How I started painting – seven tips for aspiring artists
Maybe you have never painted, but you would love to. However, you are afraid. Afraid that you can’t paint, that you will only make ugly things, that you will be making a fool of yourself. You fear that you will not be able to carry through. Or maybe you are worried that you don’t have money, time, or energy to start painting.
It is true: it is not always easy to start painting. There can be many obstacles in the way and many thoughts in your mind that stop you from going ahead and just doing it.
I would like to tell you my painting story, about how I became a painter. About what stood in my way, and what helped me to overcome my doubts and fears. In my story, I will break down the things that helped me in seven tips:
- Develop a creative practice, painting daily if possible
- Put the stakes as low as possible
- Value process first, product second
- Start cheap
- Start small
- Connect with other artists and make art friends
- Capture your development
Would you love to paint, but never take the time? Sign up here for the free video series about collage making, and start painting now!
My history of painting
When I was about 30 years, I developed a very profound yearning to paint. I had never painted before, but I just felt I needed to start painting. I didn’t know where to begin though. I had no experience at all! Yes, of course as a child on the kitchen table, in kindergarten, and in primary school. But I was not the girl who always had brushes in her hands or who made the most beautiful drawings from early on. When I went to high school, I had drawing lessons where I had to paint vases of flowers and bowls of fruit. I did not like that too much, though, and I was not very good at it – so my grades for the drawing class weren’t very high I came to see myself as somebody who wasn’t good at art. And art became something that other people made. Not me. So when this desire to start painting emerged, fifteen years later, I was standing on a foreign and frightening territory. I had no idea where to begin.
Support
I was lucky to meet a very supportive woman at that time. She was a painter, but also a writer, a sportswoman, a mathematician, a saxophone player and much more. She was the kind of person who did not let herself get fenced in and who pursued her many passions without thinking they should be ‘useful’ or ‘realistic’ or ‘professional.’ She told me, ‘If you want to paint, just start!’
So, I went with her to the art supplies store. It was an overwhelming and intimidating place for me with all those colors and materials. But she guided me through it, and we left the store with some basic art supplies. And then I started painting, inspired by the enthusiasm and the support of my friend.
Abstract painting
I had always been drawn to abstract art, much more than to realistic art. So I knew I wanted to paint abtractly. But, that made starting to paint a lot more difficult. Because, if you want to paint realistically – you have a starting point: reality! You can see the clouds, the flowers, the faces, the landscapes, and you can start from there. And you can find lots of information on the Internet (at that time, the library) that can help you to start painting and find your style along the way.
But painting abstract art is another thing. It starts somewhere deep within; there is no visible starting point. The question is, how can you access that inner world? How can you translate something immaterial into something material? How can you give form to the formless? And how can you do that without overthinking, without killing the spontaneity by analyzing the painting to death?
That was very difficult for me. Actually, I was not even aware of that process. I just stumbled along. It was confusing. I had looked forward so much to painting, but it was not the fun experience that I had hoped it to be. I found myself wrestling on the canvas. Doubting what I was doing.
Thinking about myself
Another thing that made painting difficult for me was that I thought a lot about the role of art in my life. I did not simply paint, but I wondered if I was a ‘real artist.’ I asked myself if this was what I really wanted. And instead of only grabbing my brushes and painting, I worried about my identity as an artist, and about my past and future as a painter.
Lots of thoughts and questions were running through my mind. Should I pursue a career as a professional artist? But I am trained as a counselor, I have already chosen a career. It is too late to go to art school, I have wasted my time. I have made the wrong choices. And how can I earn money with art? Impossible! I don’t have enough talent. Other people’s art is so much better! I will always be second best; I am not a born artist anyway. And so on. And so on.
All those thoughts and worries made my painting experience full of heaviness. Not the light and exciting activity that I had hoped it to be when I started. Soon my painting wavered. And when my life was getting busier with work and motherhood, I dropped painting altogether.
