Learn and Master Painting: How To Choose The Best Painting Lesson DVDs

To learn and master painting has never been as easy or as inexpensive. With video technology it is now possible to learn from some of the best instructors the world over. Many of these top notch artists would normally be too busy, too far away or even too expensive for the average student. The availability of video painting lessons has certainly change everything. However, since not every course is necessarily a good one, here are 9 tips for choosing the best ones.

1. Choose Video; without a doubt a painting course needs to be in a video format. But, not just little tiny snippets of short videos to enhance a book but, full blown, start to finish video. This is an intensively visual activity that is best learned while watching an expert go through all of the paces.

2. Good Production Values; The videos need to be well though out with lots of clear close up shots so that there is no confusion about each demonstration.

3. Beginner Through Advanced Lessons; a thorough learn and master painting course will guide a complete novice student through setting up a studio, the equipment and initial supplies. Too many courses leave beginners scrambling for the most basic information. Also, the dvd should allow a more advanced painter to skip around to view only the lessons for which they have the most interest.

4. The Instructor; needs to be a seasoned, highly educated and accomplished artist in their own right. It is equally important that they have a gift for teaching students of all levels. Some gifted artists are just not able to identify where a beginner student is coming from and all too often they will become confused, discouraged and quit unnecessarily.

5. Painting Theory; a complete painting course should not just teach you to mimic the instructor so that you learn to create just one specific painting in one specific style. Instead, the painting course should give you a full understanding of perspective, making an object look three dimensional, why colors look the way they do, tonality and many other fundamental concepts that will set you free to paint anything in a professional manor.

6. Guided Practice Sessions; Its important to actually work on exercises as well as full blown paintings from start to finish right along side the instructor. Sitting on your hands while watching the instructor could give you a false sense of understanding. There is nothing like diving in the pool with a good teacher to learn to swim.

7. Individual Pacing; this is almost automatic with dvd painting courses because you can automatically pause almost any where in mid lesson, work at your own pace, then restart the video where you left off. It is important that the instructor teaches in a way that gives you plenty of logical places to pause for practice, (or to go to the bathroom for that matter).

8. Fun: the instructor must be somewhat playful and encouraging while teaching or you may become bored and not look forward to each lesson. This is also important because fun usually yields a relaxed state of mind that is more creatively focused.

9. Price; expect to pay about $150 to $250 USD for a thorough beginner through advanced painting dvd set. Prices that range from $20 to $50 USD usually teach a limited range of topics.

Without a doubt, video painting course dvds are the most thorough, effective and complete single educational tool to come along since the invention of art. They are often superior to a random live local teacher in terms of cost, convenience, consistency and caliber of instructing. It is, after all, hard to get a live instructor to come to your house at 2:00 in the morning on a night when sleep is impossible and you wish to paint, (they are also impossible to rewind and review).

Having said that, it is still extremely important to get outside feedback on your work from other artists in your community. Ideally, use a dvd course to lay a detailed foundation then add live interaction with other artists and instructors for feedback as you learn and master painting.