Mentoring needed for beginner

[Hirayo]

I have had intrest in drawing art for a long time. I tried it but always got stuck on the same points.

All the tutorials i have watched, show me speed paintings. It doesnt show me the basics, wether to use the pencil or brush tool? Which brushes they use and what kind of hardness/opacity etc.

I have downloaded lots of brushes today. It is kind of hard to see what they actually do. The window you can select them in, feels kind of small. Is there a way to look at all brushes, but bigger?

Sorry if im unclear. Not that good in English.

[NickTrip]

Are you using Photoshop?

The very first thing you should do is start a sketchbook here and put up some of your artwork. Then more people will be able to see where you're getting stuck and help you out.

[Hirayo]

I have Photoshop CS5 and a Intuos4 medium size tablet.

I have worked with Photoshop for years, editing photographs, making websites and such. So I'm familiar with it.
I just never have drawed before and don't know where to start. That's also why I don't have any sketches available at the moment. I just don't know where to start and what brushes to use.

Edit:
So I started a painting today. This is my first attempt ever. Thought starting of with some mountains would be ok. So here's what I currently have:
http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/1025/88469341.jpg

This is as far as I could get. I think a Pallete Knife is the next way to go, not sure though. And I don't have any palette knife brushes so I would be stuck there anyways.

[NickTrip]

You should try drawing objects with form to test out techniques (like an apple or a cube, etc.) Also, you don't actually need a lot of different brushes to make a painting in photoshop. As a matter of fact I would say that it's better to use only one brush for an entire image and only adjust its opacity flow and hardness a little to get results (especially if you're just learning to paint). You may want to do speed painting and having lots of brushes helps with that, but learning the basics first is most important.
Along with painting you should definitely work on drawing also.

Really though the best advice I can give is to start a sketchbook thread and just start posting your work everyday.

Oh the one brush you may want to try to complete a finished painting would be a hard round brush with opacity set to pen pressure. Adjust the hardness on the brush so its just slightly blurry, then paint. Use the alt/option key to switch to the eyedropper and pick up in between colors as you work so that you can get smoother transitions.

[confusedbat]

I found this quick tutorial incredibly useful when I tried painting a couple times:

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=18980