Can I learn to paint in just 4 hours?
I keep thinking maybe it'll just get better and then it just gets worse.
What do I need? Where do I start?
I've been talking about learning to paint
for a while, and it's time to finally make it happen.
So where is the best place to learn a new skill?
Skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of online classes,
and they are sponsoring today's video. Being a beginner at paints,
I'm taking you on the journey with me today as I take the ultimate crash course
in acrylic painting to see how much I can learn in just a few hours,
with the help of the classes on Skillshare.
What do you want to learn today?
Acrylic painting - 1472 results!
Okay, we've got a lot to cover.
Maybe we need you more specific - class level.
Okay, beginner.
Let's get started and learning all about acrylic painting.
We're going to have to watch everything
in double speed if we're going to get this done in time.
Okay, how many different classes can I open at the same time?
Maybe we can watch them all concurrently and just see what I can absorb.
Is that a really bad idea?
That feels like a really bad idea, actually.
All right, let's just pick some classes first.
Basic palette knife painting, brushwork for beginners.
The paint slapping magic of brushes. Just want to slap something!
Oh, that makes really good sound.
Listen,
there are so many amazing courses here, and this is just for acrylic painting.
Palette Knife Techniques, Acrylic Painting Basics, 17 Fun Ways
to Use Acrylic Paint, Flawless Blending, everything you need to know for beginners.
There are so many options here.
I need, like, a whole month to go through these, not just a few hours.
Complete Guide
to Your First Acrylic Painting, Acrylic Texture Painting, Repurpose your
old, ugly paintings and turn them into loose, abstract florals.
Can we repurpose this into an abstract floral?
Pretty bad.
This is what happens when I've tried acrylic painting in the past.
It started out well, and then I just got angry and I just smudged it all together.
This is why we need to take a class.
I need, like, the real basics right now.
What types of brushes do I use?
The next thing we're going to talk about is paint brushes.
And again. So with some help from Yvette Lab's class,
I've started gathering my supplies to work out exactly what I need today.
So who can tell me what brushes are the right brushes for acrylic paint?
Because I have no idea.
That's a makeup brush, detail brushes.
I don't know.
Gallery series, filbert, what does that mean?
Flat Micador,
I think some of these are watercolor brushes, too.
Mop filbert,
that just looks like a cheap brush. Gouache, not oil.
Acrylic, acrylic,
not pouring acrylic, white textured Gesso.
Those are the oil colors that I made a few weeks ago.
But I do have a pretty good range here.
Of acrylic paints that were sent to me
a while ago by Chalkola that I've been meaning to try.
So these are perfect to get us started today.
I've also got a lot of teal acrylic, 3D textured modeling paste.
I also snuck into the future into next week's video and grabbed the world's best
transparent acrylic Gesso from next week's haul.
We've got canvas, canvas board things, gouache pad.
We're getting somewhere.
Well, not really... An A5 watercolor pad.
Let's try and bring some order to this chaos.
"Blending is usually the first skill that my students want to learn when they
are starting out in acrylic painting, and it is one of those painting skills
that can be a bit tricky for beginners but results in beautiful..."
Since I love blending and gradients,
this is definitely a great place to start for me too.
But I think I can see why you're supposed
to use Gesso underneath when you're painting on paper, because this is soaked
in so much that it made it really hard to work with, and it's kind of buckled.
I don't know how I feel about this first attempt, but it's okay,
this is the first one.
So there are a lot of classes to choose
from and a huge range of styles and different ways to use acrylic paints.
So I've decided to start with some more abstract ideas to allow me to explore some
different tools that I'd be less likely to come across on my own.
I'm not focused on creating a masterpiece at this point.
I'm just playing and enjoying the learning process.
And shortly,
I'll choose a class with a bigger project that I can work on with the teacher's
step by step help.
I decided to choose a palette painting
course with Charlene because I love this style of art.
"Your first project will be creating
a portrait with a palette knives, something like this." This is like the color matching video all over again.
I've chosen a side portrait using a reference image I found on Unsplash,
and I've used my color catalog to choose a basic color palette that I want to work
from to at least give me a good starting point.
I'm using a watered down base color
to block out some of the values to give me a bit of a guide of the light and dark
areas, and I'm hoping this will be a good guide for the rest of the image.
All right, we're just going to have to go for it at this point I think
I'm feeling a little bit lost, but let's just go.
We don't have time to keep, just... I don't even know.
Okay, so we have a palette knife,
we have a bit of a base here, and we just need to start working.
And I think the guide is here, is that even
though I've got completely different colors, I just want to kind of work
in the light and shadow lightest colors in the light areas.
Shadow colors in the shadow areas.
That doesn't help me feel any more confident in putting down color right now.
You're doing great.
Thanks. Needed that!
