Reddit mentions: The best painting books

Fear cuts deeper than swords

OOH I LOVE SCAVENGER HUNTS. Placeholder. I'm working on this. Goodbye sunday night productivity.

EDIT Aug 11, 11:44pm PST

1.) something that is gray.

2.) Something reminiscent of rain. It rains so much in my city and on those days I like to have my tea and soup and all the yummy hot homecooked food at school in the library while I study. I already have a great thermos for my tea and hot cocoa but not for my soups/food.

3.) Something food related that is unusual. I don't know if this is necessarily food related but WOOOO TEA. MANA-TEA. Seriously this is awesome.

4.) Something on your list that is for someone other than yourself. A wii for my mom because she has been wanting a wii or ipad for a long time. My bro and i think the wii would be better because at least we could all play it together when we go home to visit.

5.) I will recommend this book to anyone and everyone. It's the book I just finished reading and I feel like it has helped me a lot. I am so much more motivated and driven and it is helping me make some tough choices in my life. I am a senior in college but this book can help anyone who is at any place in their life I think. I currently have this on my wishlist which is like a supplement to the book. Seriously though, read it, share it with everyone you know. Let's make the world a happier place.

6.) An item that is less than a dollar. Awww yeee. They always seem to have one of these on the coffee table at my brother's house. Wherever he lives. Even though it's never his. But yeah, they're cool but I don't actually want one.

7.) Something related to cats. THIS IS SO AWESOME. I have another mug with the disappearing thing on my wishlist too. But yeah, I love cats, I just don't have much cat stuff on my wishlist. I do need a real cat though... hint hint nudge nudge

EDIT Aug 12, 12:15am PST

8.) Something that is not useful, but so beautiful you must have it. Okay it's not Amazon but it is beautiful and I have had my eye on it for a year. Despite that fact that I do not plan on having children for at least 8 years. Dem hormones are a'ragin.

9.) I know it's not REALLY a movie but... A movie everyone should watch at least once in their life. Why? Because it is so beautiful and awe inspiring. It really brings me a sense of peace every time I watch it.

10.) Something that would be useful when the zombies attack. Explain. I can put on my holy strainer hat and pray to The Flying Spaghetti Monster to save me from the zombies.

11.) Something that would have a profound impact on your life and help you to achieve your current goals. I know I used this for another one but really, I think doing these exercises would help me in all areas of life.

12.) One of those pesky Add-On items. These beauties, even though I doubt I can grow them without a yard...

13.) The most expensive thing on your list. Your dream item. Why? My little acer hand me down freezes a lot, can't do multiple things at once, doesn't have a cd drive, has a screen too tiny to edit photos or edit my website. Basically everything is frustrating. And I'm a college student. So I use the computer for basically everything... and everything the little laptop CAN do takes forever.

EDIT Aug 12, 1:51am PST

14.) Something bigger than a bread box. If you don't think that is big enough, then here, but it's newly added.

15.) Something smaller than a golf ball. Well, I'm pretty sure this is smaller than a golf ball. If it wasn't, I'd be disappointed.

16.) Something that smells wonderful. Mmm imagine the ginger lemon grass!

17.) A (SFW) toy. And here's another one because I couldn't decide which one looks more fun...

18.) Something that would be helpful for going back to school.

19.) Something related to your current obsession, whatever that may be. Currently obsessed with learning all kinds of new jewelry techniques! Also obsessed with tea because it's the one thing my boyfriend and I developed an interest in together. It didn't start out as either of our interests.

20.) Something that is just so amazing and awe-inspiring that I simply must see it. Explain why it is so grand. THIS IS SO PRETTY AND USEFUL AT THE SAME TIME. Seriously so cute, has lovely details, 8gb, and you can wear it as a pendant. Whaaaat!

EDIT: this lovely is made in oregon!

Reeves is crap paint. Try using it up as a paint you sketch with rather than finishing a whole piece with it. The reason why economy (or student) quality paints such as Reeves are not so great (even for beginners) is because if you try to do any sort of color mixing with them, you end up with mud. Reason why is because the pigment to medium ratio is poor (less pigment and more fillers/mediums in the tube than a more pricey brand). I teach art classes to beginners and I am now requiring that they purchase artist-grade acrylics, oils or watercolours for class. Here's a bit of a shopping list for you... obtain the following: Golden-brand paint in these colours: Hansa Yellow Opaque, Quinacridone Magenta, Phthalo Blue (Red Shade) or Ultramarine Blue, Burnt Umber or Burnt Sienna, Zinc White and Titanium White. Also, pick up some Golden Acrylic Glazing Medium (Gloss) or Retarder Medium to mix into your colours instead of adding water. Adding water to acrylic polymer emulsion paints breaks down the paint, therefore resulting in a less saturated, washed-out or "dull" surface. You can mix water with watercolour paints, but try using acrylic mediums such as the glazing medium instead of water. The paints I mentioned and the medium will run you about $60-$70 depending on where you live (the stuff is cheaper in the USA). If you have any questions at all about art materials, please message me and I will answer your questions. I've worked in art supplies for a some years now and have extensive product knowledge about the stuff.

