Stay Productive as an Artist! Habits & Tips

hello this is professor Liu we're gonna talk today about tips for working in the studio and being productive because as much as we would all like to be productive sometimes it's more challenging than we would like it to be before we start though I want to remind everybody that you can purchase a portfolio critique or a Skype session if you would like some guidance in terms of your studio practice if you are applying to art school this year this is a really great way for you guys to have support from a professional artist from myself from one of the teaching artists everybody on art prof has a totally different set of expertise so you can just go to our profit org purchase a critique and get the information there let's talk about studio tips because I think what's very tricky about having a studio practice no matter what age you are whether you're in high school college student you're working professionally I think most people have so many things that they're trying to juggle I mean my students in art school they've got crazy busy schedules it usually taking three studio classes some liberal arts courses high school students have the same thing and sorry to tell you students this but it only gets more complicated when you get out of school and so carving out that time to really be focused and productive in the studio I think is an ongoing challenge for everybody I don't think anybody has it figured out but I do want to share with all of you some basic strategies that I know I have come to rely on when I am struggling to really buckle down and get some work done I think there was this quote that Chuck Close said he's a contemporary artist he said that inspiration is for amateurs the rest of us just show up and get to work and that's a very common concern for a lot of artists is it's very easy and I've totally done this myself a million times to have every excuse in the world for why you're too tired to go to the studio why you don't feel like you're in the right mood you don't feel like your mind sets in the right place if you keep saying things like that to yourself you will never get to the studio and trust me I have totally done that a million times I still do it every now and then I hope to think that I'm more disciplined now but it's a challenge for a lot of people that sometimes you only have so much time in your week to be in the studio and then I have definitely been there where I carve out that time I'm in the studio and I can't focus I can't get anything done and that's even more infuriating because you work so hard to cover up that time in the studio and so the question is how do we set up a situation that is going to make things really work for us those of you guys who are watching please feel free to jump into the chat box I'd love to hear from all of you what are your tips for how to stay productive in the studio for how to stay on task because I know if you're in school you have teachers breathing down your neck you've got deadlines and those can be very stressful but I actually think the more challenging thing is when you get out of school you don't have teachers breathing down your neck you don't necessarily have really hardcore deadlines and it's hard to motivate yourself on an ongoing manner and those are some of the things that I want to address for me I think actually the hardest part about being productive in the studio is getting started that sounds obscenely simple but I had a colleague ways to teach with of the college many years ago and his mantra was just start and I just love that because every time I feel frustrated about my productivity in my head I just think just start it's really that simple sometimes but the thing is how do you get to the point where you actually have started now my and analogy for this is going to the gym to exercise okay because the thing is I know that if I go to the gym to exercise number one it's always good for me I have never gone to the gym and regretted it in fact afterwards I feel great I feel super energized and so why is it that something I want to do that I know is going to make me feel better it's so difficult to do and so for me it's this difficult thing of going from hmm I think I should go exercise to actually getting into the car to actually drive to the gym to go there that's the hard part and I think for a lot of artists it's the same way it's like you know you want to be in the studio you know you want to be working but then how do you cross over to that point where you're actually in the studio actually doing something because the thing is once I'm at the gym and I'm on the treadmill and I'm running it's great it's so easy I know exactly what I need to do I'm totally in the groove that's so easy but it's like getting to that point is hard and I feel that going to the studio as an artist is a similar thing and so it feels ridiculous to complain about that because I think if you have the privilege of having any studio time as an artist for yourself that's a wonderful thing but the thing is how do you maximize that amount of time I don't have a lot of time during my week to be in the studio because I'm either teaching I'm working on art Prof I'm giving a lecture I'm taking care of my kids I have a thousand things that could be prioritized over being the studio and yet somehow I got to make the time for this oh hello lejana you're in the chat box yeah if you guys have suggestions for studio tips what helps you stay motivated what helps you actually get to the studio and make it a productive section session because I definitely have had sessions in the studio where I'm just mad at myself or I'm not getting anything done I'm so frustrated and so I want to tell you guys some of the things that I do almost to trick myself into doing good work in the studio because it's like I know what's good for me but it's like why is it so hard to do something that you know is good for you I don't know why I think it's some mysterious quality of being an artist Lizzy Annie you're right on time yeah you guys are great thanks so much for showing up and let me know if you guys have questions about