How to Make Your Next Painting Your Best Yet

No. Yes. No. No. Yes. Looks like a yes, but's a no. Looks like a no, but is a yes. When I first started painting, I would spend hours on a piece, only to feel frustrated at the end. It just never looked the way that I wanted it to look. I thought the problem was not enough practice, and I just had to put the hours in, watch videos and tutorials, and eventually I'd just get better. What I didn't realise was I was just setting myself up for failure before I'd even started painting. And that was because of my reference, my surface and my paint choices. And it's a really easy fix as well. It's just something that nobody ever told me about. But once I understood these three simple things, my work actually improved overnight. Let's start with what I was just doing. So, it's all about choosing the right reference photo. You probably guessed that. Everybody looks for different things in a reference photo. And really, it is a personal choice. In my experience as a wildlife artist, I originally started looking for references that just had loads of detail in them. Reference photos kind of like this. And even though this is a really great photo, for me, now, it just wouldn't be a great reference. If I were to paint what I saw here, I'm just going to end up with a very flat, a very monochrome, an overly sharpened and boring painting. What I actually needed to start looking for was references like these. Your reference sets the tone for your painting. A blurry or a flat image makes it really hard to get depth and accuracy to your painting. And that doesn't matter how skilled you are, it's always going to be difficult with a poor reference. So, when I'm looking for a reference photo, I'm looking for photos that have crisp edges. They don't need to be super sharp, but pretty crisp, pretty detailed. More importantly, I want clear light direction and balanced colours. I would rather have a blurry reference that has clear lighting, good composition and strong contrast between values than a really sharp, really detailed image that's a bit flat and boring. References that are really sharp, and I like that, are absolutely fantastic photographs. Don't tend to translate very well into a painting, and they tend to set that painting up for failure. And that is actually something that I notice all of the time when I'm critiquing people's work. They struggle getting it looking lifelike and realistic, because usually that reference photo isn't good enough, and it's definitely a reference that I would never choose to work from myself. Obviously, as you do more painting, you get more skilled, and you get a better understanding of things like composition, of light, of values and form. So, with some extra work, great artists can make great paintings from even mediocre references, because they can manipulate things and they can improve on that reference photo. But, that does take a lot of understanding of values for colour and lighting to be able to do that. Many artists are actually really fixated on painting details, and I don't know why. I mean, actually, I think I do. I think it's because references are just so detailed nowadays. The photographs are so sharp and highly rendered, that it makes sense that as an artist copying those references, you're going to want to try and copy that. But, you don't actually need those super fine, rendered details to make a good painting. And actually, paintings can suffer from being too sharp and too detailed. I would focus on form, values and composition above the detail. But, if you are an artist who likes painting details, and I know I do, then if you're not choosing the right canvas, that can actually make it really difficult to paint the details as well. If you're a fan of details and you like painting things like fine eyelashes, fur and really, really sharp, detailed highlights, your surface really does matter. A smoother surface gives your paint more control and your brush more precision. Smooth or really fine grained surfaces help with clean lines, layering paints and blending. It's why I like painting on wooden panels that I gesso and sand myself. Or, if I'm working on canvases, especially for bigger paintings, I love the ACF canvases. They are super smooth, great for details and really affordable. And, if you don't want to buy new canvases, you can always improve on older canvases. And it's really easy, you just add a layer of gesso onto them. This can smooth out the grain and it makes painting details a lot easier. Your paint choices also have a major impact on the success of a painting. And it's probably not in the way that you're actually thinking. It's not about how cheap or expensive those paints are. Sure, better quality paints do help to an extent, but not that much. The best artists can make incredible artworks with even the cheapest of materials. It's not easy, but it can be done. So, I'm not actually going to tell you what brands of paints to buy, because, for now, that doesn't really matter. What matters is it's really important to realise that not all paints are created equal. Some colours are opaque, which will cover surfaces like a dream, while others are transparent. And you can use transparent paints to give your work depth and glow to them. And once you understand how to use both of those types of paint intentionally, you can make your paintings gain dimension so quickly. As I said, it's not about the brand or the quality of the paints, but it is about understanding what the paints you have can actually do. Are they transparent or opaque? What happens when you thin them with water or other mediums that you're using? How do different colours interact with each other? I would recommend, if you've never done this before, getting out your paints and literally not painting pictures, but spending a few days just playing around with them. Creating colour swatches and seeing what your paints can actually do. It's a really easy thing to do, it's pretty quick, it seems pretty boring and it doesn't seem very productive. Nobody ever really sat me down and told me to do this, or really explained why it was important. But once I did it, I very quickly realised how much it actually made a difference to the work that I was creating. I hope it's going to do the same for you. After a little bit of time doing this, I realised that all those frustrations I was having about my paintings not looking how I wanted them to look, was just because I didn't understand how the paints that I was using actually worked. So I didn't know how to get the idea that I had in my head onto the canvas. Because I didn't really understand which paints to use to achieve the look that I had in my head. But after that practice, I started to realise that I knew which tools to use, almost instinctively. And that made my painting process much faster and also helped me to produce much better looking paintings. I'm hoping that with these tips you can make your next painting the best painting that you've made yet. If you'd like to learn a little bit more about the techniques that I use in my painting, check out this Beginner's Guide to Acrylic Painting that I've done here. As always, thank you so much for watching, and I'll see you next time.