3 Tips for Painting with Brighter Colors

I get asked CONSTANTLY how I make my colors in my paintings so bright.

I'm always flattered when people ask because my vibrant colors are what I've worked hardest to capture over the years as a painter.

I love painting with saturated, bold colors because they convey such strong emotion.

They make me feel joyful and positive and bring colorful life to the memories I'm always trying to capture in my paintings

It took me a while to learn how to consistently capture bright colors, but the answer is surprisingly simple.

I'll break it down in 3 tips for you...

1. Invest in high quality paint. I know this can feel tough if you're not used to spending a lot of money on art supplies, but honestly if you do nothing else, this alone will transform your paintings. 

High quality paint is brighter, the pigments are more pure, and they mix better with other paints. My favorite paint brand is Golden for exactly these reasons. It's not cheap, but with paint you really do get what you pay for.

My work would not look the way it does without high quality paint. Simple as that. 

Download my list of recommended paints right here!!

2. Don't mix more than 3 colors together at once. The more colors you mix, the more opaque your colors will get and the less light will pass through. The less light that makes it through your paints, the less your painting will look like it's glowing. 

Obviously this is not a hard and fast rule. There are exceptions when you're trying to create a specific effect with a color, but in general, try not to mix too many colors together at once.

3. Experiment with your colors! The better you get to know your colors, the easier it will be to know which colors will look great together in a painting. 

Some colors blend beautifully and others mix to make mud. If you play around with your colors in your sketchbook before going straight to a finished painting, you'll get familiar with what happens when you combine colors. 

Practice these three tips and your colors will get brighter too!

XO,
Laurel


P.S. If you love painting, but sometimes struggle to stay inspired, I have a free 5 Day Colorful Mindset Challenge coming up in March BUT we've started getting ready with pre-challenge exercises in my Facebook Group! If you're not already in it and want to connect with over 1,200 other painters and get inspired, join us right here now!

Why Natural Painting Talent is Overrated

I love listening to audiobooks while I paint.

I get to learn something new and it's way less distracting than when I'm trying to watch Boy Meets World on Disney+ while painting 😂

Last year I listened to a book called Grit by Angela Duckworth and it really struck a chord with me.

In the book she talks about how talent doesn't account for success as much as our culture would like us to believe. 

A much better predictor of success, she says, is grit.

What is grit? It's the combination of passion and perseverance. 

I highly recommend you read or listen to the book. Or if you have 6 minutes, watch her Ted Talk.

So how does this relate to painting?

Art is one of those things that people love to talk about as something you either can or cannot do.

"I'm not artistic"

"I can't paint to save my life"

"So-and-so is such a natural talent"

It leads you to believe that whatever natural talent you have (or don't have) is the level you're stuck at forever.

If you're not a good painter now, you'll never be one, right?

Wrong!!

The reason I loved this book so much is that the author laid out such a clear argument for persistence and effort.

The most successful people in any field - athletes, artists, scientists - are the people who committed to developing their skills and committed to practicing those skills until they achieved their goals. 

Regardless of your current skill level and regardless of whatever painting talent you have, you can grow and improve those skills with passion and perseverance. 

One of my favorite parts of the book is when she explained that effort always counts twice:

Talent + Effort = Skill

Skill + Effort = Achievement

Or in painting terms:

Artistic Talent + The Effort to Learn and Practice Painting = Artistic Skills

Artistic Skills + The Effort to Practice Those Skills = Becoming a Great Painter

Any time you worry about not having enough talent, remind yourself that effort always counts twice as much!

What's one way you can increase your effort when it comes to becoming a better painter? Tell me in a comment below!

-Laurel

P.S. If you love painting, but struggle to stay inspired, you’re invited to join my free Facebook Group. If you're not already in it and want to connect with over 1,000 acrylic painters and get inspired, join us right here now!

How to Feel Confident BEFORE You Become a Better Artist

Do you ever feel like your confidence, or lack thereof, is getting in the way of you becoming a better artist?

I know I used to feel that way, and so do many of my students.

Here's just one recent comment from our Facebook Group:

It seems like we all have this idea that we can only be confident once we have certain skills, right?

Like, I'll feel confident when my painting technique is stronger.

Or, I'll feel confident when I start mixing brighter colors. 

Have you ever said or felt something similar?

I think it's natural to want to wait for results in order to feel confident.

But waiting for results, or something external to feel confident is sabotaging your art career before you even get started.

What if it was possible to feel confident before you even start painting.

Can you be confident in your ability to learn?

Or confident that you love making art BEFORE you actually start seeing the artistic progress you're after?

Spoiler alert: It's totally possible.

And not only is it possible, but it's really the only way you're going to see opportunities for growth.

You don't need to see wild results in order to feel confident.

Confidence is grown and cultivated from showing up and seeing tiny wins.

I used to feel so discouraged by my lack of ability to mix the colors I wanted. 

I would get frustrated that I was doing it "wrong" and just focused on that frustration.

I told myself I had no confidence in my color mixing skills.

But when I made the decision to feel confident in the skills I currently had, I also started to feel confident that I could learn more.

So I started seeking out ways to improve my color mixing and now my skills are at a higher level.

I felt confident because I DECIDED to feel confident about where I was and where I could go.

THEN I was able to build the skills I wanted. And now I'm confident in those skills too.

Lacking confidence is the #1 thing I hear from my new students.

Every time I start a class I ask why everyone is there and every time they tell me they don't have enough confidence in themselves as artists.

Telling yourself you don't have enough confidence is creating the reality of you not feeling confident. And no painting skill can change that.

