#i would say invest in good gouache but im still using the cheapest gouache i could find at the school store so. lol

[blueskittlesart]

do you have any painting tips for a mediocre painter

depends on what kind of paint you're working with lol! i tend to work with either acrylic or traditional gouache (last painting i posted was gouache!) but i'm a known hater of oils and watercolor lol. gouache is probably my favorite paint medium because it's pretty versatile and easy to use imo! but acrylics are significantly cheaper. there's not a lot of difference in my technique when painting w acryls vs gouache actually so i can just give you some general tips ig?

have a decently large jar of water on hand, even if you're working with acrylics. clean your brush CONSTANTLY, even when you feel like you don't need to. if you're working with high-quality heavy body acrylics (which i recommend, they're more expensive than the cheap craft store brands but they're WAY better quality. i use liquitex heavy body acrylics) the pigment is a lot more saturated within the paint, but that also means that the paint is a lot thicker and won't lay smooth unless you have some water on your brush. (note: your brush shouldn't be SATURATED with water because that will effect the opacity of your paint, but it should never be bone-dry either!) wetting your brush also helps your bristles stick together and keeps your lines looking smooth!

for something like gouache, i usually start with a watered-down underpainting. this isn't as necessary with acrylics, but can still be helpful. Gouache isn't perfectly opaque, and if you're using traditional gouache it's water-based and will merge slightly with the colors below it when wet. a single-color underpainting can help unify your colors this way, and it's really easy to do! just pick a color (i usually go for a dark blue or pink, but it depends on the colors of your piece) and water it down until it's about watercolor consistency, and then just brush it over the entire piece!

as for brushes, i have 3-4 brushes that i normally use: a hard chisel tip brush, a large soft round brush, a smaller soft round brush, and a script liner brush. the chisel tip is good for blocking in big details early on because it allows you to cover big areas but still has the potential for detail. the large soft round brush is mostly for underpaintings but i will occasionally use it for larger areas on bigger pieces. the smaller round brush is what i use to get most of the details in. it's got about a 4mm diameter and still comes to a nice point at the end so it's useful for a lot of different things! for really tiny details, that's where the script liner comes in. this brush has about a 2mm diameter with 1cm long bristles, so when used properly it gives you a very thin line with a lot of control. this brush was probably the hardest to learn how to use but it's really the mvp whenever i work with gouache lol!

other than that all i can say is practice! learn the properties of your chosen medium--how it blends, how it dries, whether it can be reactivated, how it mixes, etc, and use what you learn to your advantage! i spent a large portion of my high school years taking traditional art classes where we painted a TON and my skillset definitely improved because of that practice alone!