No matter what your preferred medium is, you probably have a nice collection of paint brushes already and a wishlist for some of those harder to find brushes. Your brushes may be synthetic or natural, camel hair or boar bristle, they each have their own benefits and applications. The one thing they all have in common is that if you take proper care of them, they can last for years. When you look at the cost of new brushes it only makes sense to spend the few extra minutes to treat your brushes with some extra care.

Clean your brushes well
When the medium you have been using with a brush is oil based or solvent based, the brush needs to be cleaned with a solvent too. You probably buy thinners where you buy your paints and for most of us, those small containers of thinner will clean your brushes just fine. After cleaning with thinner or mineral spirits it is best to wash them out with soap and water and then rinse, rinse, rinse until no residue shows in a glass of clear water. Water based paints and acrylics make for easier clean up, but again rinse them until the water stays clear, and then shake them dry, straightening the bristles if that last shake left them bent as often happens with longer and softer bristles.

The final step is what a lot of us skip: roll or wrap the bristles in a few layers of newspaper, folding the outer tip over just past the tip of the brush. This ensures that the brush can air dry overnight without fraying or losing its shape. The brush will stay neat and clean until you unwrap it to use next time.

To economize on brushes it is best to buy in bulk, maybe not alone but in a group such as a club. Even if your circle of creative friends is online you can agree to pool your resources and save by buying a dozen paint brushes at a time. Depending on the size and bristle type you can sometimes save enough for one more brush!

Hopefully articles here have encouraged you to learn to paint. Now we want to put the idea into your head of combining pleasures with painting and camping. Sooner or later you will want to try doing landscapes in the great outdoors as opposed to trying to pull them off of photographic images.

Here is a quick checklist of the few items I think you might need to bring camping and painting:

• small table to hold your paint and brushes
• your easel
• comfy chair that will allow you to sit up straight
• umbrella to give you shade
• bracket to mount an umbrella on your chair or a pole to lash it to

Most of the items can be improvised from the existing camp equipment, but the one thing most people are not used to bringing is an umbrella. It seems to me that a golf umbrella might be the way to go here.

You just can’t sit in the direct sun for very long and be comfortable painting. The glare in your eyes and on your canvas work against you too. Some of your best locations won’t have you near natural shade. If you paint a beach scene what are the chances of you getting a Palm tree to sit under?

The point here is just to get out in the great outdoors and create something that you can’t capture with the camera alone. Find something you can capture that has a little of your imagination in it. At the same time you and your family can be enjoying the great outdoors together and camping.

When my wife and I got married 18 months ago we were so excited that we did everything together…well, okay, not everything. I mean I had my boys night and she had her girls night. But being the nerdy newlyweds we are, we actually mapped out our weekly schedule. It included a night for each of us to hang out with our friends, a date night, a parents night, a tv night, a movie night and a do nothing night. We both work, so like most husbands and wives our days are full and a lot of times we work late. After the first couple months of our marriage our schedule of quality together time dissolved like ice on a fire.

So a few weeks ago over Saturday morning pancakes, which were homemade and yummy by the way, my wife and I started talking about things we still wanted to learn and do. Like I always wanted to go skydiving and my wife always wanted to learn how to paint. I grabbed a yellow pad and we started a list. By the time breakfast was over and the last pancake was eaten our list almost filled the page. There was salsa dancing, french cooking, kayaking, wine tasting, learning Italian and so much more. So together we decided that each month we’re going to learn something new as a couple. It’s our commitment to pushing each other to do things outside our comfort zones, to making new friends and to spending quality time together that is not sitting on the couch watching other people doing interesting things. In fact we were both so excited that we went online and we’ll be learning how to paint like Leonardo da Vinci before next month rolls around! After all, the couple that paints together stays together!

And speaking of painting, my wife wants her first painting project to be replicating an artful rendition of her in her wedding dress and me in my tuxedo standing in front of the lighthouse where we got married in Montauk. A big goal for a first time painter, but that’s my wife, the over-achiever. I’m sure it will look amazing and can’t wait to see it hanging above our mantle.

