Painting is not magic, it’s craft. No matter whether you’re working through studio oil painting techniques, watercolor experiments or exploring plein air painting, mastering these six essentials will improve your work.
See accurately
Before a brush ever touches canvas, train your eye. Accurate seeing underpins strong painting.
- Value: Light and dark relationships are the backbone of painting.
- Color: this includes value, but also hue (position on the color wheel) and chroma (intensity). Beyond that there is color temperature.
- Shape and proportion: understand how complex forms can be simplified and placed in the composition with the greatest impact.
- Edges: Observe where transitions are hard, soft or lost. Use this to guide the viewer’s eye.
Learn to handle materials with confidence
- Technical fluency frees you to focus on expression.
- Know the proper ground for the medium you’ve chosen and the difference between good and mediocre papers, canvases and panels.
- The only way to know your brushes is to experiment with them. That means use different types of brushes and strokes. It also means you should experiment with other ways to move paint, such as palette knifes, silicone chisels, credit cards or rag rollers.
- Clean color mixing is a skill that takes a while to learn, but understanding how pigments and paints behave is the only way to avoid muddy results.
- Understanding how solvents, oils, gels and retarders impact your paint is fundamental.
Compose with intention
Great paintings are designed, not accidental.
- Draw, baby, draw: work it out in advance in your sketchbook before committing to paint. Those minutes you spend will save you hours down the road.
- Establish clear focal points and build your painting around them.
- Apply the design principles of balance, rhythm, unity, variety and movement.
- Decide at the beginning what to include and what to leave out. Composition is about editing as much as drawing.
Work from life
Plein air painting teaches you to simplify, to respond to changing light, to see values and forms quickly, and to lay the image in without perseverating over the details.
Working from life teaches more than working from photos ever will. Even if you ultimately end up working from photo references, painting from life is invaluable for training your observation skills. The more practice you have painting from life, the less chained you are to photo references and the more you can draw from your internal vision.
Solve problems creatively
Every painting I’ve ever done started off brilliantly (in my head) and eventually reached an ‘oh, dang’ moment when its shortcomings became obvious. The difference between success and failure was in how I responded.
- Step back and analyze objectively.
- Make bold corrections rather than fussing endlessly over details.
- Quit noodling.
Build a sustained practice
This is the least-glamorous part of life as an artist.
- Paint regularly—even when uninspired—to build consistency and skill.
- Learn to critique your own work on the fly.
- Learn some art history; you’re part of a many-thousands-year-old tradition, after all.
Bonus for those pursuing painting as professionals
- Good presentation supports your credibility. At a minimum, that means a website, business cards, and a resume.
- Develop your personal voice through repetition and reflection.
- Understand the art market: galleries, pricing, marketing are part of the professional painter’s toolkit.
Registration is now open for workshops in 2026! Reserve your spot:
- Canyon Color for the Painter | Sedona, AZ, March 9-13, 2026
- Advanced Plein Air Painting | Rockport, ME, July 13-17, 2026
- Sea & Sky | Acadia National Park, ME, August 2–7, 2026
- Find your Authentic Voice in Plein Air | Berkshires, MA, August 10-14, 2026
- New! Color Clinic 2026 | Rockport, ME, October 3-4, 2026
- New! Composition Week 2026 | Rockport, ME, October 5-9, 2026
Well summed up! All great advice.