A Rat Throws Paint. Ramblings, thoughts and what I've learned. Acrylic paints

[cause the rat]

Well, here it is. This is going to be my collection of thoughts. Crazy and off the wall at times. Because if your not having fun why do it.  Long winded, off the wall and badly written is all I'll promise. Start with what I know. Or in this case. What I was a complete failure at. I'll ramble on later on why i think I failed at watercolor . I tried watercolor for a few years. One frustrating mess. But I did learn color theory on my disappointing journey. No matter how you paint. No matter what medium you use. Traditional or digital. Color theory is your best friend. Learn it and your already miles ahead of 90 percent of the Furry fandom.

Let's begin with the Wold Wide Web. Go ahead, type in "acrylic painting techniques". And be prepared to be underwhelmed. Ninety nine million videos. Done by eight year olds. Or adults who might as well be eight year olds. Sowing you how to paint. Just like you did in grade school. Wowee! We can paint a tree!

Tip number one.
Never watch beginner painting videos. If you want to paint like you did when you were in eighth grade. More power to ya. Find and watch videos demonstrating how you really want to paint. Watch a video a few times. Then throw paint. Try a small section. Or just one object. Throw paint on a surface. Because learning takes muscle movement and coordination. Learn the brushes. Learn the paint your using. Make mistakes. Failure is an opinion. Doing is not. Watch rinse and repeat. So what if it doesn't look like what you see in the video. The most important thing is your learning. Why waste your time watching videos on simple stuff? If you can do it the first time you tried it you really haven't learned anything.

The only beginner videos you should watch are ones on color theory. Most important is to learn warm and cool colors. How they relate to each other. It will be way easer on you when you start mixing your own colors. Even using colors in a computer program. Even better to start here before you start painting. That way you'll already know why Ultramarine Blue make dusty green colors.  And just because the label says red doesn't mean your going to end up with a bright purple.

I've got a lot of catching up to do about things I've learned so for. Because the spirit of things dictate I should at the least share something I'll jot down what I learned today.
Just because I can look at a painting done by Marcel Dyf doesn't mean I can paint like Marcel Dyf. Like the style of his people. So what i'm going to do is look at pictures of people. Then interpret that style without looking at it.
 

[cause the rat]

More rambling from a painting rat.

So if failure is an opining in art then why did I fail at watercolor? I could never say what I wanted to. Could never get this medium to work for me. And if I did do something I liked I could never repeat it. Watercolor isn't called the hardest art to learn without a reason. I failed because I didn't want to continue with it. Watercolor wasn't allowing me to be as expressive as I wanted. And i got tired of tossing painting because of one mistake. You can't paint over watercolor.

The two most important things I learned in watercolor is color theory and color harmony. A simple explanation of color theory. Every color has a temperature. Each primary color has both warm and cool versions. Yep, there is warm reds and cool reds to play with. You need to learn how to use these temperatures. Because how we interpret art has nothing to do with reality. Color harmony. The fewer colors you use the more cohesive your overall painting will be. Mix the majority of your colors with a hand full of pigments. Then add accent or needed colors with it. This works in digital art as well. Because it still art. The perception of color is the same. Color theory and temperature is the only way to understand the color of shadows and light. And the best part is? It's really easy to learn. And even faster when you apply it to what your doing.

Both theory and temperature need visual references. YouTube is your best friend. Watch and throw paint!

[cause the rat]

Practicing figures and gesture. Gave myself a magic number. Fifty. When I get fifty of these done I'll be better at it. Well. Got almost forty. Something magical had better happen soon. OK, I am getting better. Like practicing the Alphabet. Took many attempts to go from looking good at 1 5/8 of an inch (41.2) down to 5/8 (15.. All wile holding a long handled brush with the paint eight to nine inches away from my hand. Holding the brush the same way wile doing these figures. It sounds strange. But the farther the paint is away the smaller the movements you have to do. Control starts to feel relaxed. Looking forward to the day the brush feels as comfortable in my hand as a pencil does.

