Ever find yourself looking wistfully at a set of paints in an art store, and then thinking: "So what if I buy the paints: what next?" If so, then this book is for you. Just Paint It! is based on the belief that anyone can paint. You don't need to be able to produce "a masterpiece." You don't have to make your painting look like something. You don't have to spend time worrying about composition. Or trying to second-guess how colours are going to mix. Get stuck in right from the start. Pick a tube and squeeze it out. Get a brush and just paint it on. Because the more you use paint, the more used to paint you become. And along the way, while you're having a good time with the 50 or so ideas in this book, you can expect something amazing to happen: You'll learn to paint.

Table of Contents:
Prelims (5 pp) Introduction (2 pp) Aimed at anyone who would like to explore the medium of paint, in all its varied and flexible forms, this book is a companion to Just Draw It. It is for anyone who would like to develop skills and simply play with and enjoy the medium of paint. It is ideal for beginners right through to more experienced artists who would like to experiment with new mediums. This collection of exercises takes you through a variety of techniques and creative approaches, helping you to improve and expand your painting skills. They are designed to inspire, motivate, and to break down any fears and inhibitions you may have about painting. We look at a number of subjects including colour, tone, light and shade, composition, textures, patterns, surface, and paint quality. More importantly, we explore what this flexible medium can offer in terms of self expression and creativity. With an understanding and feeling for paint, anything is possible! Chapter One/ Materials and Tools (16 pp) “I use all sorts of things to work with: old brooms, old sweaters, and all kinds of peculiar tools and materials... I paint to excite myself, and make something for myself.”—Francis Bacon In this chapter we look at the enormous variety of liquid mediums, materials, and surfaces that help us to create great paintings. Beginning something new and unfamiliar can be a scary process. These exercises concentrate on experimenting and exploring with new methods that help to break down any inhibitions that you may have in tackling paint as a medium. The materials and tools covered here include: • Paint and surface • Brushes • Knives • Painting implements EXERCISES INCLUDE: 1) Invisible Zen This exercise helps you to experiment with one of the oldest forms of painting using ink, Yu pi yo mo (to have brush, to have ink.) Chinese brush painting began around 4000 B.C. This is a Yin-Yang painting, a simple response to your subject using invisible ink and applying it directly onto the page. It will heighten your observational skills and enhance the thinking and seeing process. You will explore exactly how to apply the brush onto the paper. 2) Paint and Collage Mixed media often works very well in combination with paint. Many artists have incorporated collage with paint to create visually exciting assemblages. Here we integrate paint with collage. You can use anything, found objects, photographs, or even elephant dung (Chris Ofili) if absolutely necessary! Chapter Two/ Form, Light and Shade, Tone (30 pp) “Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself.”—Truman Capote These exercises help you to explore the contrast of light and shade in painting (Chiaroscuro). We look into ways to create a sense of volume in your paintings by graduating monochromatic (the saturation of one single colour) and achromatic (black, white, and all grays). We explore tone and shade. The topics covered here include: • Chiaroscuro • Achromatic • Monochromatic • Value • Light and shade EXERCISES INCLUDE: 1) Times of the Day This is your chance to turn the tables on a nosey neighbour. Look out of your window and paint the scene at three different times of the day. Make a painting as the sun rises, then at noon and then finally at dusk. Use tonal values in your painting to reflect the lighting variations that will occur during the course of the day. For inspiration, take a look at Claude Monet's observations of haystacks in Giverny. He studied how the change in light affected the haystacks, as the day progressed. He used tonal value to describe these subtle and ephemeral transformations. Describe the mood and subtle nuances of the scene by using tonal variations to describe the transient world before you. 2) Bezold Effect The Bezold Effect is an optical illusion, named after a German professor of meteorology Wilhelm von Bezold (1837–1907). He discovered that a colour may appear different depending on its relationship to the adjacent colours. You will make a painting investigating the Bezold effect. This exercise will give you an understanding of colour assimilation, how the relationship of colours and tones can react in a variety of ways to create different visual effects. Chapter Three/ Exploration of Colour (32 pp) “There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into sun.”