Paintoverthinking: Getting Better at Getting Better

I think a lot about how to get better at painting, and now all of my work related writing is done by machines so I figured I'd exercise the old critical thinker and try to write something here about my abstract theory of improvement. I'm here to tell you about the secret to getting better at getting better.

The photos for the post are of a WIP piece I'm doing for a challenge themed around "Deliberate Brushstrokes". The first photo is the actual paint job and the second is a digital paintover I did myself to guide my next steps on the project.

I use this tool of doing paintovers more and more in my work and it's building on a skill I've been specifically honing for a while that I don't hear people talk about much which is the skill of imagining a better version of the paint job you have so far.

We all start the journey on the basics of learning to control the brush and learning to handle our paints, but once those are at an approachable level, the content that's out there tends to focus on a few things: how to do this or that advanced painting technique (things like glazing more skillfully), how to paint this or that particular thing (this is your NMM or hair or fur tutorial). Sometimes you get videos or tutorials about processes. More rarely you'll find content on composition, light and shadow, more abstract concepts like that. There's very little discussion about how to improve the rate at which you improve.

I'm going to throw into the ring that there's a secret meta meta level technique, which is studying how others give you feedback, and then practicing giving yourself feedback as though from a third party. This is the skill first of really seeing the work you've already done, secondly of imagining the next way it could be better, and then thirdly, and probably flowing automatically if you've done a good job of step two, is knowing where to put the paint to achieve the improvement.

My practice for this started by signing up for Vince Venturella's feedback patreon tier, and first getting and studying his feedback, and then eventually trying to guess what he was going to say. I guessed and checked until eventually that became, guess, improve, guess improve, check, and so on trying to push out just how much I could anticipate about the feedback and act on ahead of time until I was getting feedback only when truly stuck - when actually at the limit. The limit feels like seeing your piece, and knowing it can be better, but truly being stumped on the how.

The paintover is a tool I can use to get my eyes into that same loop - I guess at an improvement and then quickly try it out and verify with my eyes that it is better. For most of us our taste is advanced furthest of any of these skills so if you make an improvement you'll generally be able to see that yes it is in fact better or no it's not.

I think it's important to note: spotting that something is wrong isn't the same skill as being able to imagine what should replace it. "This isn't good enough" doesn't tell you where the next brushstroke goes. You have to be able to really conceptualize the better version.

I think training this skill is likely to yield greater dividends faster than almost anything else you could spend time on. I don't think this is the only way to train it either, just one I found for myself.