Start with drawing. Drawing is the basis of painting.

Go to your local art supply and buy a good

quality sketch pad (Canson makes decent ones), a big white eraser and a box of some regular 2b
yellow pencils.
Now get ready to copy three books, cover to cover, and fill that sketch book up!
-Start with the Charles Bargue Drawing Course. It's a big expensive book available on Amazon, and
probably through your local library system. It's a 19th century system that teaches you literally
EVERYTHING you need to know about drawing. It has a series of 'plates' that you copy. Copy them
exactly as you see them in the book. By the end of the series you will be a better draftsman than
pretty much anyone you know. If you can't find the book, send me a PM and we'll work something
out.
-John H Vanderpoel's "Human Figure" is available for free on Google books. Just start copying all
the drawings in it. I've never been able to read through it but the drawings are indispensable for
learning a 'characterization' of form that Bargue doesn't teach. Funny enough, Vanderpoel's studied
under Charles Bargue in Paris.
 Third is George Bridgeman's anatomy books. These will show you how to construct forms
in space. That's the hardest kind of drawing. Taking a picture from your imagination and
drawing it realistically. Bridgeman can help with that. Also Bridgeman studied under
Vanderpoel, see what's going on here?
Now if you have the resources, take a course with the Florence Academy of Art. I learned more
about drawing, painting, art, life, beauty, women, men, and myself in ONE MONTH with them than I
did in 4 years of art school

http://www.aproged.pt/biblioteca/handbookofdrawing.pdf