The hardest part about painting besides the techniques is composition. Whether your work is representational or non-representational, it's extremely difficult

The hardest part about painting besides the techniques is composition. Whether your work is representational or non-representational, it's extremely difficult to go from what you have in your head to what you put on the canvas. If you have a thought, an idea, or even an emotion you should practice putting _that_ on canvas. The technique will come as you paint more and more. YouTube can help for some techniques if you want to figure out how to do something. Really, just start painting and the rest will come. Experiment with texture, shape, and composition. Don't worry too much about color. When you start getting better at composition the colors become obvious. I'd even recommend your first few paintings just stay with a single color.