Painting on canvas is an artistic tradition hundreds of years old. Painting on canvas is rewarding and straight forward. Although it is not difficult, canvas painting does need to be practiced and perfected in order for an artist to achieve optimal, and satisfying, results.
Choosing a Medium
Give careful consideration to the medium you select for painting on a canvas. Typically, a painter working on a canvas uses oil paints or acrylics. Oil paints take a long time to dry, and this makes them good for blending colors on the canvas. The downside of using oil paints is that a painting can get too wet to make changes, and waiting for a piece to dry can take hours or even days. Some painters complain that oils tend to look muddled or unclear, and as they dry the colors can yellow with time. Also, the rules of "fat over lean" (meaning that coats of thinner, less oil-intense paint are applied beneath coats of thicker paint to keep the final product from cracking as it dries) can be intimidating to new painters.
On the other hand, acrylics dry very quickly. Making changes or corrections to an acrylic painting is easily done as soon as the paint is dry. Unfortunately, blending colors can be a challenge because of the quick drying time. But, acrylics are a good introduction to painting for beginning artists because they are water-based and slightly more intuitive to use. Acrylic paint bonds easily to nearly everything, and there are no rules to follow regarding what paint can be applied over what. Acrylic paint color quality is steadfast and the paint itself is flexible once it is dry.
Choosing a Subject
Generic subjects -- ones that can be created without having to be an exact replica of another subject -- will be the easiest to produce. A vase of flowers, a landscape, or a painting of a stationary organic object -- like a bowl of fruit -- are all good examples.
This differs from paintings of specific people. If the painting doesn't look exactly like the subject, the artist could consider his work a failure, even if the painting does indeed depict a person generically. For a bowl of fruit, it doesn't matter, thus relieving pressure from the artist to produce an exact replica.
Style and Approach
A style with an emphasis on photographic realism can take a long time to produce single pieces, and this style is difficult to perfect. Although the natural impulse for an artist may be to produce a painting that looks like something very real, the artist may find it difficult to produce an image exactly like its real-life counterpart. Additionally, this kind of painting technique leaves little room for personal expression through the act of painting itself. As an alternative, the artist may consider using an expressionistic, gestural painting style. This may simplify the act of painting while giving the artist more personal freedom to make the painting more obviously his own.
Applying paint to the canvas quickly and with abandon allows the artist to enjoy the act of painting, and in conjunction with creative choice of color, the results can be expressive, spontaneous and beautiful.
Another technique that can be utilized is an abstract or non-representational style. Without a subject to paint, there is no sense of right and wrong in the depiction of the image. The painting exists purely for painting's sake. Unfortunately, some artists respond negatively to the lack of boundaries. This style may come easily and naturally for some, while for others it may prove even more difficult than painting from a photograph or a live subject. Those who find it difficult to paint abstractly may complain that it feels like cheating, or like stepping off a cliff and falling into nothing. Not everyone responds well to chaos.
One method to employ to help the artist find direction when he is painting non-representationally is to seek inspiration from music, a poem or an emotion. Choosing colors and using brush strokes that are based on an emotional but abstract response can give the artist the necessary boundaries he needs, or his jumping-off point.
Application of Paint to Canvas
Beginning by applying the paint to the canvas in a thin wash allows the artist to quickly and easily cover the canvas in color, while providing a basis to build from. A dry canvas without paint on it will often absorb a percentage of the first layer of paint. This can slow down the painting process. By thinning the paint -- using turpentine for oil and water for acrylic -- the artist can get past the frustrating presence of a blank white canvas.