So I tell everyone to start by painting. Then all I do is fundamentals. I've gone through the throwing paint stage already. Back when I was throwing out a lot of watercolors. Learned all the color theory and mixing. All the goodies that make other peoples art look better than mine. Did all my brush control and figure painting with watercolor as well. What's different and why practice the same thing over again? I've gone from painting with water to painting with mud. I still find myself thinning the acrylics down so they flow from the brush. Going to take a wile to get the idea of muddy goodness. My watercolor brushes of choice are extremely soft. I'm used to barely touching the paper with a fine point to get detail. Acrylics are a completely different feel. Best way to experience this. First use a pencil to draw a few squiggles on a piece of paper. Now try the same thing on a different surface. Plastic, aluminum can, a table top. Even an unfinished piece of wood. Notice each surface has a different feel. With acrylics the brush drags across the surface of the gesso. Just like the pencil on paper or wood. So my brushes are stiffer. I have to apply pressure to get paint on the gesso. To add to the differences I can thin acrylic dow to flow. Paint it on in a varying thickness. Or slam it down like plaster. Ya. Take that watercolor.

Tip for today.
Never paint straight from the tube. Wether it's watercolor, oils or acrylics. Pigments are meant to be mixed and blended into the colors you need. So if you need a blue why mix a blue? Because the blue from the tube will look artificial and flat. This is where color theory comes into play. If I'm using ultramarine blue I know it has red in it. The choice of orange I need would be called a cool orange. An orange favoring the red spectrum. I don't want to add a lot of yellow. Green is not a good sky color. So if I mix a bit of this orange into ultramarine two things happen. Orange is a complimentary color to blue. Orange in Blue makes gray to black. Orange has red in it. So I have a blue favoring red. And an orange that naturally has red with more red in it. Red and blue make purple. The yellow in the orange will go away.  What little green happens wont be noticeable. Green and red are complimentary. Red and green makes grays to black. Now I have a mix that has one dominant blue. Two purples, two reds, one orange, no green, natural grays and browns. This combo of blue and orange makes a grayed purple. This is the start of a sky people will notice. How you apply this color along with white and your original blue will determine how interesting your vast blue sky will look. This is why color theory and knowing pigment temperatures are important.

[cause the rat]

Reading my description of color theory. I made it sound harder than it really is. Best to learn it visually. Trying to describe color is like telling someone what food tastes like.

Still learning to paint a figure. Getting the proportions to look right. After about seventy tries I'm getting more good ones than bad. Correct proportions is by far the hardest part of anthro art. It is the number one asked "How do I..." question on any forum or facebook page I've seen. The good news is there is actually hours of good places on youtube that deal with the body. But none of them are easy. Every one of them take hours of practice. Most of the good ones deal with nudes. The idea is to learn the muscle structure. Because if you know the shapes your figure will look natural. Even the toony ones. Correct body structure separates a good furry artist from the rest. Now the big problem. Which method? Watched one video displaying three different methods. Each one got the same good results. If you see the artist getting the results you want use that method. So far I don't think I've watched a single figure drawing video that wouldn't help. When drawing any figure. The best advice you'll ever get. What you will hear from almost every instruction video. Use a visual reference. The beauty of the digital age. You can take pictures of yourself. In any pose you want your figures to be in. To be truthful most of the nudes for drawing are in strange poses. Better to take picks of the pose you need. Unless you want your drawing to look like someone avoiding an angry bird wile eating an ice cream cone. 

[cause the rat]

Having a blast! Never got this far with watercolor. Not saying world class artist here. Where I'm going is where I want to be. By getter farther in painting I find myself needing to know more things. Today I learned about the Loomis technique. Link below. this channel is where I learned to draw figures from as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txotyFfwvqk&frags=pl%2Cwn

With a bit of modification this works wonders with anthro heads. How you modify it would depend on your subject. Toony or more realistic. Results in any viewing angle. I would have to say this and figure to scale are very important to learn. Been practicing this on paper. Because a pencil is easy. Get comfortable with this first. Then it's on to the paint brushes.

Learning more about acrylic paint as well. Artist grade acrylics are the mid point between watercolor and oils. You can water them down to a 100:1 ratio. They become almost like watercolor. It's possible to get watercolor effects with acrylics. You can paint impasto. Thick and chunky. Showing every brush stroke. Like you can in oils. Acrylics can mimic both mediums. However not to the extreme of either. Watercolor paintings are luminous. In person they seem to glow from the inside. Oils are easier to blend so both hard and soft edges are easier to achieve.  Both acrylic and oils have one big advantage over watercolor. If you make a mistake you can paint over it.

[cause the rat]

My approach to art. Touched on this a bit in my other art thread. This would be a good way to practice in any art medium.

i was taught this when I started to play the guitar. First play through the piece. Then practice the parts that are hard for you. One you can play them then play the entire piece again. If you play the entire piece over and over again you'll get better at what your good at. Mediocre at what your not. This is the same for anything you do. Dance, singing, wood working and art. So this is my approach. This is why I started my figure study. First I learned to draw the body out in scale. Then did it with a paint brush. Now I'm learning to put clothing on them. How much detail to add or leave out. What's really needed to get an idea across. Not finished with this exercise. Faces are next. The same idea. What's needed to express a face. Then I'll paint a scene with people in it. Because thee are so many more things to be aware of when painting. Light direction and shadow. Scale, proportion and perspective. Color theory and harmony. If my peeps look like orang globs dressed for the circus the rest wont matter. Even if I was good at the rest.

If your starting out with a new medium and find your having trouble. Practice what's giving you trouble. Get good at it. Then go back and do a piece. Works with digital and traditional mediums.

And speaking of detail. To much detail. This is something most furry artists are guilty of. Learn the technique called Lost and Found Edges.

[cause the rat]

This post's word of wisdom.

You don't get good at something by reading and knowing about it.

Paint to canvas. Mouse to pad. That's where the magic starts. Learn as much as you can. Color theory, perspective and all the rest. Then do what you learned. Doesn't have to be a full picture. An item, objet or experiment. Something that will let you know you understand what you just learned. Then take what you learned and put it in a picture. I know it sounds like I'm over emphasizing these things. Just trying to get across how important they are to learn. Because you need your art to stand out in the crowd. And there's no bigger crowd than what we have in the fandom. Especially for badges. By learning these you'll understand the colors of shadow. As well as the color's for light. No matter what the base color is. Get a commission for a solid black fursona? Knowing this you'll be able to sell them a badge with color and depth. Even a solid white fursona will be as easy.

[cause the rat]

OK this isn't me preaching the beauty of knowledge. It's me complaining. No matter how much knowledge you have. If not put into practice. Not applied. Knowledge is nothing more than wasted brain space. And apparently I have lots of wasted space.     Learning how to use acrylics isn't an issue. Acrylic, oil and even digital have huge advantages over watercolor.  So much easier. It's so much easier I find myself having to much fun with it. Forgetting what I know. Going for the moment. Unfortunately doesn't work. Ending up with all the mistakes I already know not to do. With a painting that's as flat looking as any bathroom wall out there. The only rejoicing I have is I share this mistake with millions. Misery loves company. I see this mistake in both non and fandom works. Reality doesn't work in art. No getting around this one. You have to use color to create depth in art. Wether it's a full painting or a single object. When I get ahold of a paint brush. Mix a bunch of colors together on my palette. Apparently everything I've learned leaks out my brain. Slides down. Until it's completely out of reach of my mind. Then I start throwing paint. Sit back and take a look. First words out of my mouth. "What Happened?" I know exactly what happened. Knowledge without practice is wasted brain space. Because I can't sit upside down and paint I'm going  to have to take a different approach. Don't start throwing paint until I'm sure the colors mixed will work. Not only for the main subject. But for the entire painting.

