If you have three hours to do a painting, spend two hours drawing it.
Before you paint, learn how to draw. Start by sketching everything in sight and practise every day. Use a soft lead pencil sharpened to a chisel point on sketching paper. The same applies to charcoal. Use a soft eraser and don't worry about mistakes. You learn by making mistakes.
If you want to draw people, study anatomy. Get a friend to pose for you. Visualize the bones under the skin. Get a book on anatomy. Draw the human figure in the nude, then the clothing over top. The figure is drawn from the inside out.
Learn how to draw first if your aim is to do classical fine art, the kind the old masters did. We will never reach their level, but we can learn a lot by studying them, even copying their work. Never sell copied work and it's best not to sign it. In short, never copy and call it your own unless it's from your own photographs.
Go into nature and make sketches there. All you need is a board to put your paper on and away you go. Nature is the best teacher regardless of subject matter.
Or you can easily find any subject online too. Careful what you copy. Some are protected by copyright. So don't copy. Just use them for inspiration and change to suit what you like.
Pinterest is a great source of inspiration for artists. They will send you emails of your favorite subjects if you opt in.
Once you have done enough sketches and are pleased, it's time to start painting. But roughly draw it first either on the canvas or paper to be traced onto the canvas. Blacken one side of the paper with a soft pencil and trace it. That way you don’t have to draw it twice.