As far as composition goes, I get my students to use their own photographs only. The reason is because if you take photos off the net (even though you are giving your painting away this time around), the composition has already been solved for you, so you aren't learning much when it comes to that. Use your own photos and crop them using a viewfinder window to obtain a composition for your work. Oh, and also another good practice tip would be to sketch out at least 5-10 different compositions in thumbnail format in a sketchbook (using a pen or pencil or whatever you want). That way, you will have a nice little plan before starting on a canvas.

It is always best to draw or paint from life when you can, but when you can't get outdoors to paint, be sure to stick with your own photos (or composites even; you could do this in Photoshop and then print it out).

When mixing, do not use black. I say this because it is good to learn colour theory, and then make up your mind whether or not you'd like to use black to darken areas. Complimentaries create neutral grays, so for example: Red & Green, Blue & Orange, Yellow & Purple. Theoretically, you can mix equal parts of any two complimentaries and obtain black. Add white and you get grey. Zinc white is a good one to start with because Titanium White can be overpowering. Try mixing both whites together in order to create a "Mixing White" and then use that when tinting (tint = adding white to a color). Another little trick to obtain black (and subsequent grays) is to mix Ultramarine Blue and Burnt Umber. You can mix Ultramarine Blue and Burnt Sienna to create a warmer black/grey.

And now, for some books that you simply must purchase and read through! I'm real picky when it comes to good art instruction books... so here are my recommended selections :)

Color & Light by James Gurney

Landscape Painting by Mitchell Albala

Composing Pictures by Donald Graham (Disney's art instructor for many years)

Carlson's Guide to Landscape Painting by John F. Carlson - written in the 1920s, this is THE DEFINITIVE book on landscape painting. The man's writing is sharp, witty and to the point)

One more thing... failure and criticism from others (and yourself) are your friends. Failure will drive you to create better work, and criticism will help you know where you aren't doing so well. Praise is great, but it can be extremely dangerous because if too many people praise you and not many give suggestions then where are you at exactly? You won't know if you've made a mistake (especially if you are just starting out).

Quantity (and quality) are everything... paint paint paint! Paint one a week or even daily if you can! Create your next post on Reddit when you've completed 30 paintings. Seeing your progress would be nice. Start a blog to keep track of your progress. Also, try and enroll in a night class at your local art university/college. Take the basics like Life Drawing first.

Oh, and... paint for yourself, first and foremost. Do not give a shit about "is this going to sell?". Do not care. Just do it for yourself. And don't be afraid to create something out of your comfort zone (pure abstraction or something with shocking subject matter).

Good luck!

Wow, thank you!

I work in a pretty traditional way, blocking out everything with flat color, then building things up in layers. The block-in is dry when I start working details...for this one I did a lot of glazing and wet-on-wet work - no retarder medium on this one, though I don't hesitate to use it when I need to do smooth blending in large areas, like a sky during sunrise - to build up the volume on the stones. In a couple places to get some colors and values right, I used glazing or gel mediums to add some transparency.

To get the colors to pop, I try to carefully select my palette. Some of those yellows are actually quite dull, but look brighter because of the colors they're next to. I try to coordinate my colors, paying attention to complements and temperature (the shadows, for example, are very warm, using a warm blue mixed with burnt sienna...that makes the lighter blue glow a bit more, plus it is a sort of purplish-black, which complements yellow and so makes that stand out, too). I also have learned that it's important to pay attention to the opacity of your pigments. It's easier to get the sharp edges using opaque colors as opposed to transparent ones.

The other thing to keep in mind with edges: it's easier to make defined edges using contrast.

Sometimes for lightening colors, I will use a zinc white or unbleached titanium as opposed to titanium white. Titanium white can pastel-ize your colors easily. Zinc white or unbleached titanium can lighten your values without washing out the hue. It'll make a red a light red as opposed to a pink, if you know what I mean.

