The PAINTING Exercise That Will HELP You the MOST 

It is rare to find a painting teacher (or a teacher of any subject ) who is adept at breaking a task down to its essentials and explain them conceptually so that the student can apply the principles to any challenge. You are such a teacher. I greatly appreciate your approach, insights, and explanations. There is a rude old adage: “Those who can’t do teach.” In my life experience I have met many who can do but can’t teach. Teaching is in and of itself is a talent and a valuable ability regardless of the subject. You are both a talented painter and teacher.

The thought of doing this is getting my adrenalin rushing 🤯😂

Thank you for this exercise! I tried it for three days doing 4 small paintings of different household objects a day and the progress I made was mindblowing! Seriously, in three days I learned more than in the whole of last year! And it was also a great confidence boost. I stopped looking at objects thinking “I can’t paint this”, instead now I look at them and think only about the strokes I should make.

You’re a wizard!!! Or a mind reader. You just called me out on everything I need to work on as an artist. Sometimes striving for perfection has the opposite effect, at least I see that in my work :/

I seriously value your effort to give honest painting tutorials . We are very grateful to you to introduce this technique to us learners . Thanks a lot

Wow, you are a truly inspirational teacher! Thank you!

It's REALLY weird, how when I bought paints for the first time (without any prior research) that the VERY first thing I did was fire straight in with abstract work. I filled an entire canvas with whatever shapes and patterns I felt drawn to - and no, I'm not a 'modern artist', I just wanted get over the anxiety of using paint early on, by ruining everything I'd just bought. I found out after watching a previous video of yours that's ACTUALLY a thing. I paint landscapes now and keep all of my strokes free and loose. When you have atmospheric perspective, composition and value all dialled in, it doesn't matter if you paint with a sledgehammer. You still won't go wrong. I never thin paint, the only medium I use is impasto wax.

We love a quick popsicle break😂 Silly moments & important information, this is the kind of content I’m here for ☺️👏

Your content is gold. You are simply awesome, my friend. Thank you for this!

Holy crap.... I just did this last night and was ASTONISHED that it looked like an apple and I really love it. I'm definitely guilty of not using enough paint and over blending - this exercise really helped to not be such a tight painter & only took 15 minutes. Thank you SO much!

This was invaluable. After taking a four-year Hiatus from painting I am wanting to paint again and feeling overwhelmed. Your video gave me direction and I thank you

This is by FAR the best video I've seen on the subject of the "KISS" (keep it simple, stupid) concept. I love how you explain the "plains" and using the 30 or less brush strokes. Guinness!!!

I was about to paint a still life today but the weather was bad, guess it was for the good. I'll do it tomorrow keeping this technique in mind. Thank you!

I am definitely doing this exercise today!

Really thankful for your videos!!! You’re a great teacher

I have a lot of cheap paint and been looking for a way to use it up, this exercise is the ticket! Thanks coach.

This was a terrific video! Lots of your comments combined to create coherent explanations and clear advice. Thank you.

I really enjoyed this exercise Chris! In fact I liked it so much I shared this video with my students! Great exercise to practice for beginners and experienced painters alike! Kudos!

I love this exercise. it solved my problem with light and dark and less brush stroke. you are genus!

I keep coming back to your videos. Your down-to-earth way of speaking, easy to understand instructions and overall approach make putting paint to paper seem less intimidating, and your videos motivate me more than any other instructors to actually paint rather than just watch RU-vid videos for hours. Thank you for the amazing work that you do.

I believe this is by far the most important aspect of painting and thanks to you showing and explaining this exercise.im going to start monochromatic because I need to after a long while of not painting. This has reminded myself of the best way to proceed .....thank you!

He is a mind reader this is the third time I've been searching for a type if video and he provides. My favorite youtube channel!

Thanks for the challenge 🖤

Did this exercise yesterday, it was sort of a disaster, I definitely think I used more than 30 strokes. I think I am going to try it again with a bigger brush. I tend to use small brushes for more control and I have a feeling after this exercise that I just haven't learned to use bigger brushes effectively. Also, I think I struggled with my color palette. I spent so much time mixing colors only to feel I did not have the right combinations.Chris, thanks for this video! I am always inspired to paint after watching your videos.

