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Harlan's Easy Painting Course in Acrylics
"To keep one's art young, one must imitate young animals. What do they do? They play. A love of play -- serious, creative play -- is fundamental to the art of Brancusi, Miro and Calder." - Calder's Universe
Anyone can learn to paint. If you take it a step at a time you can enjoy painting -- even if you don't know how to draw. This acrylic art course is a follow up to the article, Acrylic Painting the Cheap and Easy Way. Please read it for a list of the few supplies I recommend.
I'm calling each lesson a "play" not to be clever but to emphasize the importance of creative play when you paint. Art should be fun. I find when I'm being creative and really enjoying my painting, I'm usually happy with the result. Boring, tedious paintings tend to end up looking that way.
Besides play, I also emphasize simplicity. These exercises are easy to do. You can copy the paintings I show here, do something similar, or paint your own idea. When you keep the paintings simple and easy, you'll feel successful, and that will build confidence.
This course is the way I wish I had started out -- in logical steps, one lesson building on another, with room for personal creativity and experimentation. If you have a lot of fun with one lesson, feel free to make more paintings using that same lesson. You can also skip lessons you feel you don't need or aren't interesting.
Note: Most paintings shown here are 5" x 7" in size or smaller. I used only three tube colors plus white. Occasionally I used black, but as a tint black tends to deaden other colors, so I try to use it sparingly. Scan through the paintings on these pages and you will see how many colors you can get from only three tube colors! I also used only two brushes.
Okay, let's play!
Play #1: Make friends with your two brushes.
Squirt out an inch or so of black paint on your palette. Add a little water to your brush to thin the paint. Now make a variety of brush marks on a newspaper page. Get a feel for how the brushes handle.
Next, make your first painting on a 5" x 7" panel. Use the small brush and make a pleasing arrangement of brush marks as I tried to do. The lively calligraphic strokes give a feeling of spontanaeity and cheer -- without representing anything. This is the beauty of abstract (or non-objective) painting.
Now try the big flat brush and make bold marks on a fresh panel. See the difference? This painting looks more powerful and dynamic. Some might say the first painting was feminine and this one masculine.
(View this painting with white and red added. You'll gradually add color to your paintings later.)
Play #2: Draw a painting using only black.
This first painting is quite realistic, with bold outlines. Some objects are filled in with black. (I used the small brush.) The design or composition in black gives a strong structure to the painting. It's a good way to start any painting -- one color first to establish a design, then fill in with color.
Here's a variation of the first still life. I tried to show that you don't have to draw perfectly to make a pleasing painting. For instance the table is bent and the cup handle is in the wrong place. The free and easy drawing actually has more liveliness and interest, to me, than the more accurate painting.
In a later lesson you'll add color to this painting.
Go to the next page for Play #3.
All art work Copyright © Harlan Simantel
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