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The ultimate art tip
a year ago
These days, I get more questions regarding art, I suppose it is because I am growing.
These questions may be asked differently every time, sometimes they may seem like different questions, but they all have the same answer.
“Do you have any tips for drawing better?”
“How do you stay motivated to draw all the time?”
“I want to be an artist, can you give me any advice?”
My answer is always the same: you have to love what you do.
You see, for some strange reason, whether it's the promise of becoming popular and earning lots of money or a big dream project, most people aren't having fun with art.
I didn't start my artistic journey for money or fame. As a 5 year old kid drawing a 5 legged cat in elementary school, I didn’t think “I want to sell this for a few hundred bucks to pay rent” or “I wonder if this will get likes on social media”. No, I did it because I enjoyed drawing a 5 legged cat. Kids don't put worry in between their little project and them.
The problem for this 5 year old starts the moment they tell mommy “when I grow up, I want to be an artist!” or when they don't want to become a professional artist, but art remains a major hobby in their life and adults around the kid constantly tell them to “grow up” and “get a real job”.
Then the kid learns, somehow, that art is either a worthless skill or that it'll be difficult to earn money doing it, and even if they manage to get past that, they've been so brainwashed into believing it's a competition (because if it's going to be my job then it means I have to compare my performance and success with others…. Right?) that they feel absolutely miserable seeing how other people “draw better than them and have better results” so they should give up.
Even in cases not so extreme as this one, where parents and their environment are supportive enough, these beliefs still play a part to some extent, people have lost so much touch with creativity and the love for it that they cannot intuitively tell that art is meant to be a fun process, a creation process, something entirely up to the creator and they doubt themselves so much that they need other people’s advice on it.
That is just one side of the take… on the other hand, skill is more or less a requirement as with any activity. I myself majored in graphic design and took professional illustration classes for a semester, but I am technically not ESPECIALLY a professional artist. I started this as a hobby when I was a 5 year old child, and through my own determination and enjoyment, improved by watching videos and observing people, animals and objects in real life, as well as a couple of years of college experience.
For anyone looking to improve their skills, I always reply that there’s plenty of resources out there. The art community is so big, we have them to thank for thousands of really good and free YouTube content on the matter, on just about anything you want to get better at, there’s a video for it and exercises that come with them! You can certainly go to college or university for art, it is a very gratifying and fun experience if you put the stress of deadlines and competition aside, and especially if you love art… but it is not necessary, you can definitely learn on your own with enough discipline and a few people to look up to.
There isn’t much else for me personally to say on this matter and in reply to these questions. Skill is important but it’s not even the most important thing. Whether you may have the skills or not, those more often than not come by themselves once you’ve put in the love and the practice, that is my best advice!
Have fun above all, but if no matter how hard and long you try, art is not fun to you, then why try to make a pig sing? Perhaps you should really quit if your motivations are not love and genuine interest, like only for money or to please other people, these motivations never take you very far… But sometimes, there IS such genuine love and interest for the activity, but art becomes stressful due to limiting beliefs we have about it and the peer pressure to do better. I know for a fact once I moved out on my own and quit my toxic graphic design job right before the pandemic, I was in a situation where art became my ONLY source of income, and suddenly an activity that had been fun ALL of my life, became utterly stressful because NOW I cared how much money I was making, I had to run ads, draw more often than I ever did so I could get more commissions and secure rent, I had suddenly begun worrying about whether or not I drew good enough and what I could do better compared to more successful artists… my mind was clouded with worry for about a year and a half before I fully stabilized and reached a place of consistent positive results! But that experience made me realize how easily I could’ve quit art if I hadn’t corrected my thinking, and it especially taught me how an artist that loves what they do, can easily spiral downwards when they forget why they became an artist to begin with.
EDIT: Small side advice for the above paragraph; I would suggest doing art as a side hobby at the beginning along with your regular job, then working your art income up until you are COMFORTABLE either reducing your office hours or replacing your job with art. Some people don't really want to do art for a living so they do it as a side thing!
So always keep this in mind… this has been my story and my experience, hopefully this advice is helpful to you, even if it only moves one person… then it’ll have been worth writing. I’m sure other people have learned different things along their path, I’d be interested to hear your own experience and advice if you’re a full time artist as well!!
With lots of Love,
Liber.
These questions may be asked differently every time, sometimes they may seem like different questions, but they all have the same answer.
“Do you have any tips for drawing better?”
“How do you stay motivated to draw all the time?”