Fast forward to 2014
The desire to paint never left. I was lucky to have a sister-in-law who had lots of art books on her shelves. Every time I went to her house, I could not resist the urge to go through them and enjoy the colors, the structures, and the compositions. And when it was Christmas 2014, and we were all together as a family at her house, I stumbled upon a book about daily painting.
The concept of daily painting immediately struck me as powerful. My history as a painter had been full of trying hard, being disappointed, stopping again, then trying again, being a perfectionist, getting disheartened. And so on. I immediately realized daily painting might help me to break the vicious circle of starting and stopping, always painting between hope and fear.
Develop a creative practice
I searched the internet about daily painting, and I stumbled on the 30-paintings-in-30-days challenge of a painter named Leslie Saeta. I took part, along with maybe 1000 other artists, and it immediately had a huge effect on me. Daily painting indeed helped me out of the rut of perfectionism and procrastination.
I promised myself to make something every single day. Even on weekends, which are usually busy with my family, my children, weekly chores and so on. So if I had no time at all – I simply made a small drawing in black and white on the back of a business card.
That was perfectly fine for me. Doing so, I had lived a small promise I had made to myself of making art every day. I had NOT promised to produce something very refined or beautiful every day, so I could be happy with the small step I had taken. I felt proud of myself: I had developed a creative practice!
Would you love to paint, but never take the time? Sign up here for the free video series about collage making, and start painting now!
Low stakes
The daily painting also helped me to put the stakes very low. I started to realize that making a not-so-beautiful painting is no problem at all. If you paint so often and produce so many paintings, it doesn’t matter if many of them turn out quite bad. Tomorrow you have the chance to make another painting. You can simply dump today’s painting in the garbage bin. Nobody knows, and nobody cares!
Process first, product second
The fact that I changed my attention from the product (the finished painting) to the process (the simple fact that I painted, whatever happened) made all the difference for me.
Putting the process first made art-making fun again. It is wonderful to have paint on your fingers, and it is delightful to scratch with crayon on paper. Process-oriented painting is playing like a kid again. You can get ‘in the zone,’ forgetting time, simply adding colors, lines, and shapes, without restraints.
On the contrary, putting the product first makes art-making a stressful thing. If you worry about the outcome, your mind becomes too active. The spontaneity and fun that you long for can easily get lost. And the quality of your painting gets lower because you can see the stress and the overthinking in your painting.
I soon discovered the pure joy that I always had known is the centerpiece of making art. Process-oriented painting got me excited day after day. I felt proud of myself. Not because the products were so beautiful but because I saw myself grow as a painter every day.
The fun thing was that I sometimes really surprised myself with results that I had never imagined I would be able to produce. Other times the products of the daily painting were just boring or ugly. But I did not care. The general tendency was that I made better and better work. Not so strange, of course; even though it feels paradoxical, the less I focused on product, the better my paintings became.
Cheap materials
Another thing that daily painting taught me is that you can make significant progress as a painter with cheap materials. I painted on very cheap substrates, like cheap drawing paper and wallpaper, which were not suited to create perfect results. But it worked out well for me.
Because the materials were so cheap and unpretentious and imperfect, I could drop the need to make perfect paintings. Also, I painted with cheap paint. Professional grade paint was far too expensive for me, and painting with high-quality paint would have stifled me. Who dares to fearlessly throw some paint around when they know that every tube of paint costs a fortune?
By the way, I did not buy materials that were too cheap. I simply bought the student grade paint in the art supplies store, not the cheaper craft paint. And with my current experience I would advise buying at least one bottle of professional liquid acrylics and, if you like working with crayon, a few professional high pigmented crayons. But that doesn’t need to be too expensive if you choose carefully.
Later on, I started to buy some professional paints, too, combining them with student grade paints. Professional paints can give an additional dimension to the painting experience. Their high pigmentation is a feast for the eye, and the colors are rich and inviting.
But in my opinion, the most important thing is finding the freedom to express yourself without hesitation. And if the price of the paint is limiting that freedom of expression, the quality of the paint is not worth it.
