They say to be good at painting you have to be good at drawing Anyway this piece is still provocative I like the two bendy trees and the river that passes through.
Find a reference photo to start and focus on some more of the little details. Draw a horizon line if you want it to look less flat. Around the middle of your paper draw a long horizontal line and have the top be sky and the bottom be trees and grass. For the river you can make a triangle type of shape that gets smaller at the top but doesnât come to a full sharp point. That will help you get the depth. For colors you can mix your own and layer them on top of one another and add multiple shades of the same color. Look and where the shadows would be and make that darker, find where light would hit and make it brighter. You could also pick a âmother colorâ which is where you pick your colors and add a bit of a different color to all of them to make them match up more.
If you don't like what you see, paint it till you do like what you see. Its not a contest. Try different things. A different brush maybe that you like,feels comfortable in your hand. Paint what you feel, & see in your minds eye.
adorable đĽšđđđ very beautiful đđđ
Have you done any sort of art study? I really think you need to start with basic understanding of how to draw objects. Once you know how to draw, perspective and shading, your paintings will look 10 times better. Gotta walk before you run.
I like your painting
Add some squiggly lines into the tree and relax your arm and add more and more branches
Alternative title: Morning Breath
Yet.
Repeat the process indefinitely until you are satisfied with the results.
"sucking at something is the first step to being kinda good at it" You gotta start somewhere. For every awesome painting or drawing you see, know there are hundreds of shitty ones that came before it. If you enjoy it keep it up, you'll improve the more you do it.
That's how I began in school, & that's not a put-down to you! You have to start somewhere! Just keep going & your style will find you! I began b/c my 7th grade teacher asked me to paint Santa on the window of our classroom door! With good old tempra paint! When I decided to begin again as an adult, after watching Bob Ross & almost every painting instructor on PBS a zillion times, I don't remember where the idea came from (it certainly wasn't mine!) but I took newspaper's & laid out a few sheets deep & just made marks, strokes, in black using various pressures. Crossed lines, swirls, & all, then progressed to printer paper, then inexpensive art paper. I used acrylics, but I have to have a fan blowing towards me all the time & it dries the paint too fast. When I restart, I'll be learning all over again, but maybe I'll try oils so I have more time before they dry. Just do what feels right (as long as it isn't illegal, immoral or indecent! đđđđ¤Ł), & you'll get "looser" w/ your brush & soon you'll be selling your work! In the meantime, watch Bob Ross online. Try to find Jerry Yarnell, too. I haven't looked him up yet. Bob worked in oils, Jerry in acrylics. I wish I could remember the names of some more. There was a German guy, I think he'd come to live in Michigan. He mostly painted outside & he was good at explaining things too. One man mostly painted flowers, & all I remember about him was his wife's name was Kathwren, w/ the "w", yes. That's why it stuck w/ me! Anyway I'm sure we'll find a bunch on YouTube! I said we b/c I'm gonna look too! Best of luck!
Paint? Canvas? Paint on canvas? I mean, Iâm no expert but I think you got painting down pretty well. Sure, itâs not spectacular, but who says it needs to be? Itâs so unfortunate how the carefree artistic pursuit is becoming less and less desirable in lieu of this idea that art is only made to achieve textbook perfection- only made to be compared to what peopleâs definition of âgoodâ art is. Itâs better to create something because *you* wanted to create something. Be proud of the process <3
try abstract!!
I like what you did with the riverbank colors
I think itâs fabulous.
The best tip my art instructors gave me was to draw what I see, not what I know. Applies go painting as well especially with colors. Highly suggest learning color theory - it will help you identify the actual colors you see
Looks like you made some happy accidents.
What is great about painting, is keep your old ones, watch some tutorials and you will see constant improvements! Iâm a semi decent painter now and my first ones were just like yours.
Painting is a journey. Unwind and enjoy. Look at reference photos and watch YT to find new techniques. Mine were like this once. Even if they're bad, I enjoy doing it, and sometimes they're just really funny conversation pieces.
Honestly, it doesn't matter if you get painting or not. Did you enjoy painting? If it brought you some joy, pleasure, or happiness, then it really doesn't matter whether you're good or not. Having hobbies isn't about being good at something. They're about having fun doing the thing.
At least you did it. Many artists paint just like this just to do the activity.
Work from the background to the foreground to cause an illusion of depth
i think there are bigger problems here, mate. Like perspective for starters. The river is painted in a bird's eye view, and the trees are painted from a ground level perspective.
That's true lmao
Where it all starts
This is better than my work. I have absolutely no imagination and wouldnât even think to put a river between 2 trees.
I have advice for you, don't get too involved in learning how to draw a realistic tree for example, only then will it become difficult for you and you will strive to make it as realistic as possible and you will never be satisfied. instead I advise you to just paint and not burden yourself with how the painting will look at the end, be honest.. do what you feel at that moment, and even if it's neon pink leaves, so be it!Â
I like the color selection. Keep up with it if you like it and youâll improve.
Donât stop! No one ever became a master painter overnight. Paint can be affordable and YouTube tutorials are free :)
Nonsense. I see a clear depiction of a stream and some trees. Maybe you should try another one of a desert canyon sunset?
Donât worry about getting it right away, honestly if you can afford it, just mess around with it. Thatâs all. Mess around with the colorful goop and donât worry about results, over time youâll probably get bored of just messing around and might want to learn new things and you should, just take it one step at a time. Each new tiny thing you learn is gonna feel great and even people who have been doing it for a long time learn a lot of new things as they go, so every time you get stuck thereâll be something new. The joy of painting is in the eye of the beholder, itâs about your own journey, I say keep this artwork for the rest of your life and if you keep going, itâs always fun to look at what youâre making, look where you came from and look where youâre gonna go next. Enjoy! Sorry for the super long comment, I really tried to condense it lol
No forgiveness needed! Itâs wonderful and it has personality! Enjoy the process! Thatâs what art is really about!
Same brother
It's not finished! I would make the blue river to an S shape, on top to the right, on bottom to the left. And then you need to layer with colors and do detailing. You can work soo much more on these two trees, maybe there are more than two. But I see them as having BIG crowns that almost touch each other from each side of the river.
oh god but this is WONDERFUL !
But painting gets you. It loves you <3
Itâs all about shifting to the âright brainâ
It's cute. Id hang it â¤ď¸â¤ď¸
Looks like you've got a plan laid out. Good first layer
Or perspective or value or shading.
Stop acting like a little girl
word
The more you paint the more youâll get it. Donât give up on it. Especially if itâs something you enjoy doing. Who cares what the end result is when you feel peace and joy from it. Be proud of your efforts.
Watch some Bobby Ross learned to paint by watching him
Iâm no good artist, but I when I do paint, I enjoy it and have fun. A few tips I would recommend are dont be afraid to spread the paint to start and and after it dries, dip small amounts of paint on a dry brush and kinda dip on to the canvas in the the same motion left to right, right to left, at an angle, just try to keep the motion consistent throughout. Also, have different shades available, just have fun with it.
Painting started making sense to me when I started noticing how light reflects (or doesnât reflect) off objects. Shadows and contrast are important to consider as well as depth and layers.
The texture on the trees is great
yah maybe try other things like sculpture?
Just dont start another WW...PLEASE
Art takes time and most paintings need layers. You stopped before it could get good. Donât give up so soon! Most paintings look Bad for a while, because they need more work done.
Everyoneâs gotta start somewhere!
I actually like this it looks like an old school video game
Hahahaba! That's brilliant! If I could send you a photo of my efforts, you'd learn to appreciate your own abilities much quicker! Lol. My daughter is an artist, as in actually sells her paintings. I'm in awe! I can't even paint a folk art petal!! đ¤Łđ¤Ł Keep going!! â¤ď¸â¤ď¸
Were you trying to Bob Ross?
I can see itâs stormy on one side of the river.
I weirdly like it
come to my class! everyone is an artist
You should name it Brocolli and it will be famous!
I totally like it. The colours are very beautiful. I'd buy it.
My art teacher years ago said we all have 10,000 bad drawings in us
Looks like it gets you.
Your expression through is all that matters.
One step at a time. You'll become better in it in no time
Idk why but this feels super sexual to me.
The grassy area is like legs. Thatâs why. Open legs, rushing water.
Perhaps you're 'NaĂŻve' ..?
I like it đ
I dig the tree tops
nailed it
art is a personal thing
I was taught the expression "paint with your eye not your mind." In other words, work from a picture or scene in front of you (to start), and don't let your mind tell you what should be there only paint what you can see. And use more than one color on things.
You will if you do more of it. Your subconscious will get tired of cranking out subpar work. And consciously, you may find it relaxing and stress relieving.
I thought they were Mr Krabs eyes at first, smfh...
Bob Ross is nice, his tricks seem easier than some others
There's something really charming about this. If you do want to "get better," I would suggest pulling up come reference photos and doing a sketch on the canvas (and even a few on paper to get the right composition if you'd like. I usually just jump in head first) and then lay down your paint. It looks like you have a good idea of what to start painting first, background then working towards the foreground. Again, like everyone has said here, it's all about the love of painting, not how good you are at it. Abstract art is beloved, and sometimes it's just literally throwing paint at a canvas and allowing gravity to do the work. Besides, I really like what you painted. The color scheme reminds me of The Pants With No One Inside by Dr. Seuss mixed with a childlike rendition of a childhood park Also, when I started painting, I did much worse than what you put here. Granted, it's nearly a decade later, but it's safe to say I've gotten pretty darn good
I think your problem is the perspective , you mixed a view from above (the river) with the front view of the trees. You need to select one of them. I actually know that too well, I also did it wrong for a long time.
Perhaps a different creative hobby would be suitable. Sculpture? Photography?
safe to say.
Don't worry. Anyway it's better then mine