Art School VS Self-Taught | Q+A - Making a Start

[Music] hi there how's it going andrew here with another Q&A video and this week i've got an email from mari who writes i'm interested in learning to paint and i was hoping you could give me some advice on where to start are you self-taught did you go to academy any information would be great look forward to your reply marie here's my reply now marie there are three parts to that question so let me answer each of those individually and the first one about learning to paint and where to start the second one being and my self taught and the third being did i go to art school or academy i want to focus on where to start first if you don't mind because to me that's a really important question because it's about so much more for me than just learning how to paint it's how to start thinking about becoming a professional artist and how do we make those goals and those plans to be able to hit that point that we're aiming for on the horizon so my best advice for where to start learning how to paint or just getting started on your whole artistic path and finding your voice is working out who are your heroes who are the artists that inspire you most I always have heroes close by in books or online and I look at their work constantly and it inspires me to do things like evaded them you see it's important to have your painting heroes and role models because I really believe that modeling success helps you to become a success yourself by identifying those things that set others apart you can emulate those behaviors and even take those same actions that your heroes have taken to end up in a similar place now I've got some role models and I've got my own painting heroes and there are three that stand out in particular and I admire greatly because to me they've done things within their careers and their artistic paths that have just set them apart from everybody else now of course I've got many other painting heroes where I really admire their work but there's something about these three individuals that just made them stand out head and shoulders above the that in a particular way those guys are Carl runkis Thomas Kinkade and Robert vite Minh now each one of these artists fulfill what I call the three C's of becoming a dynamic professional artist and they are creative fulfilment commercial success and contribution now call room gives is somebody that I admire greatly because of the sheer creative fulfillment that I imagine he must have felt now of course Kyle rung has died back in the 1950s and I never had a chance to meet the guy but when I read about his life and what he was able to do throughout his career this guy was immersed in his subject and I could only imagine what he must have felt being surrounded by the Alaskan wilderness or in the Sierra Mountains of the United States it would have been amazing to live that life and be one with nature with your paint box and just painting what you see in front of you some of the most inspiring images that I've seen of artists in their studios or working have been those of Carl room gets painting on plein air in the wilderness now Thomas Kinkade is another artist that I admire greatly for his commercial success when I look at Thomas Kincade trajectory throughout his career he just reached some incredible Heights he's one of the most collected artists of all time and his works ended up selling for a lot of money in fact when he died before his time mind you he ended up dying with millions and millions of dollars in the bank lost it might be great to have that kind of commercial success I just admire his approach to the business side of art yet he maintained his integrity every step of the way now I must admit I'm not a huge fan of the way he painted but the way he approached his art in his life he's an absolute hero of mine and then Robert Bateman for contribution Robert Bateman has done so much for conservation and raising awareness as to the plight of the environment worldwide he's had enormous success commercially and I'm sure he's found creative fulfillment because he is just on point with every painting he does but I really admire him for taking his art and making it so much more now that's why I admire those artists and have them as role models of mine because I was able to kind of look at them from afar and identify those aspects within their careers that I wanted to emulate within my own it gives me an opportunity to have a goal and have a point on the horizon to shoot for but I know what you're really asking and you want to learn how to paint and how to get started painting so let me address that the way to do this and my best advice that I could offer anybody is learn by doing immerse yourself in art and immerse yourself and paint him and don't let up you've got to dedicate time each and every day to your creative passion I spend hours and hours all day every day whatever time I can immersed in my creative pursuit it's the only way that I can take my skills from where they are now and go to where I need to go so you have to dedicate the time to it and my recommendation is you're going to learn a lot more just by doing so start there now in the beginning it might be a little bit difficult because you're not going to have the skill level that you really want to have so it's going to take some time in practice you must recognize that there is going to be a bit of a learning curve and you're going to start off with some rough patches the trick is is to identify those rough patches when you're in one and not get discouraged one of the things that was absolutely crucial to my development as an artist is I would keep my mistakes close by I've seen a lot of my friends and students of mine who will do a painting that didn't quite turn out and they'll turn it around to face the wall where they can't look at it or they'll even throw out their painting never do