Often it is getting the ideas that is the most difficult bit, so this month I thought I’d give you a few ideas of how to get started. The important thing to remember is that starting points for paintings are all around you.  Just look around the room and see it in terms of light and shade, in terms of shapes, unusual relationships, Cut a small hole out of a piece of paper and scan the room interesting compositions are everywhere.The same applies outside in the big wide world, but 100 fold.

I have listed a few websites below that discuss this idea in great detail, they are full of ideas that you could use or adapt. Picasso once said, ‘ to copy oneself is dangerous, because it leads to sterility.’ So take a risk and try something completely different. Enjoy the journey!

1. http://painting.about.com/od/inspiration/tp/painting-ideas.htm

2. http://www.buildart.com/secrettobetterpainting.htm

3. http://www.painting-ideas-and-techniques.com/making-paint.html

And finally for those of you who can use Photoshop or other graphic programs and wnat to use it to generate painting ideas this site is really interesting:

4. http://psd.tutsplus.com/tutorials/photo-effects-tutorials/cityscape-concept-art/

Scientist’s tell us the sky is actually colourless, it is not blue, our brains ‘interpret’ the clashing of electrons that happens in our atmosphere as blue ( I am not a scientist so please excuse the terminology). People appear to get smaller the further away they happen to be, but they don’t actually shrink. Train lines appear to come together as they recede into the distance, but they don’t actually get narrower.  Our brains condition us to ‘see’ the world in a particular way but wouldn’t it be exciting if we could ‘see’ the world differently.

Picasso famously said, ‘I don’t paint what I see, I paint what I know.’ Imagine painting people the same size irrespective of how close they might be to you, or not making buildings get smaller because they happen to be further away, or not using perspective to draw a road narrowing as it recedes into the distance, but drawing the road parallel. Imagine how different the painting would be.

What I am really saying here is that ‘real’ means different things to different people, the way we interpret colour, emotions, feelings, the visual world can vary considerably. So why stick with simply what is seen, why not try painting what you know and challenge your perceptions.

Ask yourself this, why do you draw? Do you simply enjoy the process, want to reproduce what you see, or create something imaginative? Imagine thinking that every line or mark you produce is precious – so no rubbing out – that every image you create is part of you – your baby. Or that your drawings are a record of your development or journey through life. Imagine a world in which there are no preconceived ideas about how things should look, a world where your drawings are valued simply because you produced them. How enjoyable it would be to create drawings in such a world.  That world can exist inside of you – it is just a matter of confidence.

You become ‘good’ at drawing simply by drawing. Get a sketch book, a pencil, piece of graphite, charcoal, whatever takes your fancy, and draw. Here are a few ideas you might try to get started:

1. Set time limits – complete a sketch in a maximum of 2 minutes, but don’t start by drawing an outline, start in an unusual place, for example, start at the bottom and work up, or the middle and work out.

2. Where you would normally use a single line to create something use two and vary the lines, so one might be dark and the other light.

3. Hold the pencil as far from the tip as possible so you have less control, or tie the pencil to a stick and use that. Enjoy the fact you have less control and marvel at the quality of line you produce.

4. Look at an object or scene for a couple of minutes and try to memorise it. turn away and sketch very quickly what you remember.

5. Set up a group of interesting objects to draw. With the objects in front of you, draw very carefully everything you can see around and through the objects, but do not draw the objects themselves.

6. Finally, take a little sketchbook with you every where you go and draw anything you see, even if it is just a 10 seconds doodle. Remember everything you create is precious.

Always work ‘fat on thin’. Thin layers of paint first, particularly for underpainting, this will allow the paint to dry completely before thicker layers are applied. It is also a good idea to use a 75% turpentine and 25% linseed oil mixture for the underpainting and increase the oil ratio in subsequent layers to about 50%.

Ivory Black can take a long time to dry so is not a good colour to use for underpainting. In fact I would suggest you always mix your own ‘blacks’ by mixing Burnt Umber with a dark blue such as Ultramarine or Phthalo Blue.

Linseed oil can ‘yellow’ whites over time so it is probably better to use poppy oil for light areas, but unfortunately, this dries even slower than linseed oil.

If you find that you have too much oil in the paint, either it has come from the tube like that, or you’ve added too much oil, wrap the colour in a little newspaper. It will absorb the oil and not affect the colour.

A good way to speed up oil painting is to use a method I use a lot and that is to paint the underpainting in acrylic. This is dry in a matter of minutes and can be over painted with oils. NEVER paint acrylics on top of oil paints, the oil will never dry and eventually probably rot.