How to Be a Good Artist
Break down your chosen art form into the essential components or skills., Practice your art every single day, making it a daily habit., Take an honest appraisal of your artistic weakness, to practice with mindfulness., Take on smaller projects, or...
Step-by-Step Guide
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Step 1: Break down your chosen art form into the essential components or skills.
Saying, "I want to be a masterful painter," is a noble goal, but it is so broad it is hard to know where to start.
Successful practice in any art form requires mastery of the smaller skills, almost all of which can be practiced independently of each other:
Painters must master drawing and sketching, color blending, shading, brush techniques, and composition.
Drawers and Illustrators need to draw, shade, color, and compose, and may want to learn the basics of digital illustration and animation.
Sculptors:
Often learn a wide variety of techniques and materials, from ceramic to metal working, and must be able to sketch and draft ideas on paper.
Advanced study in your material and tools of choice, including more scientific research, is highly recommended.
Video Artists:
Need to be fluent across the set, from lighting, audio, camera operation, and editing.
Skill drawing (for storyboards) and animating are a big plus. -
Step 2: Practice your art every single day
Humans improve much faster through daily effort, and even 10 minutes a day can be better than 2 hours once a week.Find a way to make art part of your everyday routine, prioritizing it highly on your schedule.
If you can't find time to make art every day, being a good artist will be exponentially harder.
Give yourself a cue each day to make things easier
-- first thing in the morning, after dinner, before you exercise, etc.
Coupling habits together makes them much easier to stick to.
Reward yourself slightly after each session
-- maybe you don't eat dessert until done, or go for a run once the page is finished.
Tie a good feeling to your daily art practice.
Missing days is okay
-- it happens.
Instead of beating yourself up or punishing yourself with more work the next day, just get back on track.
Art should be fun, not punishment!, Not all practice sessions are equally beneficial.
Every artist has areas and skills that they aren't very good at, and the best artists run to these areas in practice.
Remember, this isn't always about making a publishable piece.
Once you give yourself the freedom to practice things you're bad at, you'll notice yourself making much faster improvements in all areas of your art.Mindful practice is about finding mistakes and fixing them in order to improve.
If you don't let yourself make mistakes, how could you ever improve.
There is a difference between "practice" and "performance." Once you realize that your sketchbooks and studies are there to help you get better, not to share with others, you can use them practice making your next "real" piece of art even better., A study is simply a test run of some aspect of your piece.
For example, a sculptor doing a full length human body likely wouldn't launch into the replica without knowing her materials, style, and logistical concerns beforehand.
To prepare, she might start studies in the following areas.
Note that, though sculpture is the example, all good artists test before beginning:
Difficult or unusual sections:
Hands are complex organs with many moving joints and bones.
Practicing a few hands and figuring out how they will be held, is best done before adding them to the final sculpture Logistic/Technical concerns:
How is the sculpture going to stand up without falling? What base is being used, and how is the sculpture attached? Stylistic Elements:
If it is a melancholic or sad sculpture, how do you plan to capture that sadness? Smaller sculptures and sketching facial expressions will help figure it out.
You could also try to replicate similar pieces or emotions., While neither of them look like anything you could ever see in real life, both men are masters of realistic portraiture.
You need to know the rules before you can break them, and the ability to perfectly replicate what you see in front of you is the best technical exercise you can perform.
Try out:
Sketching or drawing still landscapes Capturing the human body realistically, both still and in motion.
Replicating your favorite paintings or works of art, teaching yourself the techniques of the masters. -
Step 3: making it a daily habit.
-
Step 4: Take an honest appraisal of your artistic weakness
-
Step 5: to practice with mindfulness.
-
Step 6: Take on smaller projects
-
Step 7: or "studies" to help you ramp up to your big projects.
-
Step 8: When in doubt
-
Step 9: practice realism
-
Step 10: even if it isn't your artistic form of choice.Say you love to make impressionist
-
Step 11: brightly-colored portraits in the style of Vincent Van Gogh
-
Step 12: or abstract
-
Step 13: cubist paintings like Picasso.
Detailed Guide
Saying, "I want to be a masterful painter," is a noble goal, but it is so broad it is hard to know where to start.
Successful practice in any art form requires mastery of the smaller skills, almost all of which can be practiced independently of each other:
Painters must master drawing and sketching, color blending, shading, brush techniques, and composition.
Drawers and Illustrators need to draw, shade, color, and compose, and may want to learn the basics of digital illustration and animation.
Sculptors:
Often learn a wide variety of techniques and materials, from ceramic to metal working, and must be able to sketch and draft ideas on paper.
Advanced study in your material and tools of choice, including more scientific research, is highly recommended.
Video Artists:
Need to be fluent across the set, from lighting, audio, camera operation, and editing.
Skill drawing (for storyboards) and animating are a big plus.
Humans improve much faster through daily effort, and even 10 minutes a day can be better than 2 hours once a week.Find a way to make art part of your everyday routine, prioritizing it highly on your schedule.
If you can't find time to make art every day, being a good artist will be exponentially harder.
Give yourself a cue each day to make things easier
-- first thing in the morning, after dinner, before you exercise, etc.
Coupling habits together makes them much easier to stick to.
Reward yourself slightly after each session
-- maybe you don't eat dessert until done, or go for a run once the page is finished.
Tie a good feeling to your daily art practice.
Missing days is okay
-- it happens.
Instead of beating yourself up or punishing yourself with more work the next day, just get back on track.
Art should be fun, not punishment!, Not all practice sessions are equally beneficial.
Every artist has areas and skills that they aren't very good at, and the best artists run to these areas in practice.
Remember, this isn't always about making a publishable piece.
Once you give yourself the freedom to practice things you're bad at, you'll notice yourself making much faster improvements in all areas of your art.Mindful practice is about finding mistakes and fixing them in order to improve.
If you don't let yourself make mistakes, how could you ever improve.
There is a difference between "practice" and "performance." Once you realize that your sketchbooks and studies are there to help you get better, not to share with others, you can use them practice making your next "real" piece of art even better., A study is simply a test run of some aspect of your piece.
For example, a sculptor doing a full length human body likely wouldn't launch into the replica without knowing her materials, style, and logistical concerns beforehand.
To prepare, she might start studies in the following areas.
Note that, though sculpture is the example, all good artists test before beginning:
Difficult or unusual sections:
Hands are complex organs with many moving joints and bones.
Practicing a few hands and figuring out how they will be held, is best done before adding them to the final sculpture Logistic/Technical concerns:
How is the sculpture going to stand up without falling? What base is being used, and how is the sculpture attached? Stylistic Elements:
If it is a melancholic or sad sculpture, how do you plan to capture that sadness? Smaller sculptures and sketching facial expressions will help figure it out.
You could also try to replicate similar pieces or emotions., While neither of them look like anything you could ever see in real life, both men are masters of realistic portraiture.
You need to know the rules before you can break them, and the ability to perfectly replicate what you see in front of you is the best technical exercise you can perform.
Try out:
Sketching or drawing still landscapes Capturing the human body realistically, both still and in motion.
Replicating your favorite paintings or works of art, teaching yourself the techniques of the masters.
About the Author
Robert Hall
Brings years of experience writing about home improvement and related subjects.
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