Hello, all! I am a high school student and have recently discovered my passion for art. I feel fortunate to be starting early on and be here amongst many experienced artists. I need some help getting started. That is, I have some questions for you!

What type of erasers are your standard pink/white erasers and do you use them for drawing?

What do you need to get you started with painting and what is the price range of a full painting setup?

Is the technical definition of a horizon the line where the sky starts where the contour of the ground meets the sky? (Say for example you had a horizon with trees on it, would the tops of the trees constitute the horizon or would you imagine the ground underneath as the horizon?)

What advice could you offer to someone considering Art as a career?


I'm sure I'll have more questions later. Thanks in advance!

-Eric

These are my suggestions and others may disagree or have better ones.

First I suggest you start with light pencil marks and get your composition correct so that you will do little or no erasing. Also try to get your pencil marks in the darkest areas of your drawing or under painting. In other words don’t mark where you will paint with lighter colors. I use the gum type erasers or white ones.

I suggest you get a liner or two, for highlights, a couple of small bristle and sable for applying paint and blending, and two larger sizes of each for painting backgrounds. For the sky and smooth areas you may need a two or three-inch soft bristle brush for blending. You do this with a dry brush after you apply the paint to soften the areas where the values meet to create the look of distance. For colors (if you paint in oil paints) I suggest, Titanium White (large tube), Burnt Umber, Alizarin Crimson, Cadmium Red medium, Cadmium Yellow medium, Ultramarine Blue, Cerulean Blue, and Medium Green. Yellow ochre, Burnt Sienna are also favorite colors of mine. I’m not sure about the prices ranges but I would go with few primary colors at first and at more colors later. Quality brushes will pay off, because with cheaper ones you will have to pick lost hairs off of your paintings.

The horizon is what you would see if there were no mountains or trees and the earth was smooth like a perfect sphere.

Architectural drawings, Sign art, advertising art, cartoons, animation art, computer games art, or get a other job and keep your art as a hobby.

As I said, these are just my suggestions. I hope others will also contribute theirs so you will find the ones that suit you best.

BRB.

I use a gum eraser as well as an electric eraser and believe it or not sometimes I use a normal eraser at the end of a pencil to get some detail for reflections and what not. If you are just beginning painting, I might suggestion start out with Acyrlics, since they are water based and less messy and more affordable - since painting in oils can be more pricey and messy. As for art as a career - like anything, its a competitive market... just when you think your good at something, theres always someone there who is a little better.. Be orignal, try not to focus so much on copying other peoples work, use references to create your own work, and practice, practice, practice. I would also consider art classes, as well as going to college - there are lots of good art academies out there - and a lot you can even do on line such as the academy of art.

Eric,

9/10 times if its something that a primary school (that's grade school in the States) would use - its not normally much good to you.

The first piece of advice I woud give you is buy the best materials that you can afford. Don't put yourself into debt over this. And the very best place to start is sketching what you see. This is what the Masters did - that's why you see Talouse-Lautrec painted scenes that he drew from the French cafes, Van Gogh painted workman in the fields etc.

Get a good sketchbook of a size that you will feel comfortable carrying around, for a pencil I would get a 2B mechanical pecil (2B is a little soft and will give you darks as well as lights), I would also have a kneadable eraser and a white plastic eraser (my favourite is the Faber-Castell Rasoplast) the plastic eraser can be cut down to a sharp edge with a box cutter and that edge will give you a precise erased line if needed.

Check out the sketch thread on this site. Practice what you read and learn - continue looking at other people's work to learn from their styles. But the most important is to keep asking - there are no stupid questions!

When you have had a look around at the effects that different mediums can give then think about which you might like to try for colour. Watercolour is probably the easiest to carry and work with for sketching. You will have to consider if you want to use oils that need turps or the water soluble ones, acrylics as a good water based medium, or perhaps pastel (which is what I love).

But even if you haven't made you're first investment in colour you can still be sketching and honing that base skill.

Sue