Urgent art questions about artists?

Wonderful Artists: Answer as many listed art questions as you can...pleasee?

• 1.Which paint is better for realistic type of art oil or acrylic ? 2.What is white base medium? does it nessescery to use? can i just use whitepaint as base ?any other idea? 3.how to make the color easily and realistically soft blend ? 4.Any technique orlesson you can give me as a beginner doing realistic looking type of art ? 5.Any advice on how to created realistic water/river/ocean, mountains/rocks, and realistic glowy sunset sky? Please help out i'm a beginner..:)

• Answer:

  Both mediums can be effective for realistic subjects, but if you're a beginner I would start with acrylic. It dries faster, and that can work for or against you. White base medium? Other than in wall paint I am not familiar...unless you're speaking of untreated canvas or liquid white for oils-probably not necessary but often gesso is used for priming. Practice. And a soft touch with a quality brush. Make sure the canvas is smooth. Sometimes an additive to keep the paint from drying so fast will help and if using acrylics there are many additives that will make the paint act more like oils-which blend fantastically. Look at the subject and forget what things are called. Focus not on a "tree" but on overall shape and color. Focus on how many color variations you can find. Water-use a soft wide brush and lightly go across the colors you've already laid to make it look smooth/reflective. Again-focus on shape/ colors so you don't just make a flat blue blob. Mountains/ rocks-try a knife-don't forget to highlight. For a sky? Have fun with it. I've done them starting on a white base, and a black base and both ways have their bonuses-the black base required more paint but the colors REALLY popped. Just depends on the result you're looking for. Don't be afraid to deviate from what you see in your head or looking at-what you come up with might turn out better with less frustration. The less "perfect" the more realistic. It's just paint. If all else fails, don't be afraid to get crazy, let it dry and paint over it. You'd be surprised of what you can accomplish when you're not scared to mess it all up.