[cause the rat]

I've been pushing everyone to learn color theory. Because there's so many good sites on line i've never put a link up. One good place to learn after another. Until the youtube channel I found yesterday. This channel isn't just bad. It's horrible. It's connected to an online retailer. So what you get is sales people playing art teacher. The name of the cannel is JerrysArtarama. I know posting negativity isn't a good thing. Especially if your trying to help folks get better at things. There are so many great sites on line. People sharing both personal, collage level and even theory and practices of some of the best known painters in history. To come across the 'all you can eat toilet bowl of knowledge' was a shocker. Figured if you have no clue about color theory it might best to stay away from others who have no clue as well. Because the hardest thing to do is to re learn something. Learn it right the first time.

[cause the rat]

Learned something interesting today. When i watch pro artists they all hold their brushes about the same way. I've been holing mine like I do a pencil. But farther back. Found out why the way I'm holding my brush is wrong. It all has to do with our brain and how we have trained ourselves. When you hold something like a pencil  your brain goes into control mode. Writing, math, spelling and so on. It's an automatic connection between your physical body and brain. Just like reality has nothing to do with art control has nothing to do with painting. This is wisdom that's been handed down for hundreds of years. So all those old painting were done this way. Looks like I have to start doing things right.

Not painting as much as I'd like to be for a bit now. Work and music have taken up most of my time.

[Jade Sinapu]

...Found out why the way I'm holding my brush is wrong. It all has to do with our brain and how we have trained ourselves. When you hold something like a pencil  your brain goes into control mode. Writing, math, spelling and so on. It's an automatic connection between your physical body and brain. Just like reality has nothing to do with art control has nothing to do with painting. This is wisdom that's been handed down for hundreds of years. So all those old painting were done this way. Looks like I have to start doing things right.
...

Cause,
How does one hold the brush then?  Can you describe it or provide link to site etc?
Thanks.

[cause the rat]

Good question Jade Sinapu. So I decided to watch some of the painting videos from the same source that said to hold one like you would a tooth brush or your steering wheel. Then I watched a good hand full of other painters. People on line who sell painting for $$$. Everyone I watched held the brush the same way. None of them. Not even the guy who said "like your steering wheel" held it like that. They all held it like you would a pencil. With their fingers pointing toward the painting. Drawing the brush in to a full pencil hold when working on detail. With four or five inches of brush between your hand and the surface. Holding it closer only for very fine detailing. I've been holding the brush right this entire time.  Be the last video I watch from Stefan Baumann. If he put that much detail into giving bad advice he's not worth the time.

Thanks Jade Sinapu for pointing out this questionable hype. So the good news is I'm still not good at painting. But not because I've learned to hold the brush wrong.  So the proper way to hold the brush. Try this. Get a long handled plastic or wooden spoon. One you would use for cooking. Hold it in the center like you would a pencil. Now stretch your fingers and thumb out so they're not quite straight. A relaxed grip. Hold your arm out from your body. Paint. Hold the brush like a club when your only using the side of the bristles. To tap in detailing or texture. You can even get a feel for this with pencil and paper. Tape a piece of paper to a smooth wall or door. Hold your pencil like you would a paint brush. Now with your arm out from your body write out the Alphabet. It's a lot easier to do it with a pencil. Because a paint brush has fibers on it's business end. No where near as stiff as a pencil lead.

[cause the rat]

I know I keep ragging on watercolors. But I'm having to much fun to stop. In water color less is best. Don't mix to many paints to get a color. It will look bad. In oil and acrylics? I watched an oil painting vid on youtube. This guy first mixed primary colors to get secondary colors. Then mixed those colors together. Over and over. Every mixed color was clean. Every color he came up with you could put right into a painting. Never a muddy, unusable color. With watercolor you will only get buy with up to three coats of glazing. This is where acrylics shine over oils. With acrylics you can glaze from beginning to end. As many coats as your heart desires. And if your using pro grade acrylic paints you can go all the way to a 100 to 1 mix of water and paint. ( according to Golden Paint manufacture's web site ) Oils have a layering technique. If you don't fallow it your painting could fail. But that's something you will have to research yourself. I'll be playing with acrylics for a long time.