Would you love to paint, but never take the time? Sign up here for the free video series about collage making, and start painting now!
Starting small
The very first time that I started painting, I wanted to paint on big canvases. I had always loved big colorful paintings, and I wanted to make them myself, too. So I bought canvases of 50/70 cm (20/28“) and 100/100 cm (40/40”).
But this did not work out well for me. Those canvases were quite expensive. They were big and difficult to move around and store. I needed a lot of paint to cover the surface. Finishing a painting took a long time. And doing quick experiments and studies was not easy on those large surfaces.
When I started my daily painting practice 15 years later, I started a lot smaller, and I painted on a piece of wallpaper instead of on a canvas. One friend of mine had lots of rolls left from a room makeover, and she gave them to me for free. I prepared them with gesso, and I was ready to start.
I cut out squares of 50/50 cm (20/20”), smaller than the canvas that I used before, and I felt so much freer. Because I worked on paper, I could easily store my paintings. If I did not like them, I threw them away, or painted them over, or used them as a first layer for the next painting. Since I was not that precious about my work, I made massive amounts of paintings. That worked out well because indeed quantity breeds quality.
An art friend
Another essential aspect of my daily painting adventure was the development of a friendship with a fellow artist. During the 30-paintings-in-30-days challenge from Leslie Saeta I met another artist online, Dotty Seiter, who has been my buddy in art now for years.
I can’t stress enough how important it is to have someone who follows you, who likes what you are doing and who supports you no matter what. Mutual support is critical. Art-making can be such a lonely endeavor – you are working in your home or studio, usually alone. If you never communicate about what you are doing with fellow artists, it can be easy to drop art-making altogether in difficult or uninspired times.
Capture the development
Another thing that helped me very much to stay on track as an artist was the fact that I started a blog about my daily painting. I did so, because I participated in the 30-paintings-in-30-days challenge. This way, my online fellow painters could see what I had painted that day.
I immediately liked my blog. Because I photographed my work every day, I kept track of my development. After a month of painting, I could see that I had created a considerable body of work. When I scrolled back through my blog, I could easily see what I had learned, and how I had grown. My blog helped me to take my painting seriously, and it created accountability.
The blog made it also possible for my art friend Dotty to react on my daily painting. That made me feel connected on a daily basis. The first year I kept my blog hidden from the public. I published it on a free blog site (Weebly) and used a pseudonym to keep it secret. (In the free plan of Weebly it is not possible to keep your site hidden from the public, so if you want to keep your blog private you have to use a pseudonym).
After a year I moved my blog to a public site under my real name. (It was too big a hassle to move the Weebly posts over to the new website, so if you like the idea of a public art blog, I would suggest starting your own WordPress site straight away. When you want to keep your blog hidden at first, you can hide it behind a password.).
Of course, you can use a paper notebook to keep track of your developments, too. That is perfectly fine. The advantage of a blog, though, is that it gives you the possibility to easily showcase photos from your artwork. It also helps you to connect with other painters all over the world. And you get used to showing your work publicly on the Internet.
Would you love to paint, but never take the time? Sign up here for the free video series about collage making, and start painting now!
Keep going
My daily painting practice still is vital to me. I now skip the weekends and holidays, and on days that are very busy I don’t paint. But on ‘normal’ work days I always take time to do something creative.
Sometimes it is only a short study – I just scratch with crayons, dry brush some liquid paint around, and that’s it. I often use my fingers and a foam brush, and I paint unpretentiously for 15 or 20 minutes. I enjoy the colors and the lines; I use it as a kind of meditation. I photograph what I have done, write something short about it on my blog, and then the rest of my day starts.
At times I work on larger canvases, with more colors. That usually takes up more time, which is not always possible in my schedule. I try not to push myself, but I also keep challenging myself not to give up, and not to escape in the usual business of the day.