Chris’ videos have really helped me improve my skills!

I’m completely inspired ! Thank you

Great video, really looking forward to trying this. You come up with some great ideas for improving skill. Thank you so much!

as a painter it’s these discretions i feel that really open your eyes and mind to color, pressure of line, even space; knowing when to blend vs when to extend the push of the brush. beautiful video broski

Thank you for this great video! Can’t wait to try it!!

So well explained. You lessons are the best. Keep up the good work. You paintings are awesome. 👏👏👏

This is a great exercise! People can go even farther with it, setting the plan for the whole painting beforehand. Like this- if there is lets say a composition consisting of 1 figure, still life and interior, just set the limit of brush strokes for each part- 50 for the face, 30 for the fabric, 10 for each hand, 8-15 for each element in the still life and 60 for the background. This requires very conscious decision-making and the results can be very surprising and can influence your future style!

Wow , when i finally beat the fear of how the final painting will look , i realized that i was not brave enough to get into it , I think the thing that helped me was to confront myself and admit it, so i started drawing simple things for a while to feel real pleasure, it is important that you communicate with yourself in an honest way to develop, today i draw freely and much much of joy.

Best painting idea I've heard in a long time.

Excellent information! Your incredible!❤️

Awesome video Chris, and a fantastic exercise! I really enjoyed this! What a great challenge idea to improve efficiency and accuracy and make the marks count.

ok wow, i am blown away by that breakdown 😮🙏👍

Amazing exercise please more like this! Time to paint now 👩‍🎨

Your advice is changing my painting more and more perfect and good thanks Chris love your art ❤️❤️👍

Wow thank you for this video. I've been meaning to practice this kind of exercise and your video really motivate me to get started.

Excellent explanation about planes of shadow and color thank you Chris

I think this will help me a lot. Thanks for this video!

Thank you, great advice 🌸

I'm using this video with gouache instead of oils, but the principle is the same. I'm glad I found you! You break things down so well!

Wow! Great advice and very inspiring. Thanks so much. Blessings and be safe.

Very valuable information/exercise brother! Thankyou for this! Something I def need to work at!

Great job 👏🏻 I just did a bell pepper in this style and it turned out great! Had to fight the urge to make it look perfect which was difficult but my end result captured the essence of the pepper 🫑

super helpful. Your channel is great. Thank you for all of these!

This is my MAJOR issue Thank you so much for this video

This is awesome. I just got my Rosemary brushes!

Thank you for your share, I will try it

Fantastic advice and amazing exercise which I will be totally trying!!!👍🏻👍🏻

Great, thanks for the lesson

Excellent lessons!

This was a great great video. It played by random/next and after a minute I decided to watch the whole thing. I don’t use oil, but I feel like I learned a lot and can apply these same exsersizes to acrylic and water

Even though I do digital painting, doing too much brush strokes makes it lose that painterly look. Using the blend also makes it lose that painterly (is that even a word?) look. I noticed that I am wasting time a long time because I am making too much unnecessary brush strokes. I need to lower the count. I've been trying this weekend with some better results. This this video definitely helps me plan for next weekend to speed up my process.

I appreciate your existence.

We love you Chris all the way from Nigeria

Your videos helped me transition from acrylic to oil and this technique has helped me improve drastically

Just discovered your account after deciding to dive in to oil paints, wish this video was up before the weekend, because I know i did not load up my brush enough and the paint would just disappear in the painting. Exciting to try this exercise

I find this helpfull with learning pastel painting ,hes one of best teatchers out there😅

Thank you so much!!

Thank you so much for this valuable info 🙏🏼🌸🌿

Wow so good.

This was a great great video! It played by random/next and after a minute I decided to watch the whole thing. I don’t use oil, but I feel like I learned a lot and can apply these same exercises to acrylic and water. Any medium really (I just got into brush markers & learning how to used them, I can see this being an excellent technique to help with marker coloring to reduce need for layering/going back over it to clean it up)

Brilliant! 😊

This was incredibly helpful advice! Wow! Thank you! Btw, my medium of choice is acrylic and this was helpful advice all around. Even when it came to clay and some other sculpting projects. I’m sure advice taken from this video could help with all kinds of art.