“I want to be an artist, can you give me any advice?”
My answer is always the same: you have to love what you do.
You see, for some strange reason, whether it's the promise of becoming popular and earning lots of money or a big dream project, most people aren't having fun with art.
I didn't start my artistic journey for money or fame. As a 5 year old kid drawing a 5 legged cat in elementary school, I didn’t think “I want to sell this for a few hundred bucks to pay rent” or “I wonder if this will get likes on social media”. No, I did it because I enjoyed drawing a 5 legged cat. Kids don't put worry in between their little project and them.
The problem for this 5 year old starts the moment they tell mommy “when I grow up, I want to be an artist!” or when they don't want to become a professional artist, but art remains a major hobby in their life and adults around the kid constantly tell them to “grow up” and “get a real job”.
Then the kid learns, somehow, that art is either a worthless skill or that it'll be difficult to earn money doing it, and even if they manage to get past that, they've been so brainwashed into believing it's a competition (because if it's going to be my job then it means I have to compare my performance and success with others…. Right?) that they feel absolutely miserable seeing how other people “draw better than them and have better results” so they should give up.
Even in cases not so extreme as this one, where parents and their environment are supportive enough, these beliefs still play a part to some extent, people have lost so much touch with creativity and the love for it that they cannot intuitively tell that art is meant to be a fun process, a creation process, something entirely up to the creator and they doubt themselves so much that they need other people’s advice on it.
That is just one side of the take… on the other hand, skill is more or less a requirement as with any activity. I myself majored in graphic design and took professional illustration classes for a semester, but I am technically not ESPECIALLY a professional artist. I started this as a hobby when I was a 5 year old child, and through my own determination and enjoyment, improved by watching videos and observing people, animals and objects in real life, as well as a couple of years of college experience.
For anyone looking to improve their skills, I always reply that there’s plenty of resources out there. The art community is so big, we have them to thank for thousands of really good and free YouTube content on the matter, on just about anything you want to get better at, there’s a video for it and exercises that come with them! You can certainly go to college or university for art, it is a very gratifying and fun experience if you put the stress of deadlines and competition aside, and especially if you love art… but it is not necessary, you can definitely learn on your own with enough discipline and a few people to look up to.
There isn’t much else for me personally to say on this matter and in reply to these questions. Skill is important but it’s not even the most important thing. Whether you may have the skills or not, those more often than not come by themselves once you’ve put in the love and the practice, that is my best advice!
Have fun above all, but if no matter how hard and long you try, art is not fun to you, then why try to make a pig sing? Perhaps you should really quit if your motivations are not love and genuine interest, like only for money or to please other people, these motivations never take you very far… But sometimes, there IS such genuine love and interest for the activity, but art becomes stressful due to limiting beliefs we have about it and the peer pressure to do better. I know for a fact once I moved out on my own and quit my toxic graphic design job right before the pandemic, I was in a situation where art became my ONLY source of income, and suddenly an activity that had been fun ALL of my life, became utterly stressful because NOW I cared how much money I was making, I had to run ads, draw more often than I ever did so I could get more commissions and secure rent, I had suddenly begun worrying about whether or not I drew good enough and what I could do better compared to more successful artists… my mind was clouded with worry for about a year and a half before I fully stabilized and reached a place of consistent positive results! But that experience made me realize how easily I could’ve quit art if I hadn’t corrected my thinking, and it especially taught me how an artist that loves what they do, can easily spiral downwards when they forget why they became an artist to begin with.
EDIT: Small side advice for the above paragraph; I would suggest doing art as a side hobby at the beginning along with your regular job, then working your art income up until you are COMFORTABLE either reducing your office hours or replacing your job with art. Some people don't really want to do art for a living so they do it as a side thing!
So always keep this in mind… this has been my story and my experience, hopefully this advice is helpful to you, even if it only moves one person… then it’ll have been worth writing. I’m sure other people have learned different things along their path, I’d be interested to hear your own experience and advice if you’re a full time artist as well!!
With lots of Love,
Liber.
That being so, I do think that's it's worth stressing that whilein general art should be fun doing things that may not be as enjoyable, such as studies, are worth working in if you intend to grow.
Thank you very much. ^^
However, I also try to draw because there are things I want to see that others don't manage draw no matter how much I commission. To some degree, there are details in what I want to see that I'm not sure about (and I'm fine with whatever commissioners do in those vague areas).
So draw for the love of it, but also to see what you want to see drawn.