Absolute Beginners to Painting: 15 Commonly Asked Questions

If you want your brushes to last, clean them thoroughly and completely every time you finish painting for the day. If you're happy to replace them at regular intervals, don't fuss over it.

Find Out More:
• How To Clean Your Paint Brushes
• 5 Ways to Ruin an Art Paint Brush

Whether or not you leave brushstrokes visible in a painting depends entirely on whether you like it as a style of painting or not. If you don't like visible brushstrokes, then you can use blending and glazing to eliminate all trace of them. Alternately, embrace brushstrokes as an integral part of the painting.

Find Out More:
• How to Paint in an Expressive Style
• Expressive Brushstrokes Art Worksheet

I'm afraid this is something you'll have to decide for yourself. But the good news is it doesn't really matter because you can always paint over it or wipe it off. There are various ways to start a painting, from blocking in rough areas of color to doing a detailed underpainting in a single color. No one approach is more right than another. It's a matter of personal preference.

As with all painting techniques, don't assume a particular approach won't work for you without having tried it. Neither do you have to use only one in a painting, you're free to mix 'n match approaches if you wish.

Find Out More:
• Approaches to Covering a Canvas
• Six Things To Decide Before Starting to Paint

"Nothing can be rushed. It must grow, it should grow of itself, and if the time ever comes for that work -- then so much the better!"

These words come from the artist Paul Klee, writing in his On Modern Art in 1948, but true no matter what era you're painting in. A painting takes as long as it takes. It's a bit like the proverbial piece of string... it depends on what you're doing and longer is generally better than shorter, but not always.

See Also:
• How To Create Time for Painting

Rather stop too soon than too late. It's easier to later do something extra to a painting than to undo something if you overwork it. When I find myself "just quickly" fixing a little thing here and a little thing there, I know it's past time to stop.

Put the painting to one side and don't do anything to it for a week. Leave it somewhere you can see it regularly, sit and stare at it critically, but resist the urge to fiddle until you're sure what you're going to do will be beneficial.

See Also:
• Self Portrait: Overworking Always Ends in Disaster
• Top 5 Ways to Ruin a Painting

It depends on whose photograph it is. If it's one of your own, no problem obviously. If the photographer has expressly given permission for it to be used, fine. But simply taking any old photograph and creating a painting from it without checking the copyright of the photo isn't fine. Like paintings, all photos are automatically copyrighted.

There's also a difference between using a photo for reference (e.g. to see how a bird arranges its toes as it sits on a branch) and copying a photo (i.e. whole elements of the photo are reproduced such as the branch the bird is sitting on, the clouds in the photo, and the angle of the light).

Find Out More:
• Artist's Copyright FAQ: Painting Photos
• Where to Find Free Reference Photos