hey, if you want to paint but you don't know how, I don't know how to express it better, but copy.
Copy the people whose work you like.
They've already done the work of translating the reality onto the page, and your job, before translating the reality yourself, is now to copy the translation and understand how the artist has done it. You look at art and you think you understand how it was done but when you start copying the artist you realise all the things the artist did to make it work and that's your lesson.
You can't "translate" from reality if you don't understand the rules of translation. And unless you go to art school and have a teacher teach you about color theory or you have a strong willpower and are able to pick up a bunch of books and learn on your own, copying is your next best friend.
Pick up a painting you like. Sit down with it. Sketch it. Then sketch it again. Then pick up your brush or pencil or whatever, and try to understand the rules the artist followed to get to his translation.
Copy badly, copy again, and I swear to you at some point you're going to start seeing the little choices the artist made. A line thicker than you thought, a shadow that's not grey but purple, a color melting into another because THERE IS ANOTHER FUCKING COLOR THERE YOU DIDN'T EVEN SEE.
You don't notice everything when you're looking at a finished piece. But when you copy, you can actually start to understand what went into it. You're studying.
Then you can start seeing pattern, how they balance colors, you're training your eye to see the way they did. You're learning the language.
And then you can go back to reality and start your own translation process in your own voice because you will have understood the rules. So now you can bend them.