I painted a horse following your advice and it actually turned out not bad. Thank you!

Man! Very helpful.. Thank you

This is a cool exercise.

I was shocked tht u had this channel but recently bc of amazon I found u on "Bad is Bad" then on yt I saw "The Hands You Shake" n I'm inspired to make my own films, its dope how u always seem to be doin ur own thing

The popsicle munching was hilarious! I love you videos!

Oh my gosh it's like you read my mind yesterday I sat down to paint tomatoes and halfway through I covered the whole thing over and spray paint and walked away 😂 why does practice have to hurt 😂 thank you Paint Coach

So helpful!

Real nice!

Can't wait to try this out

Oh wow your hair is so luxurious, thank you for sharing 💫💥💅

this is really good. thank you

Love your videos so so much 😅🙈 the ice😂👌🏼 thank you Chris ☺️🌸

Just found you!!! Awesome!!!

Yes sir, coach.

Your brilliant;, man

I'm trying a digital version of this challenge. Phew it's hard even digitally! But I think I'm learning something.

I love all of your videos Chris! the popsicle was my favorite actually! it made me laugh

This video triggered my anxiety lol. Great content as usual, Chris.

Thanks bro 😎

As someone who was an fine arts major in the 80s, I'm amazed at witnessing a revolution in art study over the past 15 years. Here's what I'm seeing: 1. There is so much more information easily available to students than there ever was before (which has its pros and cons, btw) 2. Online, there's a tremendous emphasis on building traditional skills (something art teachers in my day, both at elite private institutions and cheap state schools outright refused to help us with - we had to go to books and small, low-prestige art classes in old artists' basements for this knowledge) 3. In people's quest for solid skill-building, there's a lot of influence emanating from instruction books from second-rate mid twentieth century commercial artists, when people could be going back just a little bit further to the late nineteenth century at the point when the synthesis between classicism and romanticism had brought the project begun in the Renaissance to its maturity 4. Eighteenth century notions of color theory that were about to become outdated have, instead of being abandoned as they should be, are being pushed all the harder online by RU-vidrs and others who don't know any better, and the bad information is becoming deeply entrenched, unfortunately 5. The expectations on the part of the better art schools have been intensified tenfold when it comes to the quality they want from applicants' portfolios (they also want to see sketchbooks, something we typically didn't have to show when applying to school) 6. Overall, there's a much greater reliance on photographic references, even for simple still lifes, which means draftsmen and painters are not getting as much practice with interpreting from the third dimension There's more but I don't want to go into too many details here. I'll just conclude by saying that overall it's a mixed bag. There is high quality advice, such as I've been seeing on this channel, and there's lesser advice, all swirling around together, with little guidance to help new artists to be able to sort out the good from the bad.

This works well for gouache as well.

thank you champion

👌👍Thanks!!!

I actually tried to make little sculptures of a box, tube and a ball to use them for painting and light study with some super sculpey I had in my art drawer. All inspired by that one video you made with fruit planes made with sculpey clay.

8:43 : The "Bob Ross" side of Paint Coach. XD

Great thanks for this video it's fired me up to give it a bash.

I learn something new from every one of your videos! What colors do you suggest using as a beginner oil painter? Thanks Coach!

Sounds promising. I'll try it later

I'm gonna try this soon, I'm a digital artist and blending is my number one enemy even though I like how the subject looks better with smooth edges, I lean more with fewer brush strokes

I'm a digital artist but this video really help me with my render

Ferb I know what we’re gonna do today!

Excellent exercise put in simple and precise terms. Really excited to try this as I'm an over-blender and it's holding me back from developing confident strokes. Thank you Chris!

I love your videos. I am not an artist. I started painting less than a year ago. Learned from different RU-vid videos. Went from acrylics to oils after friends suggested I try. I tried this exercise. I went over the 30 strokes but I was close. It was so fun. I feel it was one of my best paintings. Thanks for being easy to understand and helping me progress with my new found love of painting.

Nice 👍