For paints, I use full body acrylics. For this, most everything was done using Liquitex Heavy Body paints, but I have a lot of student-grade paints that I intermix freely: Liquitex Basics, Daler-Rowney System 3 (a very underrated brand, imo...avoid their Simply... line, but System 3 is great and inexpensive) and even some really cruddy ones I found at my local Ocean State Job Lots. I wanted to use the pro-quality stuff on this one because I was concerned with lightfastness...I'm pretty sure he's got UV lights on that aquarium and I didn't want anything to fade.

Hope that helps! And thank you again. I'm humbled that you like my work.

ETA: My favorite books on the technical aspects of painting (so far) have been Painting in Acrylics: The Indispensible Guide by Lorena Kloosterboer and How to Paint Fast, Loose and Bold by Patty Mollica. Both of them have lots of information on color mixing and value, and I'm still working my way through applying the lessons I've learned from them.

Further edit: for what it's worth, I've never been able to use oils effectively at all. Acrylics are just a medium that speaks to me more...I might be coming to you for tips one day if I try to use oils again!

Edit3: I have a process pic gallery here to give you an idea how I did this one: https://imgur.com/a/yn1EiUZ

Youtube has some great stuff. Specifically, there are some Australian water color artists that are incredible and easy to relate to (just so your sources are broader than just Bob Ross). I currently have a teacher and she is helping me get to know materials and color theory a lot better. This stuff is super important. (I have been able to draw well enough for a while). Materials are tough to figure out without buying a bunch of stuff yourself. Color theory is much more than what I thought it was - found a good book that I hope will have all of the information I will need with some useful references. Here it is in a link below! My copy arrives soon! Taking a small class (less than 6 people or so with a teacher who takes a personal interest in your improvement) has benefits that I couldn't have realized in the beginning and struggle to quantify now. Also, I learn much quicker by instruction + solo work rather than just solo work. Leap frogging the time consuming question of "what colors should I start with and from what company on what type of surface" + bonus suggestions and free samples of other stuff by simply asking my teacher was most excellent. Paint where ever you are comfortable tho - sounds like you are on the right track!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1931780196/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Canvas boards are cheaper than box canvas and are a good place to start.

Acrylics are not as scary as you think. They dry faster than oil, of course, but you can experiment with things like stroke texture and thicker layering (impasto).

One method for creating abstraction that you may enjoy that will help you learn technique is taking an image and zooming so far in that all you recognize are shapes and color. No one else will know what the zoomed out image is but you. :)

Also check out this book:

Harley Brown’s Eternal Truths for Every Artist

It’s funny, accessible, comprehensive. Like having a sassy older mentor artist hanging out with you while you work.

Best of luck to you in your artistic adventures.

Oil is hard to do without studio space, or at least that's the excuse I gave myself for letting my oils sit in the garage ;) I'd recommend not picking them up until you get comfortable with acrylics or can take a class. However, there's excellent advice in here for painting in specifically oil but much of it applies to any type of paint.

Watercolor is my medium of choice, and the best way to start is just jump in; no previous experience required. Try drawing on thick paper, or watercolor paper, and filling in colors with watercolors. Start simple and dont be afraid to layer.

Are you comfortable with color? This is my favorite color theory crash course.

Really the only thing to do is dive in. Draw first, then paint it. From there, you'll develop more specific questions which we can help with :) Play with everything and see what you enjoy most. Good luck!

I've been drawing for a long time and I can copy anything drawing-wise. I started painting in Photoshop 2 years ago, then started doing oil painting around 9 months ago. I learned the most by doing oil paintings while reading Alla Prima by Richard Schmid. That book and a lot of practice paintings help me get a good feel for color and value, and mixing pigments.

If I didn't learn to mix pigments in oils I probably would have been frustrated using Nicker Poster Color. But luckily mixing in oils and mixing in poster color is pretty much the same. It's not too hard to learn, but you do have to learn it by trial and error. I have a lot of practice mixing colors so using poster paint feels like second nature to me.

As for the process, if you know how to paint in Photoshop you can do it in Nicker Poster Color. It's quite similar to using Photoshop with a 100% opacity brush with size controlled by pressure. There is a watercolor aspect to it too, but only if you add more water to the color mix.

In the actual painting, I learned that laying down base tones before doing highlights helps a lot. What I mean by base tone is the color that gets used the most in a section. "Highlights" are the lesser used colors, and they can be dark/medium/bright. Here's an image explaining it. To reiterate, you want to lay down the base tones first and then apply the highlights.

If you look at my progress pics (linked at top comment) I have some pictures of before and after of painting the big bush on the left. For the majority of the painting I just worked like that. I laid down base tones, and then added highlights.

