Painting Class for Dummies

Art careers provide an opportunity to express oneself while also being a potentially lucrative career. Fine Arts majors can pursue their creative interests, learn new mediums, and improve their technical skills.

By Adison Bollman — October 19, 2022

Tags: art, careers, classes, extracurricular, fine arts, general info, painting

Art careers provide an opportunity to express oneself while also being a potentially lucrative career. Fine Arts majors are granted the opportunity to pursue their creative interests, learn new mediums, and improve their technical skills. If you decide to pursue a fine arts degree, you will take painting classes; these classes will teach you the ins and outs of painting techniques and theory, and grant you an opportunity to exhibit your art. Be warned, as your work will be critiqued by others, just as you must critique others. My father, Brant Bollman, took these classes to get his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Iowa. Now, years later, he gave me words of advice for new painters to pass along to prospective art majors.

Differences in Paint

The first thing a prospective painter must learn about painting class is that there are three main types of courses: oil, watercolor, and acrylic. These classes will teach you how to paint with a particular kind of paint. The differences in these types of paints are quite drastic. Some paints are easier to pick up, while others take a long time to master. Some are easy to clean up, while others leave a terrible mess. The type of paint that suits you best indicates the art style you're privy to.

Watercolor Paint

Watercolor is the first type of paint most young students learn how to use. I remember my dad presenting us with watercolor palettes for my art class in kindergarten. My father used watercolor to teach young students painting for three reasons. One is its "spillability," as Brant so eloquently puts it. Watercolor is the easiest type of paint to clean out of the three, as a wet paper towel is all it takes to knock out a spill. Watercolor was also made for the impatient, as it only takes minutes to hours to dry. Watercolor painting is also an easy skill to learn. However, watercolor class isn't a walk in the park (or maybe it is). Like the other two, Watercolor class will teach you painting techniques and the science of color. You will also master using watercolor's wispy and earthly elements to craft beautiful pieces. Your watercolor class will spend some time outside. These outside painting classes are referred to as Plein Air classes.

Acrylic Paint

Acrylic paint is liquid plastic paint that began more common use in the late 1940s. Acrylic paint appears flat compared to oil and watercolor and leaves a rubbery texture when dry. Acrylic is inexpensive and relatively easy to clean up, just like watercolor. You'll spend significantly less time outside your acrylic class than in watercolor, but you may still have a session or two of Plein Air class. Acrylic painting is often seen as a step up from watercolor but is also quite simple to pick up relative to the last form of paint, oil.

Oil Paint

Oil paint is for the big wigs. Oil painting is a significant step up from acrylic and watercolor. The material is not only difficult to handle and clean up, as it takes months to dry and leaves frightful spills. It is also quite hazardous, as oil paint contains many carcinogenic solvents and cannot be put down the drain. Also, painting with oil is very expensive, as the tools, paint, and canvases cost hundreds of dollars. Oil painting is significant because it is seen as highbrow. Oil painting has been around since the Renaissance. Many of the most famous paintings, such as the Mona Lisa and Starry Night, are oil paintings. Oil paint is very versatile; you can replicate watercolor's airiness, acrylic's flatness, and anything in between.

Course Structure and the Dreaded Finals

Painting courses are hands-on. Unless in an applied art history course, you won't be memorizing hundreds of past artists but will spend your time burgeoning into one yourself. You'll be spending most of the class time in the studio learning and improving techniques laid out by your professor. You'll create works based on specific parameters, but these parameters usually don't bar you from painting what you desire. You may receive some coursework, especially about color theory or the science of colors-including color schemes, tones, shades, tints, and hues. As previously mentioned, some of these courses will take place outside, especially toward the end of the course.

Your midterms and finals will be different per class but may include an exhibition, a portfolio, a critique, an essay, or any combination of the four. You will have to show your work to fellow students and describe how you incorporated certain techniques and color theory into your work and whose work inspired yours. Don't worry. Your paintings aren't graded harshly. Your professor doesn't expect you to be Van Gogh; they just look for improvement.

Adison Bollman

Adison Bollman was born and raised in smalltown Iowa and graduated from North Mahaska High School in New Sharon, Iowa in 2021. Adison currently attends William Penn University in Oskaloosa, Iowa as a double major in Political Science and History. Adison articles help new students navigate through their college journey with emphasis on personal experiences and advice from professors and staff.

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