As I start layering the paints, I very quickly realized that I should have
spent more time getting the first sketch and values of the face done more
accurately, because I feel like this isn't looking right
and I'm not sure that adding more abstract colors will make this better.
This is not a beginner painting.
It doesn't feel like it should have been my first attempt.
There were probably at least three points
along the way that looked better than the current state of this painting.
This is just not working out like I wanted.
I wish I picked a landscape.
Why would I pick a portrait as my first ever attempt at palette painting?
It's just a really bad idea.
I have an idea, Sarah.
Let's learn not just a new medium.
Let's learn a whole new style of art.
We're just going to have to put this one down to learning experience.
I don't even know what my plan is going to be with that eye.
It's just long gone.
I feel like I enjoyed the process
of the palette painting, and I feel like for flowers or landscapes,
this could be really fun.
And I do want to try this more.
I probably should have started somewhere
simpler. That ended in a place I didn't expect.
Not all bad, right?
Okay, moving on.
I don't have much time left, so I'm going to have to find something good.
No more portraits.
So with just under an hour left to learn how to paint.
I'm going to jump into the advanced
classes and have a look at a class by Yvette Lab.
Now, this class goes for an hour and 45 minutes, so I'm going to have to watch
this in double time and hopefully not skip the important parts.
I've put Gesso on my paper,
I've taped down the edges, kind of, and I'm ready to go.
This red and this yellow are not the right... Not the right red or the right yellow.
They're not primary colors.
They're going to have to get a little bit creative here.
We'll make it work... "and a little tiniest bit of white.
We want this to be a very dark color,
but just a little bit of white helps it be a little translucent.
And I also added in a little bit of our blue.
We end up with a very dark teal color here."
Teal, yes.
I like this class already.
Just a few minutes in,
and I'm already feeling more confident about my progress in this class.
At this point, I've had about 3 hours
of practicing painting through various classes I've tried,
and I'm feeling more confident about working with paints in general.
After working with pencils for so long,
it's interesting to see how paints are actually a lot more forgiving.
I can work dark to light or light to dark, and this is new for me.
But also exciting and refreshing in a different way.
It takes off a lot of that pressure to be
perfect and gives me confidence to just explore and dabble.
It also helps that Yvette's voice is kind of soothing.
After my crash course today, I know the importance of Gesso,
and I know which of my brushes to use, and these more than anything, have saved me
a lot of frustration in figuring this out for myself.
So while I'm generally a kinesthetic learner, it's definitely given me a huge
head start today to learn from other professionals and take these classes.
Honestly, I really want to keep painting now.
I'm enjoying myself a lot,
but I've barely touched the surface today of everything on Skillshare.
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creative or you're just curious to learn something new, if you have a specific
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The first 1000 people to use my link in the description will get a one month
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and there are new classes launched every week, giving you more and more
opportunities to grow your creativity and explore new media.
I think there are some ideas here already for future videos.
I'm feeling pretty good about how this
little painting has turned out. After the first painting was such a failure,
I needed a win, and I actually think this is one that I would like to frame and put
up in an office somewhere because I am really proud of it.
It kind of makes me want to keep painting.
So even though my time is up, I do feel inspired to go back and have
another go at fixing the first palette painting that I did.
I think where I got this wrong was
that the proportions of the face were just not quite right.
Realistically, I probably should have
picked a different subject and not gone for a face first up,
but we're going to work with what we have and see if I can fix this up and I'm just
going to try and have fun with this and enjoy the process.
So even if this doesn't work out
in the end, at least I will have learned something.
And the next time I try a palette picture,
I will be able to create something that I'm proud of.
I decided not to limit myself to just
working with a palette knife and have been using a brush too.
I love the overall palette knife effect, but it's also been a point of frustration
because it's such a new medium for me and I can't fix these details that are
frustrating me the most with this piece; and there's no point in creating
unnecessary rules for myself if it stops me enjoying the process, because art is
meant to be enjoyed. I think my biggest struggle with an abstract style painting
like this is just the perfectionist in me doesn't know when to stop.
I just keep wanting to add a little bit more color a tweak a bit here or there
and make it a little bit more realistic even though it's not supposed to be
realistic and that's when I break it and then I want to fix it again and I end
up in this circle... So I think I need to learn when to just stop. I do think
for a first piece I am happy with how this has turned out.
I don't know if it's something that I'll look back on and cringe at in the future,
possibly, but I have learned a lot and I have enjoyed the process and while
there is a lot of paint on this canvas I do think this has been a really fun
experience for me and I'm glad I gave this a go.
I want to thank Skillshare again for sponsoring this video today because
this has been such a good opportunity to dive into a medium that I have been
wanting to learn properly for a very long time and learning with a teacher is so
much easier than having to spend hours just figuring it out on my own.
I think I would definitely like to do this again so please let me know
in the comments what you would like to see me try next time.