Our theme for the month of March is “How to.”
Despite abruptly pivoting away from plans to major in art at eighteen, I continue to make art as a hobby. About once a year, I actually manage to sit down and work on a painting. But painting has a way of providing fun little obstacles that keeps it a once-a-year-only activity.
Here are some no-nonsense how-tos, starting with a medium that makes me want to pull my hair out and ending with a medium that I would legally marry. Let’s get to it!
WATERCOLOR*
- Aww, watercolor is so lovely, isn’t it? Look at that artist on Instagram with the playful little animals jumping through flowers. See how the dappled texture and the pastels blend so effortlessly. This could all be yours!
- Okay, enough daydreaming. Come up with a plan for your painting’s look. Collect photo references, prepare your brushes, and try not to think too hard about how futile all your preparations are.
- You’ve got everything set up: the brush is wet, the sketch is done, the mood is right, the spirit’s up, we’re here tonight, and that’s enough. It’s time to be bold.
- Dip the brush and make your first stroke.
- Okay, that’s already too much water—the corner you lightly dabbed is soaked, with only the smallest hint of yellow. I’m gonna need you to paint, not waterboard, your paper. Try again.
- Now it’s too much paint. Geez. We’re going for subtle dabs of color, not Rothko’s Red. You’ve really got to follow my instructions better if you want to become a famous watercolor painter. That’s not your goal? Oh, so now you’re suddenly the expert on your own career plan.
- Resist the urge to fling your paint brush. Take some deep breaths.
- Contemplate how a friend once compared watercolor painting to dancing with a friend. Personally, I prefer it if my dance partner doesn’t suddenly fling their foot out to trip me.
- Okay, you added more color to the light spots and managed to smear the dark blots into coherence, so this doesn’t look so terrible. You might actually be wrangling the beast!
- Decide this is as good as you’re gonna get it, out of fear of warping the paper, and move on to an easier medium.
Which takes us to…
ACRYLIC
- Acrylic can be hard to recognize in the wild—it looks a bit like oil, but with more stark, vibrant colors. This can be a benefit, but it comes at a cost.
- Prime your canvas with gesso. This will give you the illusion that the canvas is ready and eager to host any paint you throw on it. Bask in your naivete.
- Professional acrylic painters probably do an underpainting that’s just darks and lights first, but I only used acrylic in high school, so I never mastered that technique, and you’re stuck listening to me.
- Start adding a base layer of color. Don’t get too detailed yet; instead, peer into the soul of the object you’re painting and deduce which color is the most underneath of them all.
- This is the tricky part: you need to prep the blended colors, but as soon as those paints are ready, it’s time to move. No dilly-dallying allowed. If you don’t hurry, those paints are going to dry out.
- There! You’ve finished the underpainting, and it looks…horrible. What’s happening? The skin of your portrait subject is blotched and watery, and all the colors are somehow too much and not enough.
- Forgot about the fact that underpaintings always look weird because they’re the very first layer; it’s probably because you’ve suddenly forgotten how to paint. Take a break to have a small crisis.
- Oops, you don’t have time for a crisis—the paints are drying as we speak. Get back in there, this time with the blessed second layer. This is where you can finally add details and texture, where wet paint meets wet paint and harmonizes at last.
- You’re doing it! You’re painting! You’re dabbing that palette and leaning over the canvas with great speed and intention. Allow yourself to feel fancy.
- …And the paint dried out while you were feeling fancy. Time to mix up some more!
OIL
- Oh, oil paint, my beloved. My moon and my stars. You’re not as convenient as acrylic or as subtle and whimsical as gouache, but you’re so easy to use. Let us reunite again.
- …that is, if we can figure out how to set things up correctly. You’ll need some oil in a jar, palette knives, a ventilated space, a metallic trash can, and less flammable paper towels. Also, you can’t dump the dirty oil down the sink when you’re done, but you have to somehow magically refresh it so it turns clean again, a process so confusing that I never quite manage it and end up using more oil.
- You can see why this is a once-a-year activity.
- First thing’s fourth: I’ve only learned one method, and it requires blending all your paints together and creating a base painting with the outline in a darker shade, so, do that.
- Now, add color.
- Yep, that’s really it. Add color. Feel how effortlessly it glides onto the canvas, with no streaming water or blotched strokes or inconsistent texture. You add a highlight to the petal of a flower and the flower welcomes it with open petal-arms.
- Keep going.
- That was great! What a high. The only downside is I’ve exclusively learned the method where you do the whole painting in one layer and don’t do a sketch underneath, so if you’re trying to create the next Mona Lisa, I can’t help you.
- Now, you just need to figure out what to do with your leftover oil. Good luck!
*In my post–high school years, I’ve found that smaller paintings with watercolor are not nearly as challenging as the full canvas paintings I made then. I guess jumping in head-first makes you feel more competent when you finally pull back.
Hannah McNulty graduated from Calvin in 2021 and stuck around Grand Rapids, against all odds. She has spent her last few years singing in choir, teaching herself to love reading again, and trying to learn every fiber art simultaneously. She currently works at Eerdmans Publishing, where you can find her burying her nose in old paperwork and forcing anyone within earshot to listen to her bad puns.