how to be productive in the studio I'd love to hear people's suggestions okay let's dig into some of the really concrete things that I do the mundane things that actually work so one thing that I would say and now just think about this dream I'm gonna talk about going to the studio in terms of having a home studio because I think that while there are many artists who do have studios that they rent and stuff I would guess that the vast majority of people don't have that so actually I'm wondering those of you guys who are watching right now how many of you have a home studio where you live and how many of you actually pay rent for a separate studio that is located other than where you live because there was only like a one-year period of my life where I did rent a studio and then after that year I had a shift of projects and honestly I just could not justify the expense it was so much money for something that I wasn't using full-time because I haven't clean other things to do and the thing is I cannot complain because I wasn't actually fully renting a studio I was actually subletting a piece of a studio and I had a really really good deal I mean some of the studios in the Boston area are crazy expensive and I had a great deal and even then I felt like it was too big of an expense let's see Casey has a school studio lady contention has home all Sola hona yeah I mean there's a split thing but I think also even if you have a studio in art school there are also challenges there as well but anyway even if you have studio at school this is what I always do I never put my supplies away so if I have like actually I've got a whole bunch sitting here like if I have this giant bin of art supplies I don't know why there's so much sandpaper in here but anyway if I have all these art supplies here okay in theory I could just keep them in a box stored away nicely and that'll be way more organized but I don't do that what I do if I'm actively working on a project I'll actually take the supplies and whatever work surface I have like I just have this crummy old white desk that I work on I put the supplies out so the drawing pencils are not in the box actually on the table now that sounds incredibly simple to be thinking about it that way but for me that is sometimes the difference because if I look at a box of art supplies and they're closed and everything's put away it makes me not want to work so much and so if I go up to my table and the pencils are out and the erasers are out it's so much easier to just pick one up and get to start it and so I always have my supplies out now it's a way mess here to do it that way but just mindset wise it's easier for me to just sit down pick something up and get started another thing that I do too is I don't leave my artwork out so my artwork is the opposite okay so for example last week I was doing these experiments so I'll just show you guys some of these so these are mezzotint prints that I made a long time ago they're on Tahlia prints of priests maul you can see from my hand that they're only about 5 inches tall or so and I have so many of these prints like like piles of them because I was trying to print in addition of many prints but sometimes to print an edition of five prints you got to print like 25 to get five they're absolutely perfect and so I have so many prints like all these prints that I have and I was like you know I really should do something with these and so Lauren Welch who is a teaching artist here at our prof. she said to me a week ago we need to cannibalize our artwork more often she's right I gotta do that I thought yeah I got all these pieces sitting around why are you I just make a collage out of them I got so many of these I mean I stole that from l-louise Sherrod who is another teaching artist here at art profs that's one of the things I love about art proper constantly stealing from each other it's a fabulous hello mr. t in the chat box everybody jump in tell me what your studio tips are okay so what I did was I made these collages so you can see there's one print here there's another one there and then I like ripped it up and I added glue and I made a whole bunch of these like little pieces and they're kind of a mess and I don't really know what I'm doing but it's fun to recycle your artwork I feel like it's very little work actually so these are just some quick collages if you look up close you can see them a little bit better I actually put some of these on my Instagram but I think some of them did not make it there so these are just some more experiments okay so I have a whole bunch of these okay so the thing about the artwork is I don't leave these out or I can see them I put them away now here's the reason why because I have a tendency and you guys can tell me if you do the same thing if my artwork is out I find that it's just too tempting to look at it every time I pass by and scrutinize myself like crazy and try to judge oh did I do a good job is this going somewhere should I do this instead and I don't think that's very helpful I'm somebody who thinks too much about their artwork and it becomes really not a good thing for me to do because I end up ruminating too much and that's not such a good thing okay so what I do actually is I will take these pieces and I try to take a break from them so instead of having these out on the table where I can see them this is what I just do I take them I take all the pieces and this is what I do I just make a pile like this I just stick them down like this so I don't look at the artwork when I'm not working and what that does is the next time I sit down to work I'm looking at these prints with a fresh set of eyes because let me know if you guys do this often times when I'm in the middle of working I try really hard not to judge what I'm doing because it's too much of a distraction so I just focus on the making and the really nice thing about these prints is that it was all about material it was all about experimentation and collage because it's old artwork I didn't have to think about oh what's the meaning and what am I trying to say it was purely engagement with the supplies which is great like