One thing I have learned and tried. Start with an under painting. Block in as some folks call it. Because pigments range from translucent to opaque. As they try you will see what's under them. This gives a finished painted depth. Personally I don't paint on a white surface. I'll coat the surface first with either burnt umber or  burnt siena mixed with titanium white. If i'm gessoing the surface for the first time I'll mix the paint with the last coating of gesso. There is a real difference in the finished look.  I've watched youtube vids of painting done over everything from solid black to bright orange.  Haven't tried either extreme. But it does look like fun.

[Jade Sinapu]

Cause,
I have never used acrylics much. ( Except hobby acrylics in school for a quickie class project.)

What you say about Pro-acrylics makes me think that they must have a higher pigment to binder ratio.  I have see this with colored pencils.  I used to use any brand of pencil, then found a better brand, then stuck with Prismacolor.  More pigment, more control.  But that is a different medium, and i don't mean to distract from your thread.

Holding a brush like a pencil was all I was shown to do, but again, I would not call myself an artist really.  (I did try water color years ago... hated it)  (tried pastels, will never try that again)

From an engineering standpoint, you need to put pigment on paper/board/canvas.  If you can move up, down, left right, and control pressure and angle/twist, then you got it.  If pencil holding works, then I guess your golden.

I do know this for me...if I try to draw a "perfect" circle, it comes out stretched sideways (left to right).  I DO believe this to be muscle memory.  Because I write cursive, print, etc...for decades... muscles and brain are "faster in that axis".  So I DO hold the implement in a deliberately odd way to short circuit my brain/body program which causes the fast axis syndrome.  I will hold the pencil at right angle to paper and lock wrist and use elbow, shoulder, back muscles...But that is the only time I do that (It also looks stupid).  Since I use paper/pencil i can rotate paper to align straight stroke to my fast-axis and just let muscle memory fly.  My art teacher in H.S. told me never to rotate paper... oh well...she also told me to never erase...
 

So Cause, do you find yourself thinking of EVERY stroke before its made, committing to it, and then making it.  And NOT thinking when the paint stroke is being made?  Or are you more relaxed and free to think while painting.  I ask because, for me, when I draw, I catch myself doing the former, and I wish I could just "let it flow".

I see having a background that is not white being helpful.
My experience shows me I think in terms of adding more and more darkness.  For me, its harder to see the white spaces in my minds eye.  And I can't add white with my medium.  So are you saying that in acrylics because you can add opaque white, or any other color, that sometimes having a different background is helpful to show where to put paint?  Like if you had neutral gray background to start, would that show you where you can put light AND dark?

Sounds like you are learning a lot and having fun doing it too! And thanks for sharing, it gets me thinking about my own art, albeit a different medium. 

Also... kind of curious what you know of this...
I almost always see people paint "standing up" like on an easel.  I have issues with keeping blood pressure up at times.  I think my arm would fall off doing that.
Does anyone paint with canvas flat down, like on a table? Seems to me you won't ever fight gravity that way too and could use really thin paint if needed...

[cause the rat]

Pro grade acrylics like  M Graham, Golden, Winsor and Newton and  Old Holland all have high levels of pigment. The same goes for high grade oil paints. There is no comparison between these and the craft paints you can get at walmarts. And unlike the craft paints the quality paint has better binders. So they don't have that smell to them.

Like you I have good quality pencils for the same reason. Better pigment saturation and over all better color. Have a set of Faber Castell watercolor pencils. I could use these to paint with. I can use these like regular pencils. Use brushes and water to add layers and shading.

We are brothers in art. I tried watercolor too. And hated it.   More than likely I'll keep badmouthing it. Every chance I get. Like did you know there are art shows that wont allow watercolor paintings? Yep.

Muscle memory plays a big part in art. I've played the guitar for years. Got to the point where I don't even think about what I'm playing. I don't know anyone who hasn't tried to draw a perfect circle. I don't think I've ever met anyone who could. Never rotate or erase? I remember dumb things I was taught in school too. Like hold my breath before singing a note. Guess that's why I'm literally relearning to paint. I've gone from water to smooth mud. Thick and creamy and nothing like water. The single brush stroke matter more in acrylics than it did in watercolor. So almost everything I did with a brush is now different.

