r/painting: Reddit's Home for Traditional Painting

r/painting is Reddit's largest community dedicated specifically to traditional painting across all media. With over 600,000 members, it provides a welcoming, high-traffic platform for painters working in oils, acrylics, watercolors, gouache, tempera, encaustic, and mixed media to share their work, discuss techniques, and connect with fellow painters worldwide.

Unlike broader art communities that span every medium and discipline, r/painting's focused scope creates a concentrated community of practitioners who share a common passion. Discussions naturally gravitate toward the specific challenges and joys of painting—color mixing, brush handling, surface preparation, medium properties, drying times, and the particular satisfaction of applying paint to canvas.

Community Value

All Skill Levels Welcome

The community is notably inclusive across skill levels. First-time painters sharing their initial attempts receive genuine encouragement and practical suggestions alongside professionals posting gallery-quality work. This range creates an aspirational but approachable environment where beginners can see the path ahead and experienced painters can share their knowledge.

Medium-Specific Knowledge

Because the community is focused on painting, discussions about materials and techniques reach a depth that generalist communities cannot match. Threads comparing oil painting mediums, analyzing the properties of different acrylic brands, or discussing watercolor paper behavior attract informed responses from painters with decades of experience in those specific media.

Inspiration Engine

The high volume of daily posts creates a continuous stream of creative inspiration. Scrolling through r/painting exposes you to styles, subjects, color palettes, and approaches you might never encounter in your own artistic circle—a valuable counterbalance to the algorithmic bubbles of social media platforms.

Content and Discussions

Artwork Sharing

The primary content on r/painting consists of original paintings shared by members, accompanied by titles, medium information, and often brief descriptions of the artist's process or inspiration. Posts span every conceivable style—photorealism, impressionism, abstract expressionism, surrealism, plein air landscapes, figurative work, still life, and contemporary mixed media. This stylistic diversity exposes members to approaches they might never encounter in their immediate artistic circles, broadening visual vocabulary and challenging assumptions about what painting can be.

The most popular posts often feature dramatic transformations or unusual techniques—paintings that surprise viewers with unexpected color choices, bold compositions, or technical approaches that defy conventional expectations. These viral posts introduce painting to Reddit's broader audience, drawing new members into the community and expanding awareness of painting as a contemporary creative practice.

Technical Discussions

Dedicated discussion threads address specific technical painting challenges: color mixing strategies for achieving flesh tones, methods for controlling edges in oil painting, approaches to creating convincing atmospheric perspective, solutions for preventing watercolor blooms, and dozens of other practical problems that painters encounter in their studio practice. These technical discussions are among the community's most valuable content because they provide multiple perspectives on common problems—different painters sharing different solutions based on their individual experience and preferred media.

Materials and Supply Recommendations

r/painting functions as an informal but highly effective art supply review platform. Members share experiences with specific paint brands, brush types, canvas preparations, mediums, solvents, and surfaces. Because these recommendations come from practicing painters who have used the products in actual studio work—rather than from reviewers who may have tested products only briefly—the collective supply knowledge on r/painting is remarkably reliable and detailed.

Questions like "What's the best student-grade acrylic paint?" or "Is it worth upgrading to artist-grade watercolors?" generate extensive response threads where painters at different skill levels and budget points share their experiences. For artists making purchasing decisions, these crowd-sourced recommendations provide more useful guidance than any single review because they represent a diversity of perspectives, priorities, and use cases.

Community Culture

The moderation of r/painting maintains a culture that is encouraging without being dishonest. Constructive criticism is welcomed when requested, but the default response to shared work is supportive and appreciative. This balance—warmth without sycophancy, honesty without harshness—creates a community where painters feel safe sharing work in progress and asking for help with specific problems.

The community also actively combats the gatekeeping and elitism that can plague art spaces. All painting media are treated with equal respect—oil painting doesn't receive preferential treatment over acrylics, watercolor isn't dismissed as a lesser medium, and digital painting is welcomed alongside traditional work. This inclusivity reflects a genuine belief that painting is defined by the act of applying color to surfaces, regardless of the specific tools used.

Who Benefits Most

Beginning painters who feel isolated in their creative practice—especially those who don't have access to local art communities or painting classes—find r/painting provides the peer support and feedback that sustains motivation through the challenging early stages of learning to paint.

Intermediate painters who have mastered basics but feel stuck at a plateau benefit from exposure to diverse approaches and techniques that challenge their habits and suggest new directions for growth.

Experienced painters who want to share their work with an appreciative audience and contribute their knowledge to developing painters find r/painting provides a community that values both their artwork and their expertise.

The Bottom Line

r/painting is the largest and most active online community dedicated to traditional painting. Its combination of inclusive culture, medium-specific expertise, high daily activity, comprehensive supply knowledge, and genuine supportiveness makes it an essential resource for painters at every level seeking connection, inspiration, and practical guidance for their painting practice.