How To Become A Self-Taught Artist
You don’t need to go to art school to become an artist. Everything that you do need you can find on your own without spending lots of money, so I’m going to show you the 3 really simple steps that will take you from being a total beginner all the way to being a confident self-taught artist.
First of all, you need self-belief.
You can’t start anything without believing first that you can do it or can learn how to do it, so this is a crucial first step.
If you don’t believe that you can become an artist, then there’s no way that you will because you won’t allow yourself to try. But you need to try to be able to learn, and you need to learn to be able to get to where you want to be.
You don’t need to feel confident yet, you just need to believe that you can learn to be an artist.
Part of that is allowing yourself to be a complete beginner. Even if you have experience being creative, don’t expect yourself to be good at your new art skills straight away. Learning new things can be frustrating and feel like slow progress, so the more of a student you can allow yourself to be, the more natural that process will feel.
Sometimes we need evidence to really believe something, so one way that you can build belief in yourself as an artist is by making small steps that show you - with evidence - that you are someone who makes art.
If you make art that you think is bad, then that’s just evidence that you’re an art student who’s taking steps to get better, and every piece of art that you do like is evidence that you’re making progress.
Creating anything, big or small, good or bad, is evidence for yourself that you’re someone who makes art.
That’s why spending even just 20 minutes sketching something is really valuable - especially in the beginning of your art journey - because it’s building that self-belief for yourself in really manageable chunks.
It’s daunting to make big artworks as a beginner, and it’s hard to think of yourself as an artist when you haven’t made a lot of art yet, so if you find it hard to have self-belief then take baby steps, and show yourself in small doses that you’re a creative person who can make art.
The next step to becoming a self-taught artist is to find some inspiration.
You’re starting from scratch so you need to find inspiration for what you want to draw and why.
Inspiration is fuel for your creative fire, and sometimes it will come easily while other times it’ll be a little harder to find, but you can help yourself out by spending time understanding what inspires you to create art.
What paintings or illustrations have you seen that have made you want to be able to paint or draw in the same style? When you go to an art gallery, what colour palettes are you drawn to the most? What art mediums are you excited to try?
You need to find for yourself what excites you to make art, and start paying attention to things that you see that you want to draw or that inspire you.
Make a list, a moodboard, or a Pinterest board of ideas and images. Find a list of drawing prompts to help you spark ideas.
Go to the library and look at picture books or art books. Go to art galleries, or take a walk in nature.
There’s so much around us in our environment that we get so used to seeing that we stop actually looking at it, so next time you go outside try to see the world through a lens of what you could take inspiration from and really pay attention to the shapes and colours and little scenes around you.
Connect with other creative people at art workshops, or get your arty friends together if you know anyone who’s creative, or connect with online art communities. I’ve just made a free community for artists called The Quiet Artist Club to serve as a gentle, encouraging space to share your art whether you drew it in 10 minutes or 10 hours.
Collect all the inspiration you can manage so that you have a pool of creative excitement that you can look at when you need motivation to draw or some ideas of what to make.
Nobody else can do this for you, because only you can know what inspires you to be an artist.
The last thing you need to become a self-taught artist is practice, but to me there are two different types of practice.
There’s intentional practice, which is where you’re actively trying to get better at something new and you’re really trying to improve a particular skill.
And then there’s casual practice which is where you’re just having fun and more focused on enjoying the art process without any stress for learning new things.
They’re both really important because they balance each other out.
Intentional practice is doing things like tutorials or trying to get better at something that’s difficult for you, and it can be fun but it can also be frustrating because learning new things is hard and doesn’t always turn out the way we want it to. There’s a little less creativity in following tutorials and if you’re taking a more traditional, textbook approach to learning art fundamentals some of the material is really dry.
That’s why it’s important to balance out that learning with casual practice which allows you to be free and just explore creatively and really enjoy making art. We’re naturally motivated to do things that are fun so if you make time for fun art that’s purely just for the joy of putting colour on paper and it doesn’t matter what it looks like, then you’re more likely to be motivated to continue your art practice.
It’s so valuable to try new things and sometimes that’s a struggle, so it’s equally as important to just chill and make whatever is comfortable and fun for you.
Practice is essential to becoming an artist, because it trains your creative brain and your hands to paint or draw the way you want to, but it also provides you with the evidence you need for confidence in yourself and that self-belief we were talking about earlier.
Every time you make a piece of art, you’re giving yourself evidence that you’re an artist. Even if you don’t think your art is very good, if you’re creating art then that is evidence for yourself that you’re an arty person - you’re someone who spends time making art - otherwise known as an artist.
You can practise in any way you want to for as short or long as you want to, the main value comes from just making something.
Now you have the key ingredients that you need to make some art, and once you’ve done that you’ll have more evidence for yourself as an artist, which will give you more self-belief, and that will help you feel inspired, and all of a sudden these 3 steps are actually a positive feedback loop that can keep feeding itself.
If you remove any of these things from the loop it becomes harder to make art.
Each small loop of these three steps builds you up as an artist. You don’t need to worry about having all of the ideas, skills and resources you need to be an artist from day one, you can focus on one day at a time, step by step.
If you want to become a self-taught artist, then you can start today with a bit of self-belief, inspiration and practise. That’s really all it takes, so why not give it a go?
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