Tbh, if you want to start painting you just have to dive in. It's something you have to learn by doing I think. I have yet to find a resource better than just spamming practice paintings and reading Alla Prima. I also found Feng Zhu very helpful, especially his podcast and the "self teaching" episode. Hope this helps

important: Also, if you are buying Nicker Poster Color make sure to get a good watercolor brush with it, like this one.

here are some of my favorite art books,
Malvina Hofman races of man kind she is an amazing sculptress and this book highlights her creation of 91 sculptures for the Chicago field museum exhibit in 1930.
The Complete Letters of Vincent Van Gogh the way he speaks about painting and color is amazing
any book with the drawings of the old masters, Michelangelo, Donatello, Raphael, Leonardo, growing up with them as abase for drawing will only make her a better artist.
Jean-Antoine Houdon an aming sculptor, his busts are outstanding!
Félix González-Torres 2nd Edition one of my favoriate artist but it might be over her head as his work deals alot with the 90's, AIDs, and homosexuality during that time in america and many other issues, but he is an incredible example of modern art that is layered and deeply moving.
Caravaggio: A Life i think this is the bib on Caravaggio i read almost 10 years ago it was good,
Stealing the Mystic Lamb: The True Story of the World's Most Coveted Masterpiece great read about art theft.
hope this helps,

Your colors look great, very autumn! So you did great with those.

Another good book to read is Carlson's Guide to Landscape painting
( https://www.amazon.com/Carlsons-Guide-Landscape-Painting-Carlson/dp/0486229270 )

What he talks about in that book is how we can never replicate the full range of values or colors that exist in nature... the best we can do is have each patch of color on the canvas have a consistent relationship with the other patches. So, like, right now I'm working on a picture of a garage. I can't get the exact color I saw but I can make the shadowy areas darker and cooler (more blue) and the areas in sunlight lighter and warmer (more yellow). That way they are correct relative to each other. If you get the structure of the relationships right, then you won't have to worry about matching exactly. Let go of matching exactly and work on making things relatively correct.

Here's Stapleton Kearns on value in the landscape http://stapletonkearns.blogspot.com/2013/10/confounding-color-and-value-in-landscape.html

Anyway, I'm rambling here, but I think this landscape is a really great start, keep going. My process has been, read some books and do some exercises, try a painting keeping one or two ideas in my head, repeat repeat repeat. It's been an incremental process for me. The main thing is the work and trying again and again.

You got this, have fun! :)

I second both books posted by Sykirobme.

The first one I got was Learn to Paint in Acrylics with 50 Small Paintings and it was great for someone like me who have zero background on drawing and painting. Started out slow and super basic and I noticed myself putting more and more effort as I went along the projects.

Then I got Acrylics for the Absolute Beginner, a landscape instructional, which was fun to follow and I learned a lot. I kept getting "you painted that?" reactions lol very encouraging and I have to make clear the paintings were not originals and I followed tutorials from a book.

I purchased Painting in Acrylics: The Indispensable Guide as a reference for tools/theory/techniques. And I like it so far but haven't read in depth because I keep getting distracted by other books I find at the library and attempting some originals.

I hope that's helpful. Also, reiterating that this is from the perspective of a beginner (5 months in!). Folks with more experience might have different/better suggestions. Happy painting!

Everyone learns differently. Some like videos some like easy to follow books.

There is no substitute for practice.

For video, start here but you can find others on YouTube. Towards the bottom look at "Airbrush Control Exercises"
http://www.airbrushtutor.com/tutorials/

He also has this very good tutorial "How to Control an Airbrush"
http://www.airbrushtutor.com/how-to-control-an-airbrush/

For books, I like these:
A Beginner's Guide to Airbrushing

and All About Techniques in Airbrush. I keep this book on the shelf near where I paint because it has an extensive troubleshooting guide that has helped me more than once.

I would get some cheap liquid watercolors or cheap acrylic paint that you can water down for practice. Get some water color paper to practice on. You want to practice making all size of dots and lines until you can get exactly what you want. It takes some practice. Then you want to practice making shaded cubes, triangles and circles. The books have examples but they are online as well. When you feel ready, get some cheap snap together plastic models of cars, tanks or jets and practice blending and getting gradient colors and details.

Hope that helps. Patience and practice will get your skill level up.

Robin Berry's Watercolor Secrets is a great book for getting started. Pictures, explanations, and step by step instructions for just about every watercolor technique you could imagine.

If you don't want to commit to artist quality materials, thats ok. Student grade paints (get the tube kind) and brushes are good for starting out, and you can always upgrade if you fall in love with watercolor.

