"Becoming a better painter - deliberate or organic?" Topic

Do you deliberately try and be a better painter, or do you hope improvement will come from experience, or do you accept you are at the level you will maintain in the future?

Examples:

I have previously deliberately chosen to work with colours or figures that I find difficult to do well. For me that means yellows and oranges and horses [not at the same time]. Both have improved significantly.

I have accepted that I'm not very good at mixing colours effectively or efficiently, so I use a triples based system.

I have obtained and read book from the 'masters' and tried to see which bits I could incorporate into my technique realistically.

I know I'm not that good at picking colour schemes, so I hunt for pics of painted versions of the figures I have, and try to replicate those choices.

There is something to be said for organic improvement though. When I was doing a Very Large Naps Project a couple of years back I noticed my 25th unit of British Line was much neater and produced in half the time as the first! I think I had learned the casting/brush-strokes. But, when I tried a unit from a different manufacturer, I was much slower and much worse.

In short, doncha just hate artistically talented people? Steve, James, Bruno, Ian – I'm thinking of YOU!

Famous maxim, stolen by many: "That which we persist in doing becomes easier, not that the nature of the task has changed, but our abilities have increased."

So yes, if you simply paint a lot of miniatures you will improve over time, always. It works for everyone. Comparing yourself to the greater talent of others (there are always others with greater talent) is both useless and a miserable frame of mind. Ignore them and enjoy your work….

I saw a manifold increase in the quality of my work back when I switched from enamels to acrylics.
Uncle Duke was doing his carny show pushing the new Heritage paints way back in the last century. Naturally, he invented staining and dry brushing.
I gave it a try and was stunned by how much better my work looked, particularly horses. When a mere change in media worked wonders, I then concentrated on technique, rather than just covering irregular surfaces with paint.

I do not consider myself all that talented, I just like to try different techniques. The Dip is my latest discovery.
BTW, I still use enamels for some things. Never throw an old tool away!

I think of painting as a 'craft' rather than an 'art'. You get better as you build up experience and some aspects of it can be taught and learned from books or other painters. Mostly though, unlike an 'artistic' pursuit, it is about practice – the more you do the better you get; at least up to a point.

Once practice stops making things better it usually makes them quicker but when that stops improving things then you need to get more analytical. Where do you have difficulties ? What materials work best for you ? Experiment with styles and other materials, even other brushes and see what happens.

Craftsmen work that way, most artists don't.

Getting better comes from Experience . Doing better comes from practice . If you choose not to improve your painting you will become better as you do more but always in that style . Choosing to improve means learning new techinques and incorparating them into your style .

I would say both as most of us are not artistically talented but over the years we create a technique for painting figures from trial and error.

I would consider myself a good painter, not a master though, and when in the past I've worked with younger guys giving a painting class, I would bring along one of the first figures I ever painted (which looked like a 3 year old painted it). Most of the kids would say looking at my figures in general that they could never paint as well as I paint. I would bring out that first figure I painted and ask them if they paint better than this and all would say yes, and then I would let them know that I painted that figure, and after years of trial and error and forming my own technique is where I was today. I wouldn't actual teach them how to paint, but show them different techniques to achieve a result they where looking for.

I would say that if you admire someones work ask them about it as I have found most good painter are willing to share ideas and techniques when asked.

It's actually a really interesting question Michael.

I have quite a few 'arty' friends and I think most of them would agree that the process of improvement is always two fold and sort of double edged.

As you practice more work, your technique will get better and you will start to produce work you are really quite proud of but, then you will go through a phase where you think you have taken a backward step and seem to struggle with the most basic of things. Actually, bad days aside, it's not the case at all, what has happened is you have raised your expectation again above your improved ability and you are in effect catching up with your expectation again.

My painting is simpler and not as good now. The difference is I get figures on the table and game rather than having someday never plans.

That's a very good observation, Fizzy. Works the same way with game audio, my day job. You get a few minutes to enjoy reaching the peak, only to discover it's really a plateau, and it's another long slog to the next level. Sigh… :-)

My work has gotten poorer over the years as my eyesight goes. I find I have less time to paint and play, so I tend to paint quickly, a little shading then base them. That way I have more time to play and more figures ready to play. They look okay from 3 feet away on the table and once the game starts, I don't see the paint job any more. If I have time to look at paint jobs, then the game is not going well.

Practice certainly makes you faster. You learn what works by trial and error. You paint enough faces, you get confident applying paint and don't fret about whether it will look good because you know how it will look….. If you see what I mean. I think the main problem is we paint figures a few inches from our eyes, yet only see them from a couple of feet on the table. We paint a lot of stuff that is invisible when actually gaming. As a result, your painting slows to a crawl, you get disillusioned with the whole thing and you end up with drawers full of unpainted lead. I remember the old quote from an article on Peter gilder and how he painted a mini in two minutes, with shading. I guarantee he wasn't messing with multiple blends and every detail, yet his massed armies looked amazing.

Yes the hard school of experience and trial and error for me. I see myself as a 'pile 'em high and sell 'em cheap' kind of painter, more interested in volume than quality…

However when I get into a painting rut I find that switching from my usual 4-6 production line to painting just 1 figure to my absolute, slow best gets me going again…

I've seen mini-biographies of some of the hobby's award winning painters, who seem to start painting, and take a year and a half to get up to speed and start winning awards. I've been painting for many years now, and I have gotten better, but slowly, and I'm nowhere near as good as the award winners. So, I've started taking classes at the local convention. I suspect, however, that this new, higher level if/when it evolves will only apply to a few individual character figures.

Grelber

Although I find painting relaxing I often find it boring unless I try out new things, sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. Over the years my stuff as got more subtle which I prefer, but others may not, so whilst I like to think I've got a bit better some would think I've gone backwards.

Over the years my neatness has improved and that one single thing can make simple paint jobs to look reasonably good. I'm of the view that it's far better to painting simply and neatly than it is to crowd the figure with over fussy detail and highlights here, there and everywhere.

I've been at it enough years I can answer: both. That is, sometimes I attempt a new technique and see how far I can go with it. The rest of the time I just paint. It turns out sometimes I try something I failed at years ago and this time it turns out successful.