Contrary to what most people think, painting is not always ‘easy.’ Every day you are confronted with a blank piece of paper or a blank or half-finished canvas. If you paint abstractly, you never know what your next step is going to be. It arises at the moment – you can’t force it. Abstract painting nails you down in the present moment. Which makes it such a beautiful thing, but which can also be challenging. Human beings usually love it when things are predictable, and when they know how to get results beforehand. Abstract painting does not give you this clarity.
Stay in the moment
But if you dare to stay in this moment of not-knowing, beautiful things can happen. And these beautiful things don’t only appear on paper, but also in daily life. If you learn to trust your impulses and intuitions while making art, you simultaneously get to trust yourself in the rest of your life.
The creative process is of course about playing with color and about creating beauty in the world. But even more importantly, it can teach you so much else. By following the creative path, you learn to live in the present moment, to let go of what is not serving you anymore, to dare to take risks, to look at things from an unexpected angle, and to experience life on a deeper level.
Would you love to paint, but never take the time? Sign up here for the free video series about collage making, and start painting now!
Try to find time!
I realize that since I am self-employed, and since my children go to school, it might be easier for me to paint daily than for someone who is working at a day job or who has kids at home. But even if your day is very full and you can’t control your schedule you can try to make space in your day to do something small.
Maybe something that does not make a big mess. Maybe you can use watercolor pencils, or water soluble crayons, or only a black marker. Or use dry brush techniques with only one color of paint. There is always something small possible.
The most important thing is that you get your creativity flowing. And once you have a longer window of time – maybe on the weekend or holiday – you are ready to paint. You can express yourself freely since you have practiced it day after day on a small scale.
I wish you so much joy and freedom making art. If you desire to make art, start now! And if you feel inclined, write me an email with your questions and remarks.
Good luck!
Let me know in the comments below about your painting history!!
Bye!
Simone
PS: The seven tips again:
These were the seven tips that helped me to start painting:
- Develop a creative practice, painting daily if possible
- Put the stakes as low as possible
- Value process first, product second
- Start cheap
- Start small
- Connect with other artists and make art friends
- Capture your development
Would you love to paint, but never take the time? Sign up here for the free video series about collage making, and start painting now!
Such a helpful article, Simone. Thank you for taking the time to try and help other artists grow and learn!
Hi Beth, thank you so much! I am happy to do so, and I’m glad we’re together in the ArtNow Community, so we can grow and learn together;-)
(By the way, if other people are interested in this community: you can learn about it here: https://artnowcommunity.mn.co/ )
Hello Simone
I have just discovered your blog through Instagram and so much of what you write resonates with me. I have been painting on and off for past twenty years. I started by taking the traditional route of watercolour classes in landscape painting. This satisfied me for a while but then I wanted to move in a more abstract direction but somehow didn’t know how to, so I drifted away from painting. Fortunately about six years ago I discovered Jane Davies online classes and she showed me some of the tools I needed. Since then I have been dabbling but not been consistent in my practice however about six weeks ago things really began to flow and I feel that having discovered your blog will help me keep a regular practice. Incidentally I am in my seventies and had secretly felt that it was a bit late and I’d rather missed the boat but my daughter sent me this link yesterday : Rose Wylie: ‘I want to be known for my paintings – not because I’m old’
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/nov/22/rose-wylie-i-want-to-be-known-for-my-paintings-not-because-im-old-serpentine?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
which I find most encouraging.
I’m looking forward to following your blog.
Thank you so much for your comment, Mary! So interesting how you describe the ‘traditional route’, I think many people will recognize themselves in your story.
So happy for you that your art practice is starting to flow again.
Thank you so much for the link to the article about Rose Wylie. So inspiring. My husband Steven (he’s a composer) told me about another composer who wrote the bigger part of his work after he turned 80. I love it. It reminds us that art has nothing to do with age. It is the fire that wants to come out, and that does not retire after you have turned 65 or so.
And Jane Davies, I love it that you mention her. She’s a marvelous artist and teacher, I am glad you ran into her. She is incredibly inspiring and so generous with all her tutorials. (for anyone who reads this: check out her website: http://janedavies-collagejourneys.blogspot.com/)
Thanks for writing!