9.6.14: mentor and inspiration (part II)

Hullo!

So yesterday evening, I talked to another wonderful person who has agreed to help me on my journey! His name is Theodore and is a British gentleman :)  He's been painting practically forever, and has a load of information that will be resourceful for me.

Snippets from last night's conversation:

(To start off, you'll need to buy) Synthetic brushes, maybe a couple of rounds, some flats and some fans

And acrylic paint

Acrylic can be watered down to make it look more like watercolour

And it's not too different to oil paint except it dries much faster and you don't have to use expensive brushes and solvents 

You're going to want a decent A3 or A2 sketchbook

Start sketching things

Art is about the journey

Experiencing creating something

And less about ending up with a painting c:

I would say avoid really cheap brushes because the bristles fall out and dry into the paint and are a nuisance

And watercolours too, they're very hard to get right

Do a lot of sketching and it'll increase your hand skill

Try and do at least one image a day, even if it's a tiny sketch

And never throw anything away. When you have a block or you think things are going bad you can let everything out and see how far you've come

You're going to grow so much as an artist this year c':

You should also look at getting maybe one large flat brush with a long handle

You want to be very free with abstract c':

Try not to leave the brushes covered in paint or in water and stand them bristles up

If you accidentally end up with acrylic dried into one you should be able to get it out under a hot tap

But it's better not to c:

Not only is Theodore an excellent resource, he's just such a motivational person. Thanks Theo for everything! I can't wait to report back :)

On another note... last week I had stated that I was going to try to have all my supplies by now. Yeah... that didn't really work out. Looking at the prices of things have scared me. Also, looking through the internet, I found so much information, it kinda freaked me out! To me, there was just one brush that could do it all, but apparently there are different brush lengths, different hair types. and different shapes. I was confused and clueless by the end of my searching. I haven't gotten any brushes or canvas, but I did go out and get small bottles of acrylic paint! It's a start right? By this Friday, I hopefully will have bought the majority of the tools I will use. I shall continue buying stuff and sketching (on random papers for now). Maybe, MAYBE, I'll start something. Maybe. We'll just have to see how things go!

S