Learning to paint is something many people dream of, but rarely know where to start let alone make the leap to try it out. Just like learning to walk or learning to speak another language, learning how to paint is a step-by-step process that requires patience and practice. Lots of practice!

So where do you begin?

The first step is to decide you want to try it. Say it with me…

“YES! I am going to learn how to paint!”

Now what?

1. You need to find resources for learning.
2. Take action and allow yourself the time to be creative!

You don’t need a big an elaborate plan to start learning an art skill and especially not a skill as timeless as painting. You simply need resources to learn from and supplies to practice with. You don’t need a fancy studio nor even an easel. A table, a chair, some paper, brushes and paint will do just fine. It’s all about the skill we have with our tools, not necessarily the tools themselves.

Next you’ll need a source for instruction. You could get books or watch demonstrations – find workshops or classes at your local community center – search for videos or follow art blogs. Taking a class or working with a private instructor is another great way to get started on your painting path. However, not everyone has the time commitment nor the funds to dedicate towards regular scheduled instruction. Creativity doesn’t always happen just because class begins at 2pm on Wednesday. So why force it? Creative success happens when you can really appreciate the time you spend working on it. It shouldn’t be a task list, it should be an experience one enjoys and looks forward to. Practice your painting skills when you are in the mindset to focus on what you are learning. Allow yourself the time to explore and experiment with your techniques and ideas.

You decide your schedule to learn how to paint

Another great way to acquire painting skills is to take a home course. Find a package that includes everything you need to get started learning to paint so you can focus on learning rather than hunting for supplies. You won’t know exactly which supplies you’ll need until you try a few out, so starting with a home course that provides supplies and instruction is invaluable. One such course that is easy to get a hold of is Learn and Master Painting.

So now that there’s no excuse… Let’s get started and learn to paint!

Finger painting has long been a favorite activity for toddlers through grade school children. It’s a fun, easy activity to put together with very few supplies and the mess cleans right up. Finger painting is a great activity for exploring colors, sense of touch and imagination all at the same time.

Finger Paint – Pre-made finger paint can usually be found at any craft and hobby store as well as places like Target, Walmart or even your local grocer. You can even make your own finger paint from relatively common ingredients. Finger paint is non-toxic so please do not try to use other types of paint for this project.

Paper – It’s best to use paper specific for finger painting as the slick coated surface helps the paint move smoothly across the paper rather than soak in. Waxed paper or a coated parchment would also work as long as you don’t intend to keep the finished pieces for long (the paint may flake off).

Art shirt – Many kids tend to want to wipe their hands on their shirt when their hands feel dirty. Make sure to have a good covering smock or shirt so regular clothing doesn’t get ruined. An old t-shirt works as a great art shirt for young kids.

Painting space - Find a nice uncluttered space for this painting project. Kids need room to explore their new found artistic side so make sure there is plenty of room to move arms around the paper.

Note: first time painters aren’t always sure what to do, so be prepared to get a little paint on your own hands while you show your youngster how to explore their creative side with finger paints!

Finger Painting products:

The Learn and Master painting home course by Legacy Learning has everything you need to get started learning how to paint. You just need to add in the time. You’ll be able to follow along at your own pace at a fraction of the cost of private instruction. There are three package options, each comes complete with a detailed lesson book, video and audio on DVD to follow along without the rush of a timed classroom.

Standard Edition instructional material only – painting supplies sold separately

Home School Edition includes an additional teachers guide for guided study

Supply kit contains oil paints, brushes, palette knife and medium

Full package deal includes the Standard Edition and Supply Kit

With all Learn and Master products you’ll also receive access to a members only website with an online community to share ideas and struggles with others.

Get started Learn and Master Painting – Order Now!

Do you need talent to become an artist? In almost no other human endeavor are so many people so hung up on the need for talent. There seems to be an almost universal agreement that artistic painting is only for those rare individuals that are born with a mysteriously God-like ability to create art. We lowly mortals, should never even try to understand art let alone try to create it. Give me a break.

