What an incredibly creative few months it’s been for students working through the courses and lessons. From the first-ever paintings taking shape on the canvas, to one student revisiting the same lesson ten years later! And others are going on to win awards at exhibitions. Many of these successes are linked to free tutorials, so you can follow along yourself.
Even if you’re returning to something you’ve tried before, you’ll often spot something new the second time around.
Some great brushwork here from students on the new oil course. It can take a bit of getting used to the flow compared to acrylics. But what a great job they’ve done!
Here, Patricia has shared her underpainting for the Floral study, and you can see how the structure is already being established for the painting’s next layers.
I was looking for the replacement leads for my mechanical pencil.
Just leads.
I knew I had put them somewhere sensible. Somewhere memorable. Somewhere safe. I just had no idea where that somewhere was.
I asked Vanessa.
“Have you seen my 0.5mm Uni leads? Little plastic case. White top?”
Vanessa has an almost supernatural ability to locate the things I misplace. She seems to carry an internal map of my chaos, but even she looked doubtful this time.
I checked the drawers. Lifted sketchbooks. Opened tins.
I briefly wondered whether they had migrated to the kitchen, victims of one of my “I’ll just put this here for a moment” decisions.
Nothing.
Amazon offered hope. £4.19 for 24. One click, and the problem would disappear.
But I didn’t want tomorrow’s leads. I wanted the ones I already owned.
A small stick of lost graphite was the moment it caught up with me. The moment I had to admit that my art materials storage “system” was not a system at all. It was more like a leaning tower of creative good intentions, a stack of brushes and a precariously balanced tear-off palette.
It’s hard to be creative when you can’t find a pencil.
One of the most common questions students ask me is: “How can I paint looser?” Many students want to know how to loosen up their painting, especially if they tend to get stuck in careful details.
But loose painting is rarely the starting point.
In my experience, what often looks loose on the surface is actually controlled simplification underneath. Learning to paint with control first makes a far stronger ‘loose’ painting later on.
Messy and loose can look similar at a glance.
Structurally, they are completely different.
Loose painting is confident editing.
Messy painting is an undecided execution.
That difference in how they are constructed changes everything.
The hidden structure
If you look at painters like Sargent or Sorolla, their work, on the surface, feels fresh and spontaneous. The brushstrokes seem almost casual.
But slow it down.
The drawing is solid.
The values are clear.
The edges are intentional.
And also, let’s not forget the scale. When you’re first starting out and most probably painting small, 20 x 25cm, or in sketchbooks, you can flick through images online and think, ” Wow, how do those paintings look so luscious and painterly, yet still hold that accuracy?”
I have students who email me saying they’ve painted in the past, but are taking a break.
They still read and enjoy the tutorials, but don’t feel like they could give them a go. They don’t feel they could start again because they’re back at ground zero.
But I want you to know that hesitancy to start painting again has nothing to do with your skills.
You know how to mix colours, and you’ve got an empty canvas ready to go!
What’s gone is your belief that it’ll be good.
This January, I’ve had tons of household stuff to catch up on and new courses I’m researching, but alongside all that, I’ve been putting time aside to paint daily.
But what happens when the day doesn’t go to plan?
You miss one or two days, and it doesn’t change much.
But when you’ve missed a week, something begins to shift.
What about a month? A decade?
What I’ve discovered through my own practice is that the barrier to returning to painting isn’t lost skill—it’s lost confidence.
The Forgetting Curve and the Confidence Gap
We’ve previously looked at the forgetting curve, which shows us that we forget new knowledge at a surprisingly quick rate.
But this is something different.
The longer you wait, the more the psychological pressure builds.
It’s irrational.
Anxiety builds to such a point that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The Procrastinating Painter
Timothy A. Pychyl, PhD, author of ‘Solving the Procrastination Puzzle’, is a procrastination researcher.
Through his research, he’s found that putting things off isn’t really about not having the time to do them, but about avoiding the perceived negative emotions that will come with the thing you’re procrastinating on.
“Procrastination isn’t a time management problem; it’s an emotional management problem. We have negative emotions attached to some tasks….we feel frustration, boredom, resentment or anxiety. By putting off the task, we put off those emotions, and that’s the crazy self-defeating nature of it all.”
We’re avoiding the negative emotion that we’ve suddenly become terrible artists!
Miss one day and you’re a painter who took a break.
Miss a month, and you become someone who used to paint.
Build Evidence, Not Motivation
Keeping a record of your past work matters.
