I would advise to go take a beginner class from the get-go. You will be less frustrated in the long run. What is your current ability to draw? Before you sta

I would advise to go take a beginner class from the get-go. You will be less frustrated in the long run. What is your current ability to draw? Before you start wrangling a craft-intensive media, develop the ability to get scale and proportion and line correct, and learn you some composition. A sketchbook of decent paper and some good art pencils will help you accomplish all of that. An old book that "worked for me" w.r.t. going from crap drawings to "ok, I can practice now and get better" is "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain." I haven't seen that book in a while, so I don't know if it is still around. Start with a drawing class if you are not confident in your drawing ability. But maybe you already draw well and understand composition and color, and want to tackle a painting media. Think about which media is right for you. My observations (I am not a painter): Water color: My sister is a professional artist and art teacher, and does mostly water color. This media requires modest set-up and clean-up. The paper and tools are somewhat specialized. It rewards good use of negative space, and color blending using washes and layering. The ultimate "less is more" media. Color blending is reasonably logical. Acrylic: My mother's media choice, after charcoal drawings. It acts somewhat like oil, and you can achieve oil-like effects. But it dries much, much faster, so wet-on-wet techniques are mostly not a thing. Set-up is a little less work that oil, clean-up is HUGELY easier than oil. Color blending is fairly logical. Oil: My daughter's favorite media. Set aside space for it. Set aside painting clothes. (Well, actually, if you go into your your painting room, stains will leap onto whatever you are wearing, so those clothes will become oil painting clothes.) Set up is not bad, since you have a room permanently set up for oil painting. Clean-up is time consuming, so oils are really only practical if you have large blocks of time. Color blending is abstruse. (My daughter is now living in a college dorm room, so oils are not part of her life, and she is using it as an opportunity to learn water color and acrylic. She finds acrylic's rapid drying to be an annoyance.) Again, for any of these media, find a class. There is a craft to each of them, and it will save you frustration.