For most painters, talent refers to how easily and how quickly someone can acquire the necessary skills and understanding to make art. There is another facet of talent, (this is the one that hangs us up), that deals with creatively choosing what to paint, how to arrange the elements, what style to use and sometimes experimenting with completely new ways to represent a subject or idea.

So much of being successful with art has to do with your goals and expectations. If your goal, for example, is just to enjoy the process of learning and improving, then achieving this is more a matter of attitude and getting started then it is with having talent.

If your goal is to paint something that is good enough to hang in your house, give away to friends or to sell at a local art fair, you need to develop enough technical skills to not look amateurish. Talent will certainly help at this level but it is not yet a requirement.

What if your goal is to become a famous artist recognized the world over for transcending all works of past art with something new and great. Do you need talent at this level? Absolutely, you will need a truck load of talent. What is interesting, however, is that so much of what a master painter learns on the way to greatness involves the same set of skills that a talent challenged amateur is capable of learning. In other words, only at the very top of the art world is talent an absolute necessity.

So how do you become a good artist despite a lack of talent?

1. First and foremost, learn to see like an artist. This is the process of learning to shut down the normally dominant side of your brain that wants to identify, name, organize, filter and basically make sense out of what we see. This actually gets in the way of processing raw visual data needed to make art. Artistic vision is extremely important and yet relatively easy to accomplish.
2. Learn to paint with a child-like attitude. Do children worry that they will look silly painting? Are they saying to themselves that they must create a perfect piece of art? Do they have anxiety from fretting over what others will think? Of course not. Kids just enjoy the experience as they learn. As adults we often paralyze our natural gifts and talents with worry. Relax.
3. Have endurance. Think of becoming an artist as a lifetime adventure. There is no hurry to get it right.
4. Develop a broad knowledge base. Expose yourself to lots of techniques, styles, mediums and other artists.
5. Do not try to reinvent the wheel. Before you develop bad habits learn painting from a gifted instructors. This does not necessarily have to take place at a university. It can also be learned from a local artist that teaches weekly classes or from a top video painting course on dvd. Be sure to look for a painting course that offers a full systematic approach to learning all of the technical skills in a logical progression. Some art lessons are so narrowly focused that they will leave huge gaps in your training.

The bottom line is that you really do not have to have great talent to have great fun and be productive as an artist. Now that that excuse has been removed, shouldn’t you get started today?

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=John_Mackinnon

I cannot remember a time in my life where I was not learning to paint. I guess it has always been a part of who I am. I remember as a child my mom buying me the paint by numbers acrylics. Mom would bring them home and I would get to open the box and pull everything out and inventory all the supplies. The little individual paint canisters and the inexpensive plastic handled brushes were included. The pictures were as varied as the colors but what I do remember was the black felt background and the image with the numbers stamped onto it. Back then I don’t think that I had the patience that I have now when it comes to painting. Now days, I have a passion for having patience and a personal goal to want to become a better painter just one step at a time. My patience has become energized with a focus to learn how to improve my skills. I was excited when I found a learn to paint kit that was just perfect for my current skill level and I was ready to learn some new painting techniques now that I was an adult. My new learn to paint kit includes a much higher quality of supplies and instruction than those old kits of time gone by that I have had in the past. I realize as time moves on that my painting skills and learning new painting skills is something that had to be learned as I went along. No one sits down and is good at painting the first time that they try it. Just like with most things in life, the more that you practice the better one becomes.

I was thrilled when my daughter started expressing an interest in painting. It all started when she was just a toddler. At least once a week I would take Sarah with me to my studio. Sarah would watch me from her playpen. Eventually she wanted to paint so we came up with a painting routine that could include her. In just a few months we have refined the routine itself and added to her set of painting skills but one part of our routine has not changed. I had made time to find the right clothing for Sarah to wear while painting. They were dedicated to and specifically for use in the studio. I picked the Positive Energy Dangerous T-shirt. It was perfect. The machine washable 100% cotton made it easy to clean and the soft organic cotton kept her comfortable while she learned to paint.