Brush strokes. This is a yes and no answer. If I'm creating form then yes. Every brush stroke has a purpose. No such thing as just filling in between the lines. Then there are areas that need to be as random as you can be.  But for the most part yes. I think about where and how a brush stroke should be made.  Think the more familiar I get with this medium the less real thought I'll have to put into it. Like playing the guitar. I think letting it flow will come when I figure out what it is.

Background color.  Every paint. Oil or acrylic. Is translucent to opaque. You will see through them at varying thicknesses. If you paint a single coat over white it looks un natural. If you watch a pro painter work. Say they're painting a tree. They'll paint where that tree is going to be. Then they paint that tree over it. Then over it again. Each time adding layers of color and interest. So starting with a tinted surface adds to the colors you put on top of it.

So here comes some advice from someone who shouldn't be giving it. Because I have no clue what I'm doing. OK. Deep breath and I'll get ready to duck and run..... Instead of adding more dark. Make your brights brighter. This is one thing I do know. Never use your brightest color for anything more than a highlight. I got to meet the guy who painted most of the Magic the Gathering cards. What he does. Everything starts with a sketch in a sketchpad with brown paper. He likes being able to add white and highlights to his sketches. Instead of having a sea of white glaring at him wile he's drawing. 

Standing or sitting. I have almost forty painters I watch on Youtube. Quite a few of them are sitting wile they paint. All of them have the painting flat in front of them.  On a wall or easel at eye level.  The reason  is they want to paint it as it will be viewed. No odd angles that will show up in the final work. I sit. Why? Because I can. When my arm gets heaving I rest it against myself wile I paint. I'm not good at painting yet. But I can honestly say there is no difference in how bad I paint to how I hold my arm. What ever is comfortable works.

[Jade Sinapu]

Thanks for the info Cause!  I was curious.
I still need to work on my pencils before doing more. 
Keep posting your findings!

[FarFar]

Good tips, Rat! Glad you are progressing with your works. You remind me that one needs to practice, practice, practice and with it, one will improve.
Thanks for the updates.

[cause the rat]

FarFar, You brought up a very good point. Practice.

There are two ways to practice. The first way is the way 99% do it. Pant a painting. Then paint another one. Then another one. And so on. What you end up with is a pile of bad practicing. End up getting better at the stuff you may be good at. And not going anywhere with what your not.

The right way. Practice what you see your not up to par at. And once you get to where your better THEN make a painting. I had to paint 75 figures in different posses before I got it down. OK, better but still needs work. But happy enough with it to start putting figures in paintings. That's just the outside shape of a body. I still have facial features, clothing and all the other goodies that go with what makes people look like people. Had I not taken the time to get the scale of the body right a good face would get me nowhere.

Practice what your bad at. No matter what it is. Break it down into doable techniques. Shading, perspective, scale are all easier to learn if you learn them one at a time. Then put them together. Then put a picture together.

I know i keep preaching the same thing over and over again. Because it works. I'm no smarter or talented than anyone else. I had a really good guitar teacher. I learned if you practice what your bad at you'll have more fun when you play.

.....and all this from someone who still doesn't know what he's doing. As Jade Sinapu pointed out I can easily be persuaded to go down the wrong path.  So eager to learn my mind goes out to lunch. It's not like I haven't done something like this in the past. I read a science article about how we see purple. Because red and blue are on opposite ends of the color spectrum. Purple is only on one side. So every color we see that isn't a mix of red to yellow to blue is seen as purple. WOW! Something new. I had to go around a tell everyone what I learned. Until I sat down and thought about it. And my first thought was I'm an idiot. And I proved it to myself. Took a sheet of paper . Turned it longways in front of me. From left to right wrote out, Red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple. Then I made a tube out of that piece of paper. Red touches purple. Most people think linear. Not 3D. So I went around and apologized and displayed why I was wrong. So if your following my advice follow at a safe distance. Let me fall off a cliff by myself. Hopefully I'll climb back up, say 'oops' and continue on this journey.

