Painting Made Simple for Beginners

Discover why professional grade paints yield vibrant pigment and binder performance, build a core palette for oils and acrylics (titanium white, cadmium yellow light, ultramarine blue), and use value checker.

Explore how to use different brush stroke types, including flat, round, and fan brushes, to create texture, blends, and smooth backgrounds, plus palette knife techniques and canvas toning.

Explore essential drawing supplies, from charcoal pencils with workable fixative to prevent smudging, to brush methods with solvent for quick-drying sketches, plus reference options and grids.

This foreword presents three beginner-friendly drawing methods to build perfect bases for painting, starting with a computer reference, then a calendar photo, then a book or master reproduction.

Learn to pre-sketch from a photo on your computer by cropping, marking proportions, and drawing grid or envelope lines to transfer a simple chicken image to canvas.

Learn the grid method to transfer a reference image onto a canvas using a protective sleeve, ruler, and grid lines, then paint in simple shapes.

Explore how to use viewfinders, grids, and simple edge marks to strengthen drawing skills and artistic vision, with flexible setups for studio and outdoor landscapes.

Explore how composition and values form the backbone of painting by arranging dark and light shapes into a strong design, while encouraging experimentation beyond formulas.

Explore composition types and how arranging value shapes guides the viewer's eye to tell a painting's story, using rule of thirds, s-curve, diagonal, odds, and golden ratio as guidelines.

Learn how value shapes form in painting by practicing a black-and-white value scale and a sphere, showing how light and dark create three-dimensional form and support composition.

Learn to build and use a nine-value value scale or checker to judge painting values by mixing white and black on canvas, including a center hole for precise checks.

Mix a value scale to render a three-dimensional sphere, from darkest to lightest, and apply cast shadow, form shadow, halftones, and mid-tones driven by a defined light source.

Learn to render a three-dimensional sphere by building soft transitions from halftone to core shadow, incorporating reflected light and edge softening for realism.

Develop dimensional form with light, shadow, and halftone, then master foreground–background relationships and value contrast to create space around a sphere.

Learn the basics of color: primaries red, yellow, blue; secondary and tertiary hues; and how complementary colors tone and balance vibrant greens.

Create a balanced color wheel with two reds, two blues, and two yellows to achieve clearer secondary colors. Use a circle, compass or ruler, pencil, and brushes to guide it.

Demonstrate building a balanced color wheel by drawing two inner circles, selecting primaries, and mixing secondary colors, while adjusting value with white and keeping brushes clean.

Learn how color value works, including light, medium, and dark values, and how black and white modulate color as non colors, and compare values to describe lightness.

Explore color saturation, hue, and value with a color chart, distinguishing saturated and muted colors, and learn how these qualities interact to affect chromatic strength.

Explore color temperature, distinguishing warmer and cooler hues on the color wheel. Learn how temperature relates to value, saturation, and light source, using red and blue to signal warmth, coolness.

Explore hue, pigment purity, and the impact of fillers on color mixing. Master values, saturations, and temperature with primary colors to produce vibrant mixes.

Learn to mix muted colors and chromatic grays by pairing primary, secondary, and tertiary colors, using complementary hues to mute and tint with white or black.

Explore edge types in painting, including hard, soft, and diminishing edges, as planes, halftones, and value changes define the subject and ground.

Explore how hard, soft, and lost edges shape focal points across landscapes, portraits, and still lifes, guiding the viewer through contrasting values and edge variety.

Explore hard edges, soft edges, and lost edges in painting, and learn to block in values, test color mixtures, and adjust edges with surrounding colors.

Refine hard and soft edges by adjusting values, mixing ultramarine with yellow-green and red to build dimensional planes and subtle light transitions.

Control edges by applying soft edges and observing value changes across colors like white, purple, green, and yellow. Learn how edge adjustments transform a painting.

Tone the canvas to a neutral background before painting, using a palette knife, Gamsol solvent, and a cotton rag, with two methods shown and timing options.

Mix black and white to a medium gray, tint with orange for a neutral brownish tone, and apply thinly with a lint-free cotton rag and solvent. Let it dry.

Explore underpainting with dry canvas, building a value map to guide lights and darks, with options of sketching, grid, or viewfinder, and compare oil and acrylic underpainting.

Learn the wipe-off technique with cloth and finger to sketch a pear, lift paint, and reveal light and shadow before adding color, using a prismatic palette.

Block in the background, establish darkest darks first, then build halftones and lights to create a rounded pear with soft lost edges and a reflective surface.

Block in the background with darker greens and sand tones. Blend ultramarine, alizarin crimson, and white to build light, refine edges, and capture the sunlight on the chicken.

Block in the sunlit chicken with light, warm color mixtures—white plus yellow, white plus red, and blue-crimson—knowing sunlight isn’t pure white. Create halftones and refine edges and value for depth.

Master halftones by blending or mixing color to create smooth transitions between light and shadow, using a cooler mix of blue, orange, and crimson for a more life-like chicken painting.

refine edges and master detail through careful halftones adjustments, warm color notes, and value accuracy to bring a chicken painting to life without solvents.

Master the finishing touches by building up layers of light with white and color, keeping edges varied and colors warmer or cooler to capture sunlight, mood, and your focal point.

Block in shadows with varied stroke directions and soft edges, building background and foreground, then render a cast shadow. Mix warm and cool tones and study value relationships.

Learn blocking in lights and half tones, value-driven color mixing, and edge refinement in a still life master study, with practical tips for beginners to build confident painting skills.

Block in still life fruits by mixing warm yellow, creamy white, orange, and greenish tones, compare to the picture, adjust edges, and prepare for refining the next steps.

Develop color mixing and edge control to render core shadows in a still life, using warm greens, darks, and oil paints to refine values, temperatures, edges, and transitions.

Refine the still life by deepening shadows and sharpening edges. Apply light with flat-side brush work, mixing purple and greenish yellow to enhance the form.

Finish this still life master study with lights, half tones, and edges, using a dry brush technique to build texture and learn when to stop.

Wrap up the painting made simple for beginners course by encouraging learners to explore oils as a forgiving, fun medium, and discover the instructor’s work and teachings.