11 Exercises to Keep You Improving Your Art Skills (Even on Days you Don't Feel Like Painting)
We’ve all been there. In fact, you may be there right now.
The idea of painting brings you dread. Starting, let alone finishing, something complicated is completely overwhelming. And it means you don’t even enter your studio. It can happen, especially when life seems harder than usual.
This past week, Mark Eanes (Ep 11: the COLOR Episode) gave a half dozen great ideas for how to practice mixing color. Most of the exercises were standalone projects that would pair wonderfully with music, a book on tape...or a podcast episode. :)
His ideas couldn’t come at a better time. If painting seems overwhelming right now, that’s OK. Allow yourself some slack. Maybe it’s the perfect time to try something smaller and more specific. Those types of exercises are great at building your skills.
1. Timed Painting
One way Jane Davies (Ep. 3) paints is by setting up challenges for herself like the timed painting. Commit to making marks and putting down paint for a set amount of time like 30 minutes. The goal isn’t to have a finished piece of art you like. The goal is to just keep going. Work through the pushback and just keep painting.
Why it’s great: We get really focused sometimes on the final painting. Do we LIKE it? Will other people LIKE it? This exercise helps us focus on the process itself. How are you reacting to what you put down? Where does that lead you next?
2. Practice Color Mixing
A great thing to do when you’re feeling uninspired is to challenge yourself to mix specific paint colors. Annie O’Brien Gonzales (Ep. 1) suggests taking a paint chip and then trying to match that color with a paint you mix yourself.
Why it’s great: This exercise really focuses you to an individual challenge. It’s very satisfying when you do nail the color. And even when you don’t, you learn a TON about color mixing in a low stakes way.
3. Color Schemes
Annie O’Brien Gonzales (Ep. 1) talks about three different colors schemes in her interview (monochromatic, analogous and complementary.) Take one reference and challenge yourself to paint (or use pen or colored pencil) it three separate times each with a different color scheme.
Why it’s great: It’s amazing just how different a painting can be depending on the color scheme. Plus, it’s fun to feel yourself wanting to use colors outside of the scheme. Hold back! Really try hard to stay within the scheme you chose. You’ll learn what’s possible when you do.
4. Create Color Swatches
Take the paints you have on hand right now and see what they can do. REALLY do. Annie O’Brien Gonzales (Ep. 1) recommends taking all those blues and reds and seeing just how many violets you can get. It’s probably a ton. Keep color swatches so you know how you got there and which colors you used so you can get there again.
Why it’s great: Now is a great time to use the materials you have. They can do a lot.
5. Get smaller
Maybe it’s too hard to finish a full painting right now. But don’t let that stop you from painting wholesale. Let’s take a page from one of Stan Kurth’s (Episode 10) sketchbooks. Every day, Kurth creates a small square painting in them. Kurth uses his regular materials and works through the same themes. That said, they are much smaller and he can do them in front of the TV.
Why it’s great: I’m not going to lie. Sometimes you need something you can do in front of the television.
6. Start a Pinterest Board
Stan Kurth’s (Episode 10) uses Pinterest as part of his artistic development. He looks through and collects the art he really loves. And then he spends a lot of time looking at that art. Ask yourself, what specifics you like about a given painting?
Why it’s great: It’s fun to start to see the kind of work you are attracted to. You may discover something about the kind of paintings you love that you never knew before. You can also analyze why you like the paintings you like. Maybe you’ll find themes (like types of colors or value uses) that you can then pull into your own work.
7. Find Fun Color Combos
You know that stack of magazines you can’t quite recycle yet? Anne Abgott (Ep. 6) suggests that you go through and look for color combinations you love in either paintings or advertising. Clip them out and create a notebook.
If you want to step it up a notch, try mixing those colors. Then you can add that to your notebook so that on one side, put the color combination. On the other side, figure out how the paints you have on hand can mix those colors.
Why it’s great: A project that involves cutting up magazines? YES PLEASE.
8. Limit Your Shapes
Take a reference and challenge yourself to pair it down to only 10 -12 shapes. This is an exercise Mark Mehaeffey (Ep 5) does with his workshop students and it helps you practice making choices about what’s important (and what’s not important) in a scene you’re painting.
Why it’s great: Think of it more like a puzzle to be solved than anything else.
9. Practice Value Studies
Getting value confident will make your paintings that much stronger. Peggi Habets (Ep.4) suggests taking a thumbnail drawing and doing a value study of it. Play around with how different a subject feels when you shift the value patterns.
Why it’s great: Like the Limit Your Shapes idea above, this too is like a puzzle to be solved. It can be so fun to create a bunch of these and just try on different combinations of light and dark.
10. Sketch!
Each week Creative Catalyst Productions (full disclosure, my day job) I share a 15-minute video slideshow for drawing practice. Each is on a theme. All you have to do is grab some paper and a pen and hit play. It’s an easy way to practice your sketching with very low stakes.
Why it’s great: If you committed to doing one of these a day, can you imagine how much stronger your drawing skills would be in a just a few months?!
11. Practice Painting Specific Subjects
In my interview with watercolorist Andy Evansen, Evansen (Ep. 12), Evansen suggests taking time to practice one aspect of your painting.
For example, if you have figures in your landscape work, spend an afternoon painting just small figures. (This would be separate from practicing figure painting.)
Why it’s great: It takes the risk out of something that can feel risky. If, for example, you don’t feel super confident adding people to your paintings, that can feel really stressful WHEN you’re in a painting. But not so much if it’s just a bunch of google images and a blank piece of watercolor paper.
Get more ideas on how to get better at painting by joining the Learn to Paint Podcast newsletter! Add your name and email below.