Help with paint!

So I'm not much of a painter. I do a lot of drawing but I wanted to make some paintings for my new room. Thing is... I don't know where to start! I'm just recreating a few paintings by Angelique Houtkamp (yes, I'm obsessed, shutup) and I know she uses mostly acrylic & watercolor, but mainly watercolor.

I'm just wondering, like, what I should use?
Probably watercolor paper would be best right? Because I was thinking to use coffee to stain the backgrounds..
Do I need a medium or whatever that stuff is?
Are there any special tricks or something I should learn?
I'm a n00b when it comes to painting, so any tips or information would be awesome

I'll probably do smaller test run versions before I do the final stuff so I can practice the technique and all that but yeah any help at all would be great


Thanks so much in advance!!

firstly, watercolour paper is really great because is soaks up the water - perfect for water soluble paints like acylic and watercolour, and it's also easy to frame, whereas if you want to hang them straight on the wall, pre-stretched canvases are great as you can buy them with a base already painted on ready to work on straight away and then they're all already sided and stuff and you can hang them straight up!

Also, you won't need a medium unless you want the paint to be shimmery, thicker (often artists mix texture medium with acylic to give is an oil like lumpy appearance) or whatever, but if you're looking for just thick strong colour, use acrylic, watery colour, watercolour - but i tend to use acrylic for everything except thickening out sketches in my sketchbook =)

There really arent any special triicks to learn, however i would start with making a colour wheel - it's great mixing practice and blending practice. if you make a circle with a dot in the middle with a pencil, then on each third do a thin line of red, yellow and blue, and then blend them into eachother so directly between is the perfect purple, orange and green and in between in huuuundred of beautiful other shades!

Other good ways of practicing ate to do shapes and make them look thee dimensional, i find circles best for this. choose a colour (green? blue?) and then, from a plain pencil circle on the page, try to create a sperical shape to it with paint alone - this took me so long to perfect! it always looked like a tunnel ahahahaha..

but yeah, i'd say that's all you need to know. it all depends on how you want it to look and how you find it easiest, most of the best painters are self taught! just keep in mind thta little tings like collaging your base and varnishing the finished project can completely change the final product of your painting, so it's worth practicing and testing tonnes of techniques before you start.



...for someone who just quit college that's alot of arty bollocks huh?

woah thanks so much!
I'm doing something like these
www.myspace.com/angeliquehoutkamp
there are a few I've picked out but I can't find them online yet


but wait what does "collaging your base" mean?? XD

oh you know, like, whatever you use (say a canvas) if you collage onto it, like glue loads of little bits it can give a reall cool texture and if you paint thinluy onto it you can see whatever you collaged through. =)

and they're really cool!! i like =)

oh ok so I don't have to worry about that for now XD
I just want something really smooth, parchment-looking-like..

so watercolor paper, yes?

and thanks so much again XD

yeah, i'd say watercolour paper =)

ok cool

would it be cheaper to get like, a roll of it?

uh, i suppose it depends how big you want them, because it is pretty expensive. I've always bought sheets or sketchbooks with it (y'know with those perferated edges?) so i'm not sure. I suppose the best idea is to work out how much you'll use with practices and all, and then work out what's cheaper after that.

ah ok right

I have a sketchbook so I'll use that for now and if I like the size then great XD

Ok so I played around with watercolor a bit and I like it, it blends really well which is good for all the shading that this style requires

I tried with watercolor pencils too, but i didn't really like those
I'm not sure if I even used em right lmao

I also tried it with acrylic, and that was also good, I'm not sure which I like better.

I made a little jewelry box yesterday (I got this wooden box with like, no aint or varnish or ANYTHING on it at the dollar store, SCORE) and it looks pretty awesome I love it ^_^

too bad my camera's fucked...

have you worked with gouache?
i think you maybe helped me when i posted about using it but im a huge fan of it now. its like watercolour...but it's also like acrylic

im a big watercolour girl and only started using acrylic last year but im in love with both to be honest.

yeah I have, but this acrylic is really liquid and kind of like gouache anyway, which is why I wanted to try it! because when they're more liquid i find it easier to blend..

anyway, they remind me very much of the goache we use at school except it says acrylic... I remember using acrylic before but from tubes and the texture was much thicker, didn't really like it

so basically, I have this crazy idea that its gouache, but that the dollar store people are trying to fool me into believing its acrylic.
or maybe I'M mad XD