No matter your current painting skill level, you can decide to feel confident about where you're at right now as an artist, whether it's confidence in your current skills or confidence in yourself that you can learn more.

Practice your confidence BEFORE you acquire the skills and I promise you'll acquire those skills a lot faster.

What is one thing about your art that you can be confident about right now? 

Tell me in a comment!

XO,
Laurel


P.S. If you love painting, but sometimes struggle to stay inspired, you’re invited to join my Facebook Group! If you're not already in it and want to connect with over 1,000 other painters and get inspired, join us right here now!

If You're a Perfectionist Artist Then You Should Probably Read This...

If you follow along with my paintings on Instagram, you might've seen a post late last week where I shared an abstract painting I was working on.

I was getting really frustrated with how the painting was coming along and was about to put it away for the day, when I realized something....

For a long time I've approached painting (and so many other things in my life) with the mindset that I "should" just be able to do it easily. And if I couldn't do it easily then I must've been doing something wrong and I needed to figure out what that was...

If I only had 20 minutes to paint instead of 5 hours, I got upset and carried that disappointment with me the rest of the day.

If I couldn't figure out a certain painting in the amount of time I had to paint, then I got angry.

If I hated what I made, I felt stupid and frustrated.

But I finally realized something... and I think I realized it as a result of hearing it from teachers and coaches over and over and over...

I realized that "bad days" and short painting sessions were valuable.

I realized that practice is supposed to suck sometimes.

I realized that it's not about what masterpiece I created that day, it's about the fact that I painted at all.

Some days painting is easy and some days it sucks.

Some days I have 5 hours to paint and some day I have 30 minutes.

Some days I love what I make and some days I hate it.

I used to think that days when it was difficult were proof that I’d never be the painter I wanted to be, but I’m learning that the sucky days are valuable even if it doesn’t feel that way in the moment.

I wanted to share this with you because whether you're a painter or not, I think it's worth reminding yourself that sucky days are valuable and the idea that you should always be able perform at your best is your perfectionism talking.

I hope that this little Monday pick-me-up resonates with you somehow! If it does, let me know!

I'll be sharing more like this in between sharing new paintings as I navigate my own inner perfectionist monster so stay tuned!

The Number One Thing That's Helped Me Move Forward as an Artist

As an artist, I’m pretty clear on what inspires me: color, joy, nostalgic food memories, etc. A couple weeks ago I told you about how my gastronomy masters program at BU helped me realize just how much food memories meant to me and how I could capture them in my paintings. You can read that post here.

While my inspiration is strong and clear, something I had been taking for granted was my actual skill set as an artist. Learning to paint was so painful and frustrating that I more or less decided that I was done learning art technique. I felt like I went through enough the first time around. I knew my sense of color and design was strong so I just didn’t think I had more to learn, at least consciously.

But I also occasionally felt held back while I was painting. I wanted to add more depth to my work, but I didn’t know how. I wanted to increase the vibrancy of my colors, but I didn’t know how. I could tell that there was something keeping my work from being purchased at the prices I was asking, but I didn’t know how to figure out what it was. It was extremely frustrating, but I didn’t see any obvious solutions and just settled on the idea that my work was good enough to just keep going.

At the same time I was super focused on investing in my business skills. I took classes and started working with a coach and knew that educating myself was the key to moving my business forward. I figured if I could gain enough marketing knowledge, my painting challenges wouldn’t matter.

But what I was missing was that I needed to apply this same attitude toward educating myself to my paintings!

Over the last 3 years since I started working toward becoming a full time artist, education, mostly in the form of online courses, has been the number one thing that has helped me move forward and know what to do next.

I’ve spent every dollar of every tax refund I’ve received in the last 3 years on online courses and have taken the risk of relying on my credit card to get me into courses my tax refund couldn’t cover. The best part? Every course has moved me forward and I’ve made back the money I’ve spent multiple times over.

It’s so silly that it took me this long to realize that I need to be educating BOTH the artist and the businessperson in me!

As luck would have it, Amira Rahim, one of the artists who led the Portugal retreat I went on in January, launched her first in-depth abstract painting course Better Than Art School in April. I joined the class (with my 2018 tax refund!!) and jumped back into being a student again. I’m actually still in the class as I’m writing this. And I have to admit, my memories of how hard it is to learn to paint were correct! IT IS HARD! BUT, I finally feel like my technique and my style is moving forward again.

I realized though that I haven’t been sharing much of what I’m working on aside from a few work in progress photos here and there. I think it’s because I’ve been a little hesitant to share all of these paintings together because I’m worried that they “don’t make sense” together.

I’m in this weird transition period with my paintings where I’m learning new skills and techniques that I plan on weaving into my food-focused paintings but I’m not quite there yet. I’ve been working on abstract paintings that let me work on color, movement, and composition in ways I never have. I love them so much but I wasn’t sure how they fit with the rest of my work.

But I realized that it all boils down to color and joy and that these abstracts are just a different method of capturing joy and happiness and nostalgia in vibrant color, which is what I’ve always done!

So while I’m still in transition and getting where I want to go as a painter, here is where I’m at right now! This collection is a mix of abstracts, ice cream, and pastry displays, but it’s really a collection of joy and color and happy moments! And it is the physical representation of everything I’ve been learning! To not share them with you would be to leave you out of my artistic journey, which just doesn’t feel right at all! I cannot wait to see where my new skills take me and I cannot wait to keep sharing it all with you!

Which one of these new paintings is sparking your joy?!

Loving these new paintings so much you need to own one to bring more joy into your home?

CLICK HERE to purchase yours!

Loving these new paintings? CLICK HERE to purchase yours!