You Can Learn to Paint

We all admire paintings. Our tastes may very our preferences be diverse but we all like to look at paintings. Secretly we wish we could produce the kind of work our favourite artists seem to be able to churn out at will. Well the good news is you can. Painting, contrary to the popular myth is not some secret gift given by the gods to a select few. It is simply a skill that can be learned by anyone who is prepared to put a little time and effort in.
Most people are intimidated from picking up a brush. Their self confidence about their ability to paint has probably suffered a number of knocks beginning at the school art class where they may have been led to believe that they didn't have the "gift". That mysterious "gift" that doesn't exist. This belief may have been reinforced by others so they go through life been able to learn new skills for their job but not daring to pick up a paint brush.
They may learn complex engineering skills, computer skills become successful in business but mention art and they can't do it, because art, so the myth goes, requires a special gift. This is one of life's greatest myths. Learning to paint is just like learning to drive. Nobody jumps into a car on their first lesson and drives straight for the motorway.
Remember when you first started to learn to drive. How complex everything seemed to be. The clutch control that you thought you would never be able to master, the gears, that three point turn. After a few years on the road driving becomes automatic. Because driving is a skill. And like all skills it can be learned by anybody.
Art is the same. It is just a skill and nothing more. Learning to draw requires the student to learn to master certain techniques. With a little time and effort these techniques are easily mastered and was seemed out of your reach becomes second nature to you. If you haven't picked up a brush since you were at school you are missing out on a wonderful experience. If you've always wanted to learn to paint but are intimidated from going to an art class then there are numerous other ways to learn.
Art instructional dvds are a great way to get to grips with the basic techniques. It was this method that got me back into art. I too believed that art required a special gift and that only a few people could do it until I bit the bullet and had a go. I soon realised that the techniques of painting are easily learned and I surprised myself at how quickly I was learning. If only the art class at school had been so instructive.
Art instructional dvds are a good way to get back into art. You can play them on your computer with an easel set up at the side and follow the artist as he instructs you. If you don't understand some point you can replay it until it sinks in. Within a short space of time you will surprise yourself at how fast you can acquire the skills to paint a good painting. Before starting though, the first thing you have to do is dump the belief that been able to paint requires some special gift. It doesn't, like anything else in life it's just a skill that can easily be mastered.
Paul Merry runs http://www.artscraftsandhobbies.co.uk/