I don't have a lot of projects very often where I can do that but the thing is if I'm thinking is it good is it bad while I'm working that's a really big problem for me and I'm always wrong like usually I put them away and pieces at the time I was making them I thought oh this is really good one and then I pull it out a week later I'm like no it's not other times you see pieces and you think yeah this is terrible I don't like this at all and then you pick it up a week later and you think you know that wasn't so bad maybe I should do this some more so I guess what I'm saying is for me when I'm in the studio in the heat of the moment I oftentimes have really poor judgment on my artwork and so putting it in this like blank pile of work when I'm not working I think is really helpful because that fresh pair of eyes is super super useful okay couple other things I do for home studio now I always do what I call simulating a commute so the thing about having a home studio is super convenient right you don't have to go anywhere to actually get there I just walked two feet and then I'm from my kitchen into my studio super easy but this thing is I get a little bit of cabin fever if I just wake up and work in the studio and what I do is for me I walk my kids to school technically I don't have to technically they could totally walk on their own but I love spending the time with them in the morning and it gets me outside it's not a super long walk the whole thing walking them there and back is probably like not even a half an hour or so and so I just find leaving the house really important now if I did not have kids I would still do this I I probably would go to a coffee place get a cup of coffee maybe I would go to Trader Joe's and pick up those candy cane JoJo's that only come out once a year and I bought three boxes last week maybe I'd do something like that something to get me out of the house so I can come back let's Cielo hone is saying I cannot keep racing stuff or a stop there almost a fear response got some really old stuff out to show myself I could really do something interesting as I who did this mr. T's saying my artists in the process and stuff around can be distracting oh that's interesting so you guys have a similar reaction because you know when you look at your artwork so long you just hate looking at it it's like I don't know it's like you can't see straight anymore and so I feel like it's already bad enough so that I got a look at it the whole time I'm working on it and so if I'm not working on it I don't want it being looking at it so stimulated commute because I just find that if I just stay in house I start to get really sleepy and just get outside it's really good now another thing I do and I just started doing this and it is so effective you guys my phone gets put in another room not the room next door the room that's like on the other side of the house okay because if my phone is even on my desk it's this terrible temptation and I know I shouldn't check it all the time I know what's better I can't help myself and so I put it in a room where getting up to go check it is enough of a hassle that I don't want to do that I am working on this I still don't have it perfect but I'm trying to make it so I checked social media only twice during the day I have yet to really do that but I just have found if I'm in the studio and my phone is like within the vicinity it's all over so put your phone somewhere else and I also tell myself when I'm at home working I don't do chores I will not live the dishwasher I will not just pop one load of laundry in there to get ahead I don't do it now it's annoying sometimes because I'm like I just got that laundry in at 11:00 and that would make my time at five o'clock so much easier but it's a distraction and so if I'm at home I have to be very disciplined and I set these rules and the rules are super super helpful by the way those of you guys who are watching right now tell me where you're from tell me what country you're in what city I'm always so interested to see who is on the chat lizzy annie is a very big procrastinator trying to complete my portfolio what do i do to be more productive I never feel fully immersed or focused in what I'm doing okay great question that actually comes up to what I was just talking about so I like to do what I call focused distraction now here's what I mean by this I mean that you want to be focused enough that you can do what you need to do but you don't want to be so focused that you actually distract yourself and so for me I usually have a podcast on I sometimes listen to music but we'll get into that later but what I like about listening to a podcast and there's a billion out there to choose from is it's something for me to focus on that is not my artwork that keeps me somewhat distracted but it's not so distracting that I have to stop what I'm doing in the studio to listen to it for example I'm not somebody who can like watch a movie and be in studio at the same time I know some people do that or some people have like YouTube on in the background I found the visuals too distracting so if it's something audio based I find that really great sometimes I'll listen to stand-up comedy but that gets a little old because you live in the same routine too many times my favorite podcast right now actually is on NPR it's called how I built this and I love that podcast because it's somewhat related to what I do with art Prof and so I do feel like I'm picking up tips and getting motivation and that keeps me focused enough on that that I don't room in a tour bother myself because you guys ever feel like being in the studio is like this mental self torture where you just end up going down this rabbit hole of we not helpful ideas about yourself as an artist like who do I think I am I don't know what I'm doing is this gonna work out it's like oh my god wow people are from everywhere Minneapolis San Jose North London England teeny town in the corner of Oklahoma where tornadoes more than trains Dominican in Baltimore Maryland Oh Prince George Canada so cool you guys we have such an amazing range of people on the stream every single