—Pablo Picasso This chapter covers the excitement of colour and how it reacts and resonates. Here you will find ways to represent and explore colour, and learn how to paint colour that you see without the effects of outside forces including the deceptive mind and exterior light sources. We explore how it can be used as a form of personal expression and how it can convey emotion. We look at how colour can be used to represent anything that you can see and feel. The topics covered here include: • RYB/RGB/CMYK • Primary, secondary, tertiary • Hue • Local Colour • Value • Luminosity • Warm and cold • Complementary • Contrast EXERCISES INCLUDE: 1) Kandinsky's Questionnaire While teaching at the Bauhaus, Wasilly Kandinsky was convinced that there was a relationship between colour and form. He set his students a questionnaire to try to see whether the results revealed a link. The test is highly personal and although worth considering it makes you think about your own shape and colour preferences and prejudices. What makes us read colours and forms in such an individual way? After undertaking this simple test, look once again at the three primary colours and pick up a paint brush and some poster paint, acrylic or gouache and paint some simple shapes /forms in these three colours. Think about what these three colours and shapes symbolize to you. Kandinsky's equation red=square, yellow=triangle, blue=circle. 2) Flesh It Out To flesh out an idea means to give it substance, structure, and form. When we look at flesh itself we are amazed at the variety of tones, colours, and shades. We notice its translucence, texture, and elasticity. Is the skin that stretches over our skeleton taut or saggy, paper thin or in opulent portly rolls? Here we will make a study of flesh in a variety of mediums including watercolour, acrylics, and oils. Chapter Four/ Composition and Space (24 pp) “No matter what the illusion created, it is a flat canvas and it has to be organized into shapes...”—David Hockney Here, we focus on developing an understanding of space. We discover how we can observe our world from many different perspectives. The exercises included help you to find ways to tackle three-dimensional space and explore methods that help you to create a strong composition in paint. The topics covered here include: • Proportion—framing • Still life • Crop • Perspective EXERCISES INCLUDE: Panorama With this exercise we look at painting as a form of panoramic narrative. We look at a journey through a landscape or scene and paint the view as a continual vision. Chapter Five / Pattern and Texture (24 pp) “As the artist picks his way along, rejecting and accepting as he goes, certain patterns of enquiry emerge.” —Bridget Riley In this chapter you will create a variety of textures and patterns using different mediums and surfaces. Repetitive pattern and texture can give unusual and interesting qualities to your painting. These exercises enable you to translate pattern and texture through a variety of painting techniques. The techniques covered include: • Wax resist • Impasto • Stippling • Scraffito EXERCISES INCLUDE: Wax on, wax off John Piper is an artist known for his dramatic, atmospheric depictions of churches, castles, monuments, landscapes, and ruins. He was appointed official British war artist in World War Two, 1940–42. He drew images of destruction including Coventry Cathedral bombed after an air raid in 1940. To add texture to his moody ruins, he depicted a Page 5 Copyright c 2012 Quarto Publishing plc representation of “pleasing decay” by using a number of mediums including collage, watercolour, gouache, and pen and ink. He experimented with a variety of techniques, one of which involved wax resist. Find a decaying building, a demolition sight, or a ruined piece of architecture, and apply this technique to recreate the variety of textures that you see. Chapter Six/ Observation , Imagination, & Exploration (24 pp) “The universe is real but you can't see it. You have to imagine it. Once you imagine it, you can be realistic about reproducing it.“—Alexander Calder Painting can be an extremely intuitive experience and this chapter encourages you to look and think independently and to develop your own creative language. The following exercises help you to expand your creative knowledge and observational skills. You will explore the vast potential of painting as a versatile, flexible and truly exciting medium. EXERCISES INCLUDE: 1) Me, Myself, I How do we see ourselves? How do we want others to see us? Paint a self portrait in a way that you wish others to see you. 2) Painting Clouds Have you ever laid back on the grass on a hot Summer's day and been mesmerized by the clouds above floating gently by. With this task we study different cloud formations and paint them in different mediums. Index and Credits (3 pp)