that now I just encourage you to keep your mistakes close by because it's by looking at those mistakes and identifying where you went wrong that you'll be able to correct your course in the future and be able to make some new decisions that will take your work to where you want to go when you feel like you've made something that you would consider a mistake remember ask yourself the three questions and I keep going on about these three questions throughout my tutorials and other videos that I put on YouTube and they are what's working what's not working and what if start off on the positive side of things it can't all be that bad and you probably haven't screwed up as bad as you thought so identify what's working and celebrate that success then once you're feeling nice and good about things identify what's not working and try to look at it as objectively as possible once you have a better idea about where your painting stands ask yourself what if what if you change the color dynamic or shifted the tones around or move something within the composition sometimes a few minor changes can take something that you would consider a dud and turn it into a real hero piece Murray the second part to your question was am i self-taught and i would have to answer yes but I've had several teachers in my life and a lot of it has just been taught to me through experiences like what I'm telling you here I learned mainly by doing now I did go to art school and I got a degree in fine art but I have to say if I'm totally honest with you that I think this did more damage than good now art school is not for everybody and some people do have a positive experience with it but if you are out there and you're considering going to Academy my recommendation is think about that very carefully in my experience with the institution that I went to I didn't learn how to clean my brushes I didn't learn about color theory or composition I couldn't create the human face I didn't learn anything to do with that mysterious there was so much that I needed to know about painting and I didn't really start learning that stuff until I had left art school right after art school I was lost and I wasn't too sure what I was going to do with myself I had some technical ability going through university but I started to think after going through my university experience the technical ability wasn't what really mattered and that if I could rule maybe it was time to change it up a bit and do something abstract and modern and almost deconstruct my technical ability I was lost for nearly a full year before I managed to pick up the brush and start throwing myself into my craft again there are some technical institutions out there that are excellent and do teach you technique so my recommendation is if you're thinking about going to an art school find out where those schools are and maybe they could be a really big help to you but in general my recommendation take the bull by the horns and be in charge of your own education find your own heroes and the people that you really resonate with and learn from them by modeling what they've done that you find so attractive and nowadays with online education and YouTube there's so much free stuff available to us that you could get the equivalent of a university degree from your own home it's about experience and building those experiences yourself I feel that that's much more beneficial for the artists nowadays than going to a school or a tertiary institution there was a time in my artistic career very early on after I just left University that really stands out to me still to this day there was a traveling exhibition that came to the gallery of Western Australia and Perth and it was called st. Petersburg 1900s this exhibition changed my life it was at that moment that I realized what kind of artist I wanted to be and when I started to realize the importance of role models and heroes now I've mentioned already three of my heroes but there's another one that I didn't mention who was really important to me as well from a technical standpoint his name was Ivan Ivanovitch Shishkin and a particular painting that this exhibition stood out head and shoulders above the rest it was a painting depicting an ice cold forest snow falling in the foreground and these tall pine trees that just formed a pattern that went across a composition when you stood there and looked at this monumental painting you felt like you were immersed in the Seine and part of that environment you felt cold and you felt the texture of the bark on the trees it was at that moment that I realized my job as an artist was to recreate an experience for my viewers and that was something that I really hold dear to this day and I'll never forget seeing that painting of what it did to me well Marie I hope that answers your question thank you very much for emailing that through to me and I hope this has also helped you out there if you've had similar questions but as always let's keep the conversation going and hit me up in the comments section down below I'd love to hear from you if you have some questions in regards to the business and professional side of being an artist I'm here to help and I'm going to try and answer you as openly and honestly as I possibly can now if you like this video please hit that like button for me and if you want to come back for more make sure you're subscribed as always you can find me on Steam it Instagram and Facebook but also make sure you subscribe through my website at wapt.com I'll see you next time [Music]

Channel: Andrew Tischler

Views: 214,990

Keywords: Art school, self-taught artist, artist, art degree, q a andrew tischler, fine art painter, art school vs self taught, how to start painting, art school, fine art school, art academy, art career, Q+A, q and a

Id: ToFEZmHIsTA

Length: 11min 44sec (704 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 28 2017