3 Quick tips for those learning to paint (digital)

Just a few quick tips out to those upcoming digital artists, that I myself have learnt pretty recently: Pace yourself, remember to paint as a whole, and don't make assumptions!

Let me clarify:

I know early on, speed was a big deal for me; all the artists I looked up to seemed to create stunning artwork at blistering speeds. Just looking at their paintings, they had these amazing "energetic" brushstrokes, and "speedpaints" and "timelapses" were all the rage.

After painting for a number of years, working in-house and with professional clientele, I urge you to work only as fast as you feel comfortable.
I used to have a bad habit of laying down strokes faster than I could think about what they were doing, and rushing into a stage of the painting that was "fun" rather than ensure the foundation was solid. I also never did things I thought would slow me down; I would only paint with one brush on one layer wherever possible, and never lasso or mask.

Lately I've been slowing down and relaxing with my painting, and it has allowed me to create better work, faster. Strangely, relaxing my pace has helped me to make the most of my brushwork, think about what it's doing, make less mistakes and have more fun with my painting.

I also now embrace those things I used to reject; Alternating brushes has brought interesting textures to my work, and although I don't work on many layers, the ones I use have helped greatly in making a "cleaner" result.

For a good example of a paced workflow, buy some of Eytan Zana or John Liberto's painting vids off Gumroad and check out how even an A+ artist can be super chill.

2. PAINT AS A WHOLE
I come from a drawing background, so I'm quite used to drawing things objectively: draw a tree like this, a human like that, a bicep like this etc.
When it comes to painting, you're working with dabs or strokes of colour. As a result, the techniques used need to vary accordingly.

The most useful slice of information I have learnt since I started painting was to treat the image as a whole; let go of your preconceptions of what a tree or a building is, and just paint the light interactions. Paintings are ultimately just a lot of brushstokes of varying size and texture.

I'm really not that great at explaining this, so all I can recommend is checking out my own or other artists' works. Go onto Artstation, pick a painted environment you like, download it and zoom right in....odds are all you will see is a whole lot of junk. Watch some videos of oil painters and marvel at how they define a painting in the mess.

This took me years to really understand, and I'm still mastering it, so don't fret if you don't get it the first time. As long as you're aware of it, you can study it up on your own.

3. DON'T MAKE ASSUMPTIONS
As a budding artist, I used to look at a lot of other artist's work and try to figure out how they do things. I would make assumptions about their techniques or process, and try to replicate it.

Later on I realised that many of the artists I looked up to worked in a completely different manner to what I expected. I was swearing by techniques that weren't even accurate.

All I can say is when looking at another artist's work, don't make assumptions about how they have done it. Speculate and analyse, but remember that there are millions of ways of doing one single thing, and what you assume they are doing could be slower or less efficient than what they are actually doing. The mantra "nothing is set in stone" applies strongly here.

Also, remember to be open to everything, and don't reject any certain way of working...try it out first, and see what it does for you.

The above points were pretty obscure, but I hope you got something out of it. I'm constantly musing on how to improve my art, and come up with some pretty crazy things, but I cherry-picked these points because they have really helped me out lately.

Take only what you want from these. Nothing is set in stone and be fully prepared to break any of these rules! If something doesn't work for you, don't force yourself to use it!

Thanks for reading, and please fave so this may get out to other people!