But if nothing else, get good paper. Painting on bad paper like trying to paint a cute stencil on a wall full of scrapes, holes, and bumps. You could paint something great, but without a good base it will never look right. Arches 140 pound paper is amazing. It comes in sheets and blocks, so it can fit a range of budgets. Art Supply Warehouse can have some amazing deals if you hunt around.

PM me if you have any questions about materials or books.

http://www.arc-store.com/bovica.html literally anything from here will teach you sort of the classical approach, but is pricey.

https://streamlineartvideo.com/ same thing for this, I have the Cesar Santos DVDs (about $200 each), and they're about 20 plus hours, start to finish, every step on how to create something.

Human Figure Book\ literally probably the best book you can get for drawing the figure

Alla Prima Book everything you need to know about oil painting

https://guidetooilpainting.com/ great website to learn the basics

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It's a lot of practice, now I do watercolor paintings myself, but for oil paintings this is a great list of resources. It all kinda goes the same, you lay down and image and put the correct colors in the correct spots. I would say take more time with your drawing phase and the painting phase will be easier, but some like to go in w/ just a brush and attack it. Try things, suck for awhile and learn from it. I"m going to make a post about this to try and get some proper resources out there.

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Off the top of my head......John Singer Sargent, Winslow Homer, Wyeth family, Paul Klee, Whistler, O'Keefe, Eakins, JWM Turner are some of the most famous of the past and lots can be learned from them. Today it depends on what you are interested in....figures: I like Mary Whyte Charles Reid, Color:....Nita Leland, Steven Quiller, Anne Abgott, Jan Kunz... Techniques: Zoltan Zsabo, Gordon MacKenzie, Cheng Khee Chee, Jo Taylor....Abstract watercolor landscapes: Ann Blockley Miles Batt, Shirley Trevena, Jane E Jones. On youtube "Mind of Watercolor" & Yong Chen, Grant Fuller, ....................Here's a book that might help https://www.amazon.com/Watercolor-Masters-Legends-Techniques-Visionary/dp/1440335265/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1505169173&sr=8-1&keywords=watercolor+masters+and+legends.
So many watercolorists are amazing: John Salminen, Alvaro Castagnet & Alexey Chernigin

One book that was surprisingly helpful for me was Art School: How to Paint and Draw. I actually got it in the bargain bin at a book store.

A couple other helpful books are Problem Solving for Oil Painters and Color and Light.

Also, if you have an art studio around, sometimes they have cheap beginners classes. I've found those to be quite helpful starting out.

I have this book, although I havent personally read through it since I'm preoccupied with school, I saw the book has still life practices, with step by step progress and direction, different paint mediums and materials, and the things you should know specific to each individually, brushes, techniques, how the paint acts/drys, etc.. As well it teaches how to mix paint colours, which is really important. Its definitely a great resource to introduce her to painting.

Neat! Thanks. I just bought this book and it's been a great help, but it tends towards expressionism. I will get that book. The problem I have with coloring from sight is creating color harmony and rhythm. Maybe this will help with that.

https://www.amazon.ca/New-Acrylics-Complete-Generation-Acrylic/dp/0823031594/ref=asc_df_0823031594/?tag=googleshopc0c-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=292942809563&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=13904807460932317148&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9001425&hvtargid=pla-452997108388&psc=1

I found this book really helpful for explaining mediums and newer colours and what can be done with them. Also, the photography in it is fantastic.

This is a very late reply, but this is the best book on painting I've ever read https://www.amazon.com/Hawthorne-Painting-Dover-Art-Instruction/dp/048620653X

I would recommend Color Choices by Stephen Quiller when it comes to color theory. The book is relatively inexpensive but Stephen is one of my favorite color masters.

I still don't know what I'm doing either, but I've been working through the super-accessible and helpful book "Learn to Paint Acrylics in 50 Small Paintings" by Mark Daniel Nelson: http://www.amazon.com/Learn-Paint-Acrylics-Small-Paintings/dp/1631590561

I'm quite fond of the Quiller wheel. It's included with his excellent book, Color Choices, but can also be purchased separately.

http://www.amazon.com/Color-Choices-Making-Sense-Theory/dp/0823006972

I can recommend you a good landscape painting book.

https://www.amazon.com/Carlsons-Guide-Landscape-Painting-Carlson/dp/0486229270

It's very text heavy and you may initially feel disappointed with the lack of "tutorialized" instruction. But this is one of the more useful books on landscapes I've ever read.

Color Choices: Making Color Sense Out of Color Theory