It can be a quick snap on your phone (Here’s how to take better iPhone shots of your paintings) or one of the pieces you’re most proud of displayed where you can see it.
When doubt creeps in after a break, you need something tangible to look back on, proof that you were once in that zone, that you did create something you were proud of.
And this leans into another strange thing that happens with creative work: when you finish a painting, you immediately see only the flaws. Every wrong mix, every misaligned feature. You’re intensely critical.
So it makes it even harder to come back to your paintings after a break, because alongside the doubt, you will see the work more harshly when you’ve first finished it.
However, come back a week later, you’ll look at the same piece and think, “Who painted that?” You’re genuinely surprised by its quality.
This happens to all artists.
How to beat procrastination with Procatalepsis
Procatalepsis comes from the Greek: pro (before) + katalepsis (seizing or grasping).
When debating a point, it’s a way of highlighting your own shortcomings before your opponent can voice them towards you.
You’re doing the same thing, except the opponent is your own resistance.
This is particularly effective against procrastination because procrastination often disguises itself as legitimate concern. Your brain says, “I should wait until I’m more prepared” or “Maybe tomorrow when I’m fresher”, and these sound reasonable.
Here’s how you might use it for returning to portrait painting:
“I know the proportions are going to feel off in the first few attempts. The eyes won’t sit right, the nose will be too long, or the mouth too small. That’s not me forgetting how to paint, that’s my eye being sharper than my hand right now, which means my eye still works. The hand will catch up.”
You’re facing the fact that, of course, this won’t be your most accurate painting ever, how could it be!
By anticipating both your artistic doubts and your delay tactics, you can move forward.
Confidence Comes From the Work Itself
If you’re in the midst of an artist block, the answer isn’t to think harder about what you’ve lost or to wait to be inspired. It’s to reduce the friction of starting again.
Pick up the brush.
Copy something simple.
Let your hands remember what your mind has temporarily forgotten.
You’re not just practising the skill. You’re practising the courage to show up again, even when the distance to where you want to be feels insurmountable.
Your painting skills aren’t lost; you just need the evidence to believe in them again.
The best thing I’ve done for my studio practice this year happens the night before I paint.
I call it the Midnight Sketch Club.
What separates a painting that ‘works’ from one that doesn’t is usually decided long before the first brushstroke goes down.
You need to recognise what to look out for, where your natural tendencies can lead to mistakes and how the values will work.
And the best way to figure all that out?
A sketch and a value study.
But most beginners don’t do them. Because they think they are boring.
Now, I know what you’re thinking because I do this too.
You see a subject, you get excited, and you think, “Right, I’m just going to dive straight in. I don’t need to do a sketch first—I’ll figure it out as I go.”
And then three hours in, you’re wrestling with a painting that’s fighting you every step of the way because you didn’t take twenty minutes to work out the problems beforehand.
On the How to Paint a Peony Course, we paint a simplified ‘poster study’ of the peony before committing to the main painting.
It’s like running through a dress rehearsal before the main performance.
But here’s what I’ve started doing instead.
The night before I paint, usually around midnight, because I’m a bit of a night owl, I’ll spend 15-30 minutes sketching out the subject.
Nothing fancy.
Just getting the composition down, mapping out the value structure, seeing where the darks and lights fall, and figuring out where the problems are going to crop up. It might be colour notes, or things I noticed.
You can do this with actual physical sketches, or on an iPad if you prefer digital. Doesn’t matter. What matters is you’re thinking about the painting before you’re in the painting.
And here’s the magic part: you sleep on it.
You give your brain a whole night to process what you learned. You step back from the subject. And when you wake up the next morning, something interesting happens: you’re actually more excited to paint it, not less. Because now, you’re not walking into the unknown.
You know what you’re doing.
You know what to look out for.
You’ve already solved half the problems while you were asleep.
The preparation is the work
It’s a bit like how film directors don’t just show up on set and wing it. They spend months in pre-production, storyboarding every shot (essentially a hand-drawn version of the final movie), working out every angle, so that when it’s time to actually film, they’re not figuring things out; they’re executing a plan.
Pixar spent over 2.5 years storyboarding Toystory before they animated a single frame.
That preparation is the work. The final painting, the final film, the final animation is the execution of all that thinking.
Why you need tea & biscuits
My brothers and sisters think I spend my days lounging around in some sort of artistic reverie, wafting a paintbrush toward a canvas in a state of internal bliss.
What we’re actually doing when we paint is solving hundreds of tiny problems, one after another, making decision after decision after decision. Which edge to soften? Where does that value shift? Is this colour too warm? Should that brushstroke follow the form or cut across it? It’s exhausting.
