Have you ever opened a brand new blank white canvas with excitement to paint and then froze? Staring at that canvas as if you weren’t supposed to make a mark on it? I have too. It is such a feeling of frustration, knowing you want to paint something beautiful and yet that blank white canvas illudes you.

I have found a solution to this daunting blank canvas, and it may surprise you. The hardest thing about a blank canvas is thinking the end result has to be perfect. This is what causes the freeze to begin with. There is a certain amount of fear that no matter what you do next, it just won’t be perfect, stopping you in your tracks from taking the first step.

The solution is to grab a black sharpie marker to get the ugly out. You do this by what I call mark making. Mark making is simply taking your sharpie marker and drawing random lines, squiggles and boxes all over your blank white canvas. I even go as far as coloring in an area completely black. The great thing about this step is that it automatically gives the painting depth of value by applying the darkest color. It also gets rid of the fear of ruining the canvas and lets you start moving forward to a beautiful masterpiece.

Once you’ve laid the ground work with your black sharpie marker, you are ready to start the layering process of neutrals. I am a big fan of acrylic paint because it makes layering so quick and easy. It is very forgiving of mistakes because you can simply paint over mistakes with ease.

The layering process starts with a values study. If you are working with a reference photo, squinting your eyes is helpful to see all the shades of grey in the image. You may want to mix just three values of grey and start with. The key is to make sure all the values are slightly different from each other. The way you can tell if you have done a good job in your value study is by taking a black and white photo of your canvas. This reveals the depth of layers you’ve achieved. If your painting looks flat, then go back in and rework some of the greys, or perhaps go down to just three grey tones.

Lastly, it’s time to add color. This too is a layering process using the color wheel. Let’s say you are going to paint three stacked pumpkins. One pumpkin is orange. One pumpkin is yellow, and one pumpkin is green. Instead of painting the pumpkins their true color right away, take the color wheel and find the complimentary color. For example, the complimentary color of orange is teal. The complimentary color of yellow is violet and the complimentary color of green is red.

Even though you are going to want to paint the pumpkins their true color, instead first paint them their complimentary color. This puts a layer of paint down that when you paint over it and leave a little here and there it creates a beautiful harmonized dimension you would not otherwise achieve. It makes the painting rich with both depth and color.

Finally, it’s time to put the finishing touches on the painting. Paint the true colors of the pumpkins on top of their complimentary colors. Paint orange on top of teal (leaving a little peek-a-boo of teal). Paint yellow on top of the violet and green over the top of red. Then, go back to your complimentary colors and do some random mark making on top of the true colors. Such as a partial line running down the crease of the pumpkin.

Now stop and take a few steps backward to look at your painting from a different perspective and look at how beautiful your painting is just because you learned how to activate the canvas! I’m proud of you.

Here are three steps to help you activate your canvas:

Step 1: Grab a black sharpie marker and mark up your canvas with lines, squiggles and boxes.

Step 2: Do a value study using three to six grey values and take a black and white photo of the canvas to make sure you have values from very light to very dark.

Step 3: Paint complimentary colors first and layer true colors on top to create depth and beauty.