There’s more to painting than simply picking up a paintbrush and getting creative. Which medium should you use? What should you paint? Where do you begin? And how do you channel your creativity onto your canvas? In the Paint & Draw Beginner’s Guide to Painting, we’ll guide you through the basics of the most popular mediums, from watercolours to oil. We’ll explore the kit you need to give yourself a head start, and reveal the techniques you need to master to unleash your inner artist. So what are youwaiting for? Get painting!
Welcome
Paint & Draw Beginner’s Guide to Painting
The basics
Choosing your painting medium • Lancelot Richardson covers the key features of oils, pastels, watercolours and acrylics, and weighs their strengths and weaknesses
Sketching for painting • Lancelot Richardson covers different ways to use drawing to develop ideas and support the painting process
Develop a plan with thumbnails • Using thumbnails is an effective way to plan out the composition for a painting and test out different ideas
Developing ideas with preparatory drawings • Preparatory drawings are done to research ideas for paintings, especially larger compositions containing lots of complex elements
Mark-making for painting • Applying the marks made in a drawing to the painting process can add variety and energy to static brushstrokes
Colour theory • Lancelot Richardson introduces the fundamentals of colour theory, and shows how it can be applied to the painting process
Depict a complementary colour beach sunset • The blues and oranges of this evocative sunset scene show how complementary colours can be used to create a striking image
Analogous portraits • This portrait demonstration shows an analogous colour scheme at work and looks at mixing warm neutral skin tones
Watercolours
Essential kit for watercolour • This guide from Lancelot Richardson introduces common watercolour materials, explains what they are and gives suggestions for building your own watercolour kit
Picking your paints • Watercolours can come in a variety of different forms that make them suitable for many working styles
Brush up on brushes • Brushes are an essential element of your kit. This guide introduces some common brush types and what they are useful for
Clean your brushes • Watercolour brushes are more delicate than brushes designed for acrylic and oils, and should be treated accordingly, explains Rob Lunn
Paper choices • The surface we work on plays a pivotal role in the result of our artwork
Stretching paper • To avoid wrinkles and crinkles, be sure to prepare your paper before you start painting
Additional tools • While paint, brushes and paper are the core of our kit, other equipment can be useful or open up avenues to experimentation
Simplify painting with a strong composition • Margaret Merry demonstrates how to use watercolour to capture the charm of a summer garden, with its ephemeral light, shade and colour
Capture a winter farm • Using his unique '5 Cs of Painting', Robert Newcombe demonstrates how to paint a snow scene in watercolour from a sketch
Pastels
An introduction to pastels • Nel Whatmore has had a lifetime of loving pastels and encourages you to explore this wonderful medium
Draw a fox using pastels • Rebecca de Mendonça shows how she creates a cunning fox with a combination of soft pastels, Conté crayons and pastel pencils
Weather effects • Nel Whatmore invites you to explore the joys of working in pastels to discover the beauty of painting different types of weather, from long summer days to still misty mornings
Misty days and creating atmosphere • Creating atmosphere is essential to conveying...