“Painting is not magic,” said paint and body expert Kevin Tetz. “It’s not voodoo. It’s not a gift. It’s an acquired skill.”

In the video below, you’ll find Tetz, creator of the Paintucation video series, providing tips and technique lessons that will help you develop and hone your spray-painting technique.

“It just takes practice and I can teach you,” Tetz said.

Tetz wraps a large cardboard box with some inexpensive cardboard paper, and encourages us to create a similarily inexpensive setup for us to practice with.

He strongly recommends important safety gear, including:

And then using inexpensive latex house paint, Tetz demonstrates proper spray-painting techniques using an HVLP paint gun.

Tetz provides lessons in spray techniques are designed to build muscle memory and technique safely and inexpensively, he said.

Keeping the spray gun parallel to the painting surface at an even distance of 5-6 inches, and building the paint coats using a 50-percent overlap spray pattern are among the most important pro tips.

Watch the video here: