Self-Taught Artists BASICS Curriculum 1, Art Fundamentals for Beginners

and i would say that this curriculum is great for people who are just starting out but also people who are really far along in their art career it's basics that will help you regardless so clara do you want to take it away with the first tip we have yeah i think like deepti said these are tips that honestly i should be doing like this is one that i'm so guilty of not doing enough of and that is a daily sketchbook practice now we don't just mean draw on your sketchbook the key word here is daily why is it daily deep d and not say five hour sketchbook marathon once a week well daily first of all will put you in the habit of having a routine and it's kind of like going to the gym i think it's better to work out 10 minutes every single day because you're strengthening your body in a slow incremental way rather than one if you do it once for five hours it's just going to be too much and you're not going to be able to absorb so i think it's about realizing that it's a process and it's a learning process and if you're even sketching 10 minutes a day it's furthering you it's small steps to like a bigger goal rather than one huge step which just might be frustrating and you'll get burnt out and you're 10 minutes in your sketchbook it can be literally anything it can be little drawings of your guinea pig because you honestly cannot think of something else to draw it could be you just throwing down crummy crummy sketches just to get an idea and i think that's important to recognize because on instagram everybody has a perfect sketchbook and everything looks so nice but deepti does anybody's sketchbook truly look like that in real life no if it's on instagram it's a good page on sketch in the sketchbook because they thought i'm gonna put this on instagram most of us are not putting our sketchbooks on instagram and you know i like what you said about it can be anything because it can really just be you experimenting with a new tool and seeing what kind of marks a certain brush pen you just bought can make and playing around with mark making it doesn't have to be something representational or you can just sit and draw your foot over and over again or it really is as long as you're working your brain and you're working your hand and you're putting something down on a piece of paper you are farther along than you were 10 minutes ago and that's the importance of a sketchbook practice deep do you know when's my favorite time to sketch because i have this baby sketchbook that i don't show anybody and i carry it with me everywhere i always sketch it when i'm waiting in line at the grocery store now because you know with the pandemic you have to wait 15-20 minutes in line to go to trader joe's and i'm like well i could look at my phone or i could draw these funny-looking people in front of me people probably think you're so cool they're like wow look at this cool lady who has this fun art practice we have this comment from w315 that says can i just doodle aimlessly or is that no way to grow i could probably draw the same boring thing each day we kind of just talked about this clara but do you want to take this question do it it does not matter how insignificant it is maybe you just sketch for a few minutes and then write down some notes for me the writing process is just as important as the drawing process and just because you draw the same thing doesn't mean it's not worthwhile i mean i had a colleague who did a project it was called armchair literally he drew the same chair for four years over and over and over again and he made a brilliant project so never worry about that this comment from seven angelic is really interesting i think common with a lot of people that says yeah if i don't have enough time i feel like i shouldn't invest but no more must just sketch yeah i think worrying so much about the end product and how much time you have is really um overthinking it it's really about just doing it and getting in the habit of doing it it's like brushing your teeth you know if you you're like i only have two minutes or i don't even how long are you supposed to brush your teeth for oh god i don't know you know just brush your teeth regardless if you think you're gonna get every single tooth and have like a dentist quality brushing maybe you can't do that but it's the habit and then you'll you know you won't have your teeth falling out wow deep dee and her metaphors but yeah what i'm trying to say it's it's a it doesn't matter about the end product with your sketchbook really just do it to create a practice and you will see improvement and we literally mean 10 minutes you guys because i think some people might look at that curriculum and say really professor liu you think 10 minutes is enough jeez you really lowered your standards with your pedagogy and i'm like i would rather somebody draw 10 minutes every day for a month than once a month for an hour that to me is not very helpful because there's no continuity and you're just doing it in one big spur you're not gonna gain very much from that now if you guys don't know where to start we do have a google doc that the link is in the video description below and we'll talk more about it later but a lot of these directives they're simple but sometimes people really don't know where to start so this is something very concrete and specific which is visual journaling and we do have a video on it and it's super fun because it's sketchbook work but you do collage you can add stickers you can draw on top of it and so for those of you guys who are feeling like i really just don't know what to do this is a really good part to get started now if you still can't think of what to do beyond that tvs and movies who's not doing that nowadays deepti what can you do when you're watching a tv show you can sketch you can look at your favorite characters and draw them i actually like this comment from lambda that says i'm going to do this right now sketching profinet yeah sketch us posted in our discord channel we love to see it but just you're always looking at whenever you're looking and you're observing regardless of if it's in life or in screen on screen just sketch it you know process that in your brain and put it on a piece of paper um but i love doing tv shows because i'm already obsessed with the characters and it's so fun to just why not why not it's super fun jennifer is saying but what if you have no motivation at the moment that's true let's say it's the end of the day and you're like oh i don't want to do this i just want to go to bed could you give yourself 10 minutes that's why we say 10 minutes because most people can say no to an hour that's like oh no big of a commitment 10 minutes you're watching a tv show you're watching jane eyre with michael fassbender whatever it is you're watching could you whip out that sketchbook and just do something for 10 minutes and you don't even it does not have to be good because a lot of the motivation i think is people say well i don't want to draw right now because i know i'm going to do a bad job fine do a bad job that's a bad job i mean i would i would even think like do you if you have no motivation channel that anger and lack of motivation into your sketchbook like just put some ink on your thumb and just scribble it around you know and you you have no idea what you might discover in that process so if you're feeling unmotivated slam your head into your sketchbook and then draw the outline of the imprint that your face makes and this like just just find a way to do it because you will discover something and make it fun if you're not feeling motivated just make it make it fun jayco says i always feel like all my sketches need to be top-notch and i get discouraged when it doesn't guys have any tips on how to change that mindset oh yeah basically have no expectations you just say okay this is my crap sketchbook in fact i literally had a student who told me that her sketchbook was her quote garbage can that's her attitude about her sketchbook really the social media stuff has created totally unrealistic expectations like deepti do your sketches all become top-notch like what percentage of sketching that you do is top-notch zero it's never top-notch i've never had a top-notch sketch and that's not the point of sketching there's a reason it's sketching it's a tool for brainstorming and forgetting the juices flowing and for improving and great if you want to post that on social media but you should not have an end goal when it comes to sketching in your sketchbook it should really be about the process and discovery um and that's what distance yourself from having an end goal and any expectations and just focus on the now this is a really great suggestion from simple triskel who says i have a checkbox for quote creative effort could be a line one minute gesture writing or sewing it all counts the habit is the thing that is so well said you guys listen to simple triscule because those are words of wisdom now if you really really cannot figure out what to do put on art prof guys i looked at our channel yesterday because it was the new year we have 687 videos so you guys don't get to tell me that there's nothing to draw what is fun about the draw alongs dp now even if you missed it you didn't get to do the live you can still go back and do them do you think that's a good way to get started definitely i mean it's fun because sometimes you know you don't want to draw by yourself so watching our drawings we're drawing with you and we tend to choose pretty funny topics or you know it's it's loose and it's open and there's not a lot of you know emphasis putting up put on having a wonderful final product and it it's great it's accessible and it's a perfect amount of time too our drawings are what um about like an hour and a half long so it's a great way to just sit down and crank something out and we walk you through the whole process we walk you through our thought process and it's a great way of having like a kind of like one-sided but a discussion and if you're watching live you can chat with us so i think we cover a wide range of topics there's so many draw alongs that you can do for whatever stage you're at or whatever you're interested in really i think it's very useful now we are going to talk a lot about drawing from life and different sources we don't think here that one is better than the other my feeling about photos and observation and on-site is as a self-taught artist you got to do all of it like i think it's a mistake to only draw from life and refuse to draw from a photo i also think the opposite is a problem why do you think people need to learn to draw from different types of references deep d well it's completely different ways of seeing for example when you're drawing from life you're taking something three-dimensional that you're viewing processing it in your head and then creating a two-dimensional piece with it and that's a whole scale in and of itself using references is another skill in and of itself and when you're an artist you have to be flexible and it also takes trying a bunch of different things to figure out what you like and what works for you but also when you're entering a career as an artist people might ask you to do a variety of different things so being flexible and being knowledgeable and having these core skills of learning to draw from life and from references and putting it all together is gonna make you a stronger artist but i will say that this tip that we have of drawing a self portrait from a mirror is foolproof will always be there because you are always there and a mirror is easy to find or just go buy one if you don't have one um but it's a lot of people make excuses about drawing from observation but this one it's it's you can't run away from it folks you will never say no to yourself you're always available 24 7 you're free and i really like this as an option because i love drawing from life but there are so many practical issues with drawing from life oh it's cold there's flies on my head because i'm at a cemetery in middle southern utah and oh my god if i died nobody would find me but when you have a mirror and you're in your room and you've got a model who's going to cooperate you can really take your time because i think when you draw from life there is this almost clock ticking because you're like oh no the jackfruit's gonna rot and then my video tutorial is gonna be all messed up or oh the guinea pig had to make a poop or whatever but when it comes to draw from life you can just relax it's it's really nice like you've done one before right deep deep oh yeah i've done so many self-portraits from a mirror and i mean it's kind of fun to look at your face and really analyze it and find the cool parts of your face and exaggerate and also your subject can't get mad at you for portraying like if you're drawing a friend they might be like that doesn't look like me it's you do with it this self-portrait clara it looks like you but it could be a caricature you can play around with color like you did here it doesn't have to be a realistic drawing from life but the fact that you are using a live model and processing that and creating 3d to 2d is is the thing that matters so have fun with it but it's a really good skill parizod sorry if i said your name ron says i always rip out my drawings when they don't reach my expectations i'm really trying to get over that mindset i feel that having an old half empty not aesthetic sketchbook really helps guys save your stuff because i know it's frustrating because in the moment you're like oh i never want to look at that drawing again it's a piece of garbage right everybody thinks that but if you hang on to that stuff and you go back and you look at it maybe a month later i think it's super fun to go in and be like oh my god that's how i was drawing three months ago i mean i go back at my stuff and i'm like whoa i i'm a lot better at this than i used to be do you ever see that progress dfd yeah even when i was doing my um artist stream for art prof my artist profile i was looking at stuff that i made when i was like nine or ten and obviously that's not stuff that i am like oh gosh i wish i was drawing like i'm embarrassed of it but there are parts of it where i was like wow look at how like free i was and how much i didn't care about what like there's always something that you can draw from from your previous work so if you want to rip it out fine but have a folder that you put all the rip outs in you know don't rip it into shreds and get rid of it because there's always a nugget of inspiration i think that you can find in your previous work and it's a shame to make any sort of effort and then throw it in the trash by the way if you have a self-portrait that also means you can send us your self-portrait so we can post it on the artproff family instagram if you guys have not looked at it there's such cool stuff it's a self-portrait from people in the community you can submit multiple so if you want to send us two self-portraits or three or you can send us one now and send us one three months later or if you want to drive me right now in all of our glory we also post staff fan art so win-win situation in my opinion mj says any advice for someone with chronic illness i'm mostly housebound and get bad brain fog well any comments about that deep d what would you suggest i mean it's hard for me to say because i um i don't have chronic illness but i would say work with you know what what works for you and find a practice that works for you there's no right or wrong way but it is you know a routine and a practice and it should be making you feel good about your work and progressing you forward so if you are housebound and you get bad brain fog maybe the 10 minutes a day sketchbook thing could could be good for you because you can do it from your home and it doesn't take a ton of time but experiment don't be hard on yourself and know that the fact that you're even trying and uh making an effort is much more than some people can say so do what makes you feel good and it's all about the long-term process um and being the best artist that you can be and you guys nobody should do things i mean yeah there are things that we're going to recommend we're going to say if you can this is very helpful but if you can't that's fine right i mean everybody has to work with their own situation and if something is impossible for you it's okay you will find other ways around it and what we try to do with our curriculum is to make it flexible enough so that people have multiple options because a lot of the things we're gonna suggest you may not be able to do and that's okay totally fine okay gesture drawing really really good skill i would say ideally from life but like we said you can draw from a tv show or from a video or something like that but if you can life is great now you can draw pets as we're showing you guys here because when your friend has a bulldog how can you not draw their bulldog basically this like mythological beast that they're living with but there's other options as well because i know people get stressed about this because they go oh but the bulldog's not gonna sit still for me and oh he just got up and moved i can't do it and so people just say nope that's not an option i cannot do it so what do you say about that deep deep person or cat or whatever work with what you have and i would say yes you can do it i mean i think gesture drawings are such a such a such a good way of again learning how to distance yourself from the final product and just be quick and loose and it really really i think every time i do gesture drawings pushes me forward and makes me be a stronger artist so i mean for me i like doing gesture drawings just of a chair even like it doesn't have to be it can be whatever you have there but yes something that moves is a great challenge i think your feet are a great option because you can just like stick them out and sit here and draw but work with what you have and really give it a shot because yes your subject might move yes your subject might not be cooperative the cat might you know be moving every three seconds but great do a three second gesture drawing see what you create it could be really really fun and really you guys the point of a gesture is not accuracy it's about capturing a moment for example do you guys see the gesture drawing that lauren did on the lower middle where the cat's like look it just looks like somebody like stepped on it like it does not look like a realistic cat but honestly d that is my favorite drawing on this page and yet it's the least accurate of all the drawings and so don't tell yourself that this is about oh it's to be photorealistic because you can capture personality without the image looking accurate absolutely just wanted to give a huge shout out to um ashish i hope i said that right i'm sorry if i didn't for the super chat thank you so so much and deep d sometimes gesture drawings happen and you're not even planning for it i think this was drawn on a brown paper bag yeah so i did these from life of my roommate at this time and it was on like a brown paper bag from the takeout we had just ordered and there was just a red pen sitting there and we were watching tv after eating and i did these from life and i think they were each like five minute gestures and he was moving and not interested in being a good subject but i love these and i actually put them on my instagram and it was really fun to work with that challenge and i don't know if he likes them but that doesn't matter you know i definitely learned and it was it was awesome actually you guys know when people stay still for a long time when they're playing video games just do this like if you have a nephew or your kids watch them play video games it's like just their hands and thumbs move but everything else is pretty much still and so i drew my nephew playing video games and he sat for a while i want to give a huge shout out to karen thank you for your super chat too it's so appreciated guys and it really helps art prof uh survive and keep making content for you guys so thank you i wanna show this question from tom g who says can you become a successful full-time artist when self-taught or do you have to attend a school what do you think deepti i think you can absolutely become an incredibly successful full-time artist as a self-taught artist i don't think you have to go to art school art school of course has a wonderful community that you have there are perks to go to art school but really it's about discipline and having a practice that works for you and developing have it finding community um but there are so i can't my brain is having a fart right now i can't think of anyone on the top of my head where i'm like they were self-taught maybe you can't claire but it's so possible and way more common than you think it is so um don't compare yourselves to others and what you know opportunities they have just focus on what you can do and it is super possible i believe lisa congdon was self-taught you guys should look her up she's a very successful illustrator because really who's reading your resume when you are working on an animated film they just want to know can you get the work done honestly you guys the only people that care are the people in academia and you guys know what i think about them so it's like yeah if you want to be a tenured professor at a university they really care did you go to yale or not but i mean everybody else is like i just want the work so don't worry about that at all you guys and sometimes these sketches you guys it's my kids lounging around in their pajamas this is my daughter watching tv she's just a big blob of clothing these are some sketches from my taiwan tutorial this is my nephew again playing video games and eating candy at the skating rink that we were hanging out at so sometimes it's these like idle moments where you're like oh i can't believe i have to hang out here what am i gonna do it's like yeah i could look at instagram but i could also draw or sometimes things develop into something bigger like this is from taiwan this is my dad and my daughter playing go and they were there for a while so i really could sit and develop it but other times you're just on the street and you've got two minutes to go okay so deepti i think a big part of being a self-taught artist is learning how to draw space and how to understand backgrounds and landscapes and how to use that why are we saying do it on site because out of all the practicalities this is the one that's the biggest pain in the butt well i think when you're drawing on site again i'll say it so many times the process of seeing something in real space 3d and then translating it onto a page in 2d is a really difficult skill that's overlooked but also when you're drawing on site you're able to walk up to a tree and really analyze the textures and look at the colors you're able to with reference images you're given a frame and that's your frame and that's what you can work with when you're in a food hall like this clara you can really shift your body and figure out the composition that you want and you have so much more control as the artist to manipulate what you are going to draw and even just sit there and smell the smells it's a really luxurious involved experience that will regardless of if you're thinking about it translate onto your page well because so much of this is being in the space and physically experience it but also like the atmosphere like you said this is from my taiwan tutorial and this is a hole in the wall restaurant it's like a hole in the hole in the wall restaurant i mean it was so quirky and weird i think the kitchen was probably the size of my bathroom and my bathroom was not that big and i was waiting for food and i was like you know i'm gonna draw their kitchen sometimes you're at a temple with a beautiful sculpture but i think being in the place like smelling the smells hearing the sounds so even if you're in the space for a very short period of time just getting to be there and remembering what that felt like like this tofu cart which was in front of me i literally think for about two minutes and then it went away and i was like okay i guess that's all i'm gonna do but smelling the space feeling the light these are all things that you guys are not going to experience if you download a picture of taiwan food market it's such a different type of thing now deepti what do you do if you can't travel to taiwan because obviously not everybody can do that are there still options near where you live absolutely draw your bed right like as soon as you got out of your bed and it's the sheets are messy draw that there's a story there you know maybe you had nightmares or maybe you had a really pleasant sleep but you draw that draw your bathroom walk right out onto your stoop wherever you are you know there is a story everywhere um hello the filmmaker speaks but there is a narrative everywhere and it could it could be your cat's litter box it could be your shower right after you took a shower the water is glistening you know there is a story everywhere and it does not have to be such a beautiful exciting place like taiwan it can be your grandmother's backyard there is something everywhere and you will discover that just force yourself to sit down and look uh and make observations because you'll be surprised what you can find and you guys things don't have to be so picturesque i mean a lot of people will say to me well why did you choose to draw that when you could download a picture of a corpse flower from national geographic and draw that i'm like yeah i could but i would rather draw this crummy little weed in my driveway because i can really see it and i can really engage with it you know if you really need to draw a corpse flower that's cool that's fine but have the experience of drawing that crappy little weed that's in your driveway thank you huge thank you to gargi for this super chat thank you again we we appreciate it so so much guys thank you so much guys 2021 we're gonna put art prof on the map now i know you guys all love us and we love you guys so much but we would like our family to get bigger so more people can access our content so thank you for your support it really helps us do that ideas and brainstorming now why are we putting this in deeply because i think i've heard a lot of self-taught artists say to me well listen i don't feel that great about my technique my drawing skills aren't really there yet i'd like to be better about color i don't think i'm ready to do ideas or to brainstorm what do you say to that well i think it's important to realize that yes technique is important and yes being a very strong technical artist can take you far but content and narrative and the emotion behind your art you're an artist for a reason and that's down to the ideas behind your work and what it means and what you're trying to say even abstract art that you look at that you're like huh a lot of time like that has emotion behind it and it has an impact so where do you get that content and that narrative and those feelings it's through the brainstorming process and the ideas and your work does not have to be the most beautiful renaissance painting to create an impact the impact and the narrative and thing that's unique is the content behind it and you as an artist and how you show that so that's when ideas and brainstorming comes into into play i don't think you should do them separately because i've seen a lot of people do that where they're like okay right now i'm gonna work on my skills i'm gonna get really good at it and they do that for a couple years and then all of a sudden they realize oh no i need to start thinking using my brain about what my work is about and then it's like they're brainstorming and idea development it's so behind their technical skill that it really doesn't work out very well in fact sometimes deepti i've seen people in my classes their ideas are so good and their technique is okay but the technique is enough to carry the idea and sometimes it's the other way around where it's like wow the technique is so good but the idea is so boring who cares and so i don't think you guys that this can really fly in terms of separating idea from execution i really think you've got to learn how to balance them i mean was that a process you went through at all absolutely and i mean when we're talking about a sketchbook practice and doing gesture drawings of course there's not going to be some crazy idea between you drawing your cat for five minutes but when you're creating larger pieces or a series or something you know that you want to spend more time with you it's all back and forth you know you work on the idea the technique comes with it because part of your technique that you use might be rooted in the idea you know there might be an idea where you want to make a piece about technology or about ai and then your technique might inform that like what you're incorporating maybe you go from oh this is a traditional painting to maybe it should be a sculpture um so it all should be a process and a conversation um and that's just what's gonna get your your make your piece so much stronger bato shino says is there a good way to learn from books like loomis bridgeman and richard absolutely i mean i use dr paul richey's artistic anatomy book it's just a really good reference for when you're learning anatomy i know a lot of people use loomis and bridgeman i believe the bark method as well this is one of those things if it works for you great okay loomis is not my cup of tea i just don't think in that manner and so it's not good for me but i know jordan loves loomis so it's like whatever works this comment from lambent is interesting do i have to draw realistically with perspective and stuff because that always trips me up um i don't think even if you're drawing from life it doesn't have to be realistic it's how you translate what you're seeing onto a piece of paper if you're not great at perspective practice it but lean into what you're not good at i mean that's how i discovered drawing ugly things and why i loved skewing perspective and making bodies look disproportionate is because i always accidentally did it and then i was like hey why not just really lean into this um and you might discover your style and what you love but what do you think clara about drawing realistically i think everybody has a different set of goals for some people that's very important to them it was for me i really was such a stickler about learning all those fundamentals i know for other people it's less important i don't think you should be doing it because you think oh well if i don't draw realistically i'm a bad artist like that's not the reason to do it the reason to do it is because oh i see these skills i think they could be useful to me i'm going to learn them don't say oh deep dee draws realistically i want to be like that and if i don't draw like deep d i'm never going to be a good artist like if you have that attitude you're learning it for the wrong reasons so i would just say keep that in mind steven says how should i draw a self portrait if i don't have an easel i always struggle because i tend to move between my head a lot in order to see if you watch the tutorial that's actually the number one issue with self portraits is people don't know how to set up the mirror if you set up the mirror incorrectly you will draw like this you can't draw like that like i would die if i did do a drawing like that and so there is a way to angle your sketchbook your easel whatever you're working on with your mirror so that you're doing this it's like a one inch turn to see the drawing and yourself so that's a setup issue that's not the equipment that's what i would keep in mind okay let's move on and talk about thumbnail sketches why is this an essential skill for a self-taught artist thumbnail sketches is all about the process and you before you want to jump into the big big big kahuna piece you want to plan it out because you're going to trip up on the final if you just jump right into that so it teaches you composition it teaches you lighting it teaches you process and figuring out the steps to create a final piece and it's a great tool to have when you're creating that final piece because it's almost like a note that you wrote to yourself if you're ever like oh wait why does this not refer back to your thumbnails your thumbnails are always the initial point of ideas inspiration and it'll it'll ground you if you're ever feeling frustrated in your final piece this i also think ties into ideas and brainstorming because if you have an idea it's not always clear exactly how you should represent it or what media you should do and so your thumbnail sketches that's the blueprint for your project i mean if you're gonna bake a cake are you gonna just run out and go like hmm i guess if i get some eggs i can make a cake i mean dude i'm gonna get a recipe okay fine i am not like bobby flay i can't make it up most of us are not and so i need a recipe and that's what you're doing here is you're hashing out what is the recipe do i need a pound of sugar or do i need 18 pounds i don't know what needs 18 pounds but maybe you can justify it so your thumbnails are quick crappy little sketches and if you guys watch this tutorial it's me and kat creating thumbnails based on jack and the beanstalk just totally spontaneously and i think a lot of people realize after that stream it wasn't that they weren't good at thumbnails it's just they weren't thinking about all the various factors like dp do you do thumbnail sketches i do especially as an animator you're drawing a lot of things over and over again and you want to make sure what you're spending a day to animate one second for looks good and the thumbnails really like you said claire it hashes things out do i like this background do i like the depth do i have like the perspective do i like my character being here do i like the color palette i have figure all of that out when you're working on a scale this small and not when you're working huge because it's so easy to restart and try out you can you can like bang out a 100 thumbnail sketches in an hour or less than that in 10 minutes you know it really doesn't have to have much detail as long as it makes sense to you um but i do thumbnail sketches all the time because why waste a huge canvas or a day of animating 10 seconds when you can just figure that stuff out in the early stages darian says i really try to draw things in perspective and realistically but they always turn out fantasy and animated is that bad to draw everything in one style it really really depends on where you are and how much experience you have like i would say if you're in high school that's probably not such a good thing because early on in your artistic development you want to treat the world like the biggest buffet like taste a little bit of everything and then you'll realize oh i really do not like rambo tans i don't know i've never tried one before but i should the point is that you can quickly fall into a lot of habits that then become a crutch and that can become a limitation because maybe because you're relying on that style so much that you're not trying anything new it's hard because other people i say listen you gotta buckle down and hone that style so deepti how would you know where you fall with that see i think the idea of using it as a crutch is a good one do you find yourself resorting or using that style because it's what's easiest to you and you're nervous about trying other things or just doesn't work out then maybe push yourself to try other things and i would say that you know if you can't draw things realistically push yourself to try and do that because a lot of times it is nice to have the foundation of really being able to draw things from life and nailing that down because then you can really mess with things and skew things but having that basic foundation is is key because you can always ground yourself there but like you said clara it's the best kind of artists that i always see are people who can do a variety of things and then they really pick and choose and create their own style base off of that don't fall into the trap of um seeing that you're good at something and not trying other things just because you're nervous about it and you're like oh this works for me i'm just gonna i'm just gonna stay in in this lane um you owe it to yourself to try other things because who knows listen to yourself if you hear yourself saying that's really hard i don't want to do that i'll just do this instead that that's a sign that you're probably doing it for the wrong reasons so keep that in mind vanessa says how important is it to structure what you learn when you're a self-taught artist especially for the first year of learning is it enough to just draw what you like and see and where it takes you what do you think again i think it depends on what your goals are as an artist and for me what's really important that i say to all people who are starting out is as long as you're making work good let's form a routine and let's form a practice and if what gets you working is to draw what you like and what you see and see where that takes you that is much better than not doing it because you are not doing something you like um but i would say pushing yours if you're trying to be a better artist and you're trying to really further your career and your development you're gonna have to do things that you don't like i don't love doing self portraits and i don't but i had to do it and and now i don't have to do it that much but i really it it taught me a lot so structure i think is key but at the you know at the very beginning just make work just draw hold on it says it on the back of my shirt it says it on the back of my shirt just draw straw guys and really you guys half the battle in teaching yourself is producing work it does not matter what you're making or what you're learning if you're not making the work i mean productivity is huge that is half the battle like i'd rather somebody be producing a ton of work and maybe not covering as many subjects than being like oh i addressed 18 different topics this month but i didn't make a lot of work that's not going to help you very much at all damini says i can do realistic but i can't draw anything from my imagination how do i improve myself this is your territory because i got some thoughts about this to tell you how much um a lot of us cannot do that don't be hard on yourself first of all it's really hard to draw from your imagination but i would say that for me what helps drawing for my imagination is use realistic things as a jumping off point use your sketchbook but brainstorm think about you know even if you draw a gourd or a mushroom or something from life um add a face to it and see what happens you know you use your sketchbook and it's a process so how many times am i going to say the word process but it is a process and just remove the anxiety and the need to create something amazing like how you do probably with realistic work and experiment and try don't um feel married to the idea of having an image in your brain and needing the sketchbook piece or whatever you're making to look just like that use it as a jumping off point and see where it takes you i can tell you dimini i cannot draw from my imagination i cannot okay like i have tried and it never worked like i look at people like kat who did that character design stream with julie ben bassett and they were just pumping out stuff out of their head and it looked incre and i was so freaking jealous and you know something that doesn't mean i'm a worse artist it means i'm a different artist okay there's frequently this idea that drawing from imagination means you are the most advanced and oh i'm so good i don't need references i think that's a mistake guys because when you have references it's just enriching your vocabulary it's just giving you more ideas and i've had students say oh i'm so embarrassed that i couldn't draw a horse from life i'm like i can't draw for a horse from life can you does that mean you and i are a bad artist because we can't do that no so you can practice a lot of its drawing from life and just building up that like visual dictionary in your head like you're just adding files to your brain seeing different shapes and practice practice and you will definitely get there so if you guys want to access this this is a doc that we have accessible for everybody the link is in the youtube video description and it basically maps out what we told you guys today it also has part two as well but we will do a stream based on that we have links to the videos and we also have links to the slideshows and lots of content and this slideshow that you guys just watched is also available for you guys to use as guidance and we have many other videos about being a self-taught artist as well but we have an amazing art craft share for you guys today that is just blew me out of the water so art craft share is where one of you guys creates artwork that is in response to a video or in this case multiple hard prop resources so i want to show you guys this piece by priya umargi who was initially inspired by the december art dare where we asked people to illustrate idioms so priya decided to do hindi idioms and they sat in the coffee shop with their notepad thumbnail very proud of that and the idiom is to throw water on a carefully completed work indicating quick and careless destruction of cautiously completed work so what priya ended up doing was she used this i as a reference from our flickr account and created another version of it so hey hang on let me walk you guys through it there's so many parts to this okay so this is a december art there priya used some of the eye images on our flickr page then priya watched our colored pencil tutorial and they said i realized the pandemic has thrown water over my plans for 2020 so it came to spraying water on demonstrating the idiom and they used ethanol instead it's a sanitizer that's used to disinfect the virus and they watch this graphite video to get permission to throw materials together and make something different because in this tutorial i actually rip up my drawing which i know people freak out about but that's experimentation so what do you say this is so i don't think i've ever seen an art prof share use this many resources from us before this is so cool i mean it's so amazing as an art prop staff member to see uh someone in our community tying together so many different videos and resources that we've provided and creating something so cool clara when you first showed me these two pieces side by side i saw the first one and then you pulled up the second one and i literally was like it was so cool to see it as like a a diptych and like side by side and i mean visually it's just beautiful i love how much thought you're putting into it and how it's so personal to you and the world that we live in and really like there's so many layers to it this is such a great example of like technical skill working really well with concept um which i know we talked about in our in our piece but you know there is brainstorming there is idea generation there is technical skill there's working from references and uh working with you know something that's personal to you it's so layered and i really love this piece and thank you so much for like caring about art prof enough to look at so many of our tutorials and really it's so heartwarming to see and like it makes a lot of our work really worth it to look at something like this so thanks great work i mean honestly you guys this is ultimately where i think the resources should go to because this is priya's thing okay like this does not look like one of our tutorials i mean it draws from all the tutorials but i was just thrilled that priya could blend so many different resources and techniques into a single artwork and that's when it really is your own it's totally fine if you do one of our tutorials and you want to follow step by step and you want to do exactly as we show it that's a great way to learn but this is a whole other way of processing that information and thinking about how you can manipulate it and change it for your own use now if you guys would like to submit for an art prof share oh by the way priya is here with us live in the chat and they are saying by the way i learned how to draw eyeballs from an art prof tutorial okay so there's another one in there so really great job freya on this project so if you guys want to be considered for an art prof share just go to ourprof.org click on tutorials and there is a button that will take you to the art cross share submission form so you can be considered for a youtube shout out or you can just tag us on instagram and use hashtag artprof share artprof has a podcast it's available on spotify and also on itunes and in a little bit deep dee and i will be hanging out in the art prof discord you can meet us in the post live streams channel and please subscribe to our channel if you want to continue to grow as an artist in 2021 and thank you as always to our top patreon supporters and to everybody here who watches our content participates in the conversations we were talking earlier about how much we love this community so everybody thank you so much for watching

Channel: Art Prof: Create & Critique

Views: 83,963

Keywords: self-taught artist, self taught artist journey, self taught artist curriculum, self taught art, self taught artist tips, self taught artist progress, how to teach yourself to draw, how to be successful as a self-taught artist, art curriculum, art school curriculum, best art curriculum, art curriculum homeschool, high school art curriculum, best homeschool art curriculum, how to teach yourself to draw realistically, artist self taught, becoming an artist from scratch

Id: KIEXU1tP8rI

Length: 47min 51sec (2871 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 02 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/ZombieButch]

A very short version - though you should really watch the whole video - is:

• Draw every day, even if it's only junk drawings for 10 minutes.
• Lots of drawing from life: still life, gesture drawing, self-portraits in a mirror, interiors and landscapes.
• Thumbnails and brainstorming ideas. (If you're asking yourself, "But when do I get to do fun drawings?", this is it.)