[cause the rat]

Found a great channel for all you digital artists. He goes into a lot of the same things we traditional use. Color theory and all.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsDxB-CSMQ0Vu_hTag7-2UQ

Got a great series of figure and gesture drawing in digital going on right now.

[Jade Sinapu]

FarFar, You brought up a very good point. Practice.

There are two ways to practice. The first way is the way 99% do it. Pant a painting. Then paint another one. Then another one. And so on. What you end up with is a pile of bad practicing. End up getting better at the stuff you may be good at. And not going anywhere with what your not.

The right way. Practice what you see your not up to par at. And once you get to where your better THEN make a painting. I had to paint 75 figures in different posses before I got it down. OK, better but still needs work. But happy enough with it to start putting figures in paintings. That's just the outside shape of a body. I still have facial features, clothing and all the other goodies that go with what makes people look like people. Had I not taken the time to get the scale of the body right a good face would get me nowhere.

Practice what your bad at. No matter what it is. Break it down into doable techniques. Shading, perspective, scale are all easier to learn if you learn them one at a time. Then put them together. Then put a picture together.

I know i keep preaching the same thing over and over again. Because it works. I'm no smarter or talented than anyone else. I had a really good guitar teacher. I learned if you practice what your bad at you'll have more fun when you play.

.....and all this from someone who still doesn't know what he's doing. As Jade Sinapu pointed out I can easily be persuaded to go down the wrong path.  So eager to learn my mind goes out to lunch. It's not like I haven't done something like this in the past. I read a science article about how we see purple. Because red and blue are on opposite ends of the color spectrum. Purple is only on one side. So every color we see that isn't a mix of red to yellow to blue is seen as purple. WOW! Something new. I had to go around a tell everyone what I learned. Until I sat down and thought about it. And my first thought was I'm an idiot. And I proved it to myself. Took a sheet of paper . Turned it longways in front of me. From left to right wrote out, Red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple. Then I made a tube out of that piece of paper. Red touches purple. Most people think linear. Not 3D. So I went around and apologized and displayed why I was wrong. So if your following my advice follow at a safe distance. Let me fall off a cliff by myself. Hopefully I'll climb back up, say 'oops' and continue on this journey.

Cause...
I was not questioning you or anything, I was genuinely curious how to hold a brush.  I am pretty sure I would have gone down the same rabbit hole(s) that you have. 
And as for color vision and all that,... its still confusing to me. 
The fact we are asking questions and looking for answers everywhere means we have active minds, the kind that find answers to life's big questions.
 

[cause the rat]

It's all good Jade. I don't mind admitting to where my head goes every time I hear something exciting and new. I think my next fursona is going to be a doughnut.... : ) We didn't have the internet when I was growing up. All we had were books. The information in those books had to be right. Or no one would have bought them. And they would have never ended up in a library. Yes there is more information to be had today. But you have to weed through all the trash to get to it. And if you don't know the difference between the trash and what's good you wont get far. Jade, all you did was help me weed through the trash. Thanks.

[Jade Sinapu]

...We didn't have the internet when I was growing up. All we had were books. The information in those books had to be right. Or no one would have bought them. And they would have never ended up in a library. Yes there is more information to be had today. But you have to weed through all the trash to get to it. And if you don't know the difference between the trash and what's good you wont get far...

This is so true. This is why I kept some college books. Physics doesn't change (or shouldn't) based upon who's president or etc...
And I guess for a more subjective matter like Art, the problem with the internet of "noise" is a bigger issue.

[FarFar]

Some good dialog and thoughts going on here. I think we are all in agreement that art is something that needs practice and work, no matter how accomplished one may be, or how long one has been doing it. Rat, I'm sure your updates on your journey have helped others in wanting to keep going and /or to practice more. Keep up what you are doing!