That’s why we need all the tea and biscuits afterwards, we’re recovering from genuine mental effort!
And this is exactly why my Midnight Sketch Club works so well. By sketching the night before, you’re solving a huge chunk of those problems in advance.
Now you can actually focus on the painting itself, rather than burning through your decision-making energy just trying to figure out where things go.
I was listening to a podcast, and Darren Cahill, co-coach of the current world No. 1 tennis player, Jannik Sinner, discussed Roger Federer’s work ethic.
“I did a week with Roger Federer and was stunned how hard he worked on the practice court. Four and five-hour blocks on the practice court. I never knew this about Roger because if you go and watch Roger warming up for a match, it looks like he’s going out to play with a country club, or he’s just slapping the ball around, barely out of his feet.”
He said:
“Darren, all the hard work is done in the lead-up. I just have to feel the ball and feel good about my game. Everything is done away from the public’s eyes. The actual match court is just for show. It’s when you are practising inside a stadium with zero people watching, that’s what really matters, and that’s where you’re putting in all that hard work. If you can accomplish that, then you can accomplish some great things.” – Roger Federer
So sketch at midnight
Map the values. Find the problems. Then sleep on it.
I think you’ll be surprised at how much better your paintings turn out when you’ve given yourself that gift of preparation.
Left: The Jester Don John of Austria, Diego Velázquez. 1632–1633.
Right: Buffoon Don Juan of Austria, John Singer Sargent. 1879.
You’re six months into painting, with a couple of decent Monet studies under your belt, and you’re starting to experiment with Van Gogh’s impasto brush strokes.
A friend walks by your easel: “Oh, you’re copying again?”
That word, copying, lands like an accusation.
It doesn’t feel like “real painting,” does it? Real painters have an original vision. Real painters have their own unique style. Real painters don’t spend Tuesday afternoons recreating someone else’s portrait from 1885.
Except they do. They did. They all did.
The Helsinki Bus Station
In 2004, Finnish photographer Arno Rafael Minkkinen gave a commencement speech about Helsinki’s central bus station. He explained that dozens of bus routes: 21, 71, 58, 33, 19, all leave from the same platform. For the first kilometre, they travel the exact same road. Same stops. Same view out the window.
Then, gradually, they split. Each bus finds its own unique path through the city.
“The bus numbers might read as follows: 21, 71, 58, 33, and 19. Each bus runs the same route for a while, but then they begin to diverge. The 33 goes north, the 19 heads southwest, the 21 and 71 continue together for a few more stops and then split.” – Arno Rafael Minkkinen
It’s an analogy that applies to all creatives.
You board the bus. You start painting. Your work naturally resembles the masters who inspired you—Vermeer’s light, Velázquez’s loose brushwork, Caravaggio’s drama. Then someone (maybe your own inner critic) points this out. Panicked, you leap off the bus, grab a taxi back to the station, and try a completely different route.
You chase abstraction. Then realism. Then impressionism. Then digital art. Then back to oils, but with a different subject matter. Different palette. Different everything.
The Argument for Master Copies
Here’s the thing: copying master paintings isn’t avoiding your original voice; it’s the most direct path to finding it.
I know this because I’ve painted more master copies than any other style of work. This isn’t a quirky personal preference. This is how mastery has always worked.
Leonardo da Vinci spent years in Andrea del Verrocchio’s workshop, not painting his own revolutionary compositions, but completing sections of his master’s paintings. Giorgio Vasari (1511 – 1574) claimed that Andrea del Verrocchio gave up painting after seeing his pupil paint an angel so perfect he knew he could not compete, humbled by his student.
Leonardo learned by copying. Perfectly. Obsessively.
Michelangelo
Before the Sistine Chapel, before David, teenage Michelangelo was making drawings so similar to ancient masters that he would artificially age them and pass them off as genuine antiquities.
Delacroix and Rubens
Eugène Delacroix spent extensive time in the Louvre making copies of Rubens’ paintings. He wrote in his journals about how copying forced him to understand Rubens’ decisions.
“COPIES, COPYING. Herein lay the education of most of the great masters.” – Eugène Delacroix
Why that colour, why that composition, why that exact brushstroke. He wasn’t stealing; he was apprenticing across time.
Vincent Van Gogh
Van Gogh worked on the Barque plates to improve his tonal drawing skills.
“I’m now working on copies, and I’m working with delight… it’s learning, and above all, it brings me peace.” – Vincent Van Gogh
Van Gogh, one of history’s most recognisable, original Impressionist painters, found peace and learning in copying.
Cézanne and Poussin
Paul Cézanne, who revolutionised painting and paved the way for Cubism, spent years studying and copying Nicolas Poussin’s classical compositions. He once said he wanted to “redo Poussin after nature.” He wasn’t abandoning originality; he was building the foundation that would later support his radical innovations. There are 21 pieces in a list of Cezanne’s oil copies from the Paul Cezanne Society
John Singer Sargent
Sargent (exhibition review) spent nearly six weeks in Madrid (October–November 1879) primarily to study and copy Velázquez’s paintings in the Prado Museum.
Manet and the Old Masters
Édouard Manet, the rebellious founder of Impressionism, spent his formative years in the Louvre copying Titian, Velázquez, and other masters. His “Olympia” and “Luncheon on the Grass” scandalised Paris precisely because he understood tradition well enough to subvert it.
The craft of copy work
It feels uncomfortable because we’ve romanticised originality. We imagine artists channelling pure creativity.
But that’s not how painting works. That’s not how any craft works.
You don’t learn guitar by writing original songs right away. You learn songs that already exist. You copy Hendrix’s riffs, Clapton’s solos, until your fingers know what good playing feels like.
You don’t learn to write by immediately penning a novel. You read thousands of pages, you study how other writers construct sentences, you might even hand-copy passages from writers you admire (Hunter S. Thompson famously typed out entire F. Scott Fitzgerald novels to feel the rhythm of great writing).
Why should painting be different?
The Path Forward
Here’s what happens if you stay on the bus:
Your paintings start to look like the masters you’re studying. You’re pleased with the painting because it looks like what you’re trying to create.
But your ego is the problem; you don’t feel the same amount of pride because they’re not uniquely yours.
But you’re painting. You’re producing volume.
You start noticing which masters resonate most with you. You’re drawn to Sargent’s painterly confidence more than Vermeer’s precise realism or vice versa. Preferences emerge. Your hand is learning.
You start making small departures. Not revolutionary ones, just slight adjustments. A colour choice that’s yours. A compositional risk you may not have taken at the beginning -now some of it is exploration.
Someone looks at your work and says, “That’s interesting. Who are you influenced by?” They can’t quite place it. Because by now, you’ve stayed on the bus long enough that your route has diverged. You’re painting in a voice that’s recognisably yours, built on a foundation of deeply understood craft.
The balance of the art of copying
But there is always a balance. You rarely find your own unique styling by only copying others. You have to go through the mistakes, the wipes-offs, the failed gallery submissions, with your own ideas. Sitting in a room with no internet, music, distractions, or external inspiration can allow you to follow your own interests, notice what you’re drawn to and follow your instincts. You don’t have to vigorously copy the exact piece; let your own artistic voice come through.
The alternative is bus-hopping. Chasing trends. Reinventing your approach every time self-doubt whispers that you’re not original enough.
Copy with curiosity
I’m not suggesting you copy forever. I’m asking you to trust the process that created every master whose work now hangs in museums.
Copy with intention. Copy with curiosity. Copy to understand, not to imitate.
And then, crucially, stay on the bus.
Keep painting. Keep studying. Keep making decisions with a brush in your hand. The divergence will come. Your style will emerge, it’s waiting for you, miles down the road you’re already on.
One of the best things I remember from the speech is that, when you reach that stage of your own originality, the first question people ask you is, “Where did it all begin?” “ Who were you first influenced by?”
And then you get to pick up all these stops of all these artists and all these things that have influenced you throughout your career.
And it’s not seen as copying anymore; It’s seen as the origin story of how your style emerged.
“In some ways all figurative work owes a debt to art history. Brickel’s paintings follow an illustrious path, from William Blake to the Pre-Raphaelites, to Stanley Spencer and Lucian Freud, as well as the rich tradition of English figuration. Yet, Brickel’s paintings have also been characterized as Mannerist, with figures in impossible contortions, sharing a 16th century sensibility derived from Italian artists like Pontormo and Giorgio Vasari. The strongest contemporary figurative painting distinguishes itself from the past as seen in the paintings of William Brickel.”
Notice how the inspiration ‘stops’ of the painters are listed as the journey: Vasari, Pontormo, William Blake, Pre-Raphaelites, Mannerist Style, Stanley Spencer, Lucien Freud.
Last week, I sat down to write new goals for the year ahead.
Eating healthier, moving more (that came up a lot!), and I noticed myself saying something I’ve said many times before. “This year I’m going to paint more plein air.”
It sounds reasonable. But I’ve learnt that with painting and drawing, more isn’t the thing that moves you forward. Focus is.
Alignment over Inspiration
If you want to reach your art goals in 2026, you need better art alignment.
But when you have a specific goal, it helps to be specific with your practice too.
If portraits are your goal, you don’t need to “earn” your way there by painting still lives first. Even a small, focused study, like an ear, can move you closer to where you want to be.
I made the mistake of telling my sister about my resolutions, and she phoned yesterday to check up on me! I made a fumbled excuse about it being too cold to go outside to paint (I know some readers will laugh who are in -25 degrees, so appreciate my excuse is unfounded!)
So today I’ve propped an easel in the kitchen warmth, looking out the window. Heating on and tea by my side.
It’s a small move towards plein air.
Reading an article, watching a video, or reading a book counts as research, but it isn’t the same as actually practising drawing or painting.
Time under Tension
Instead of asking whether you’ll paint more portraits this year, try planning the kind of day that, repeated often enough, would make improvement inevitable.
It’s usually not a matter of finding the time, but of doing the thing you said you wanted to do in the time you set aside for it, without letting yourself drift into something else.
As the year unfolds, check for alignment. Treat new methods as learning, not success or failure. Create in ways that energise you. And be kinder to your artistic self.
Like drawing a portrait, a slight adjustment in direction can change everything.
As the pace softens and the new year comes into view, there’s often a quiet sense of possibility in the air.
It’s like a mirror has been held up to what you’d promise yourself you’d do – if only you had the time.
This is when expectations and comparison creeps in.
Goals grow too big too fast, and before you know it, the idea of making this your “best art year ever” quietly freezes you in place.
So what do you do next?
Experiment without expectation.
Painting a wall is better than waiting for your next masterpiece. One colour on the page is better than agonising over the perfect nineteenth-century palette.
Doodle, draw, paint, make. If you are putting a mark to a page, you are creating.
Confidence does not arrive first. It follows the work.
Small, regular creative acts keep the wheels turning. Most breakthroughs happen while you are simply showing up, not forcing results.
A rough value study counts.
A colour swatch counts.
An unfinished sketch counts.
Four words that help
“I’ll try it anyway.”
I can’t draw an accurate portrait. “I’ll try it anyway.”
I don’t have all the colours for the lesson. “I’ll try it anyway.”
I feel uneasy sketching outside. “I’ll try it anyway.”
The tries become marks, and the marks become evidence.
Every sketch, every mix, every imperfect attempt quietly proves you are becoming the artist you want to be.
Picture yourself a year from now with a thousand small pieces of ‘artistic evidence’ behind you. Growth becomes unavoidable.
So step into that uneasy space before the new year. This is where artistic confidence is made.
This is a simple, easy-to-follow downloadable video course with over 5 hours of tuition, where you will discover the essentials of creating an oil painting. It has been designed as a step-by-step, rounded learning experience that brings together all my knowledge as a student, painter, and teacher.
What’s in the Beginners Oil Painting Course?
5 x traditional oil painting demonstrations, taking you step-by-step from preparation and mixing and matching colours through to the final brush strokes. ✅
16 downloadable video lessons, split into separate chapters that follow on sequentially.✅
Over 5 hours of detailed video instruction so that you can follow along at your own pace.✅
Downloadable reference JPEG images, line drawings, and a full materials list.✅
Lifetime access, downloadable on separate devices.✅
You receive more than five hours of video lessons, reference images, my drawings, colour swatches, and lifetime access with a one-time payment.
Learn at your own pace and complete your first oil paintings with a clear and structured approach.
You will complete five guided studies using downloadable reference images.
We begin with a wipe-out study that lets you carve out the form like a sculptor.
Then we move onto a limited palette jug study, a thin couche layer that allows the paint to blend and flow across the surface.
In the monochrome cup study, you learn the importance of value and brush choice using an alla prima approach.
The lemon study introduces a four-stage, layered, indirect approach using the fat-over-lean method and teaches you to think ahead to make the most of your glazing.
Our final study is a classical still life of figs on a plate. This tutorial enables us to build layers and expand our colour mixing, working with a split primary palette and balancing realism with impressionism through painterly brush strokes.
If you’ve ever wanted to start oil painting but don’t know where to begin, what materials you need, how to clean your brushes or how to avoid muddy colours, you are not alone!
Oils can feel confusing at first.
I help complete beginners learn to paint using classical techniques. I want to give you a clear plan so you can start oil painting with confidence.
Oil paints are a fantastic medium. They dry slowly, giving you more time to refine shapes, create smooth transitions, and build subtle shifts in light. With the right foundation, you can avoid the usual frustrations and enjoy the process.
When you’re first starting with traditional oils, there’s a lot to take in! To avoid overwhelm, in this course, I want to address some of the most common questions to help aspiring oil painters understand the theory and practice of painting in this medium.
Each of the five painting studies builds on the last and teaches a different approach, from direct painting to an indirect classical method.
By focusing on still life subjects, you’ll gain confidence with setups that you can easily find at home to continue your studies.
I trained in classical oil painting in Florence, Italy, and have over 15 years of online teaching experience and more than 300,000 YouTube followers. My focus is always on practical methods that give repeatable results.
Designed with the home studio oil painter in mind
On this Beginner’s oil painting course, we’re keeping it simple and practical, with an approach designed to work at home.
You only need a small brush kit (from Princeton Brush Company) a limited palette of pigments, minimal tools, and a safe home setup. The short video lessons show each stage step-by-step so you can follow along without feeling overwhelmed.
You will learn how to prepare a canvas, see values, avoid muddy colours, control edges, and create the right consistency for your paint. We cover the essentials of traditional oil painting: Underpainting, fat over lean, glazing, simple colour mixing, and when it comes to materials, I want you to understand the options available, from quick-drying oil paint to creating your own medium recipes.
If you work from a small room at home, the idea of Traditional Oil paints and the use of strong-smelling solvents and mediums is a real consideration.
But you do not have to use solvents! You can paint with oils straight from the tube, adding nothing to them.
Mediums and solvents, such as turpentine or odourless mineral spirits, are optional; they simply change how the paint behaves. So you could dilute with a natural oil, like walnut oil, or with a solvent-free gel. Think of them as ways to tweak consistency rather than requirements; it’s about balancing paint handling, drying times, sensitivity and where you are painting.
In the course, I demonstrate using a low-odour solvent and work in a well-ventilated space. Throughout the course, I’ve tried to cover less toxic alternatives. A guide to a safe working environment is included.
What makes this beginner’s oil painting course different?
Calm and methodical, which builds skill in the right order.
Real-time decision making explained clearly as you paint with me
Simple printables and references, so practice is easy to repeat.
It has been a brilliant couple of months across October and November. I’ve loved seeing all the paintings, sketches and studies that have been shared recently.
Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to post their pieces. The creativity and progress on show over these weeks has been a real highlight.
What an incredible start to the Autumn it’s been! So proud to showcase a roundup of recent work from the students and artists following the courses and free lessons!
Thank you so much to everyone who has shared their beautiful work over the last couple of months.
“The pictures they created convinced me that anyone and everyone could use a few clear principles to build powerful visual statements: emotionally charged arrangements of shapes on a page.” – Molly Bang, Picture This: How Pictures Work
When you’re surrounded by hundreds of reference photos or standing in a beautiful location, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed.
Every scene seems to have potential for a painting, but nothing quite clicks. You find yourself thinking, “Would this work?Will that look good?” without ever feeling confident in your choices.
This is where ‘compositional categories’ can really help organise your imagery and give you a starting point to check your compositions against.
Not by limiting your creativity, but by giving you a clear lens through which to view your options.
Your pencil flows across the paper, and suddenly, it all makes sense. The proportions look right, the shading actually resembles the model, and you feel like you’re ‘getting it!’
You pack up your supplies with quiet confidence, already daydreaming about the drawings you’ll make at home next week.
Then life gets busy. A week later, you finally sit down to draw again, excited to pick up where you left off. You sharpen your pencil, study your subject, and… nothing.
The connection is gone. The techniques that seemed so natural have vanished. You’re not just rusty, you feel like you’re starting entirely from scratch.
It’s as if everything you learned has slipped away.
You’re not alone.
You’ve just run into one of the most common experiences in learning: the forgetting curve.
For this step-by-step tutorial, we’re focusing entirely on staying within the yellow family of colours.
We’ll move from a bright, saturated Cadmium Yellow Light through to a darker, earthy Raw Umber, and see how much of a painting we can create just within that colour family.
The perceived limitation of the palette actually becomes a strength. It forces you to examine form, composition, light, and the interaction between objects.
But the main thing it helps with is colour mixing.
Once you have the colour scale, you can adjust the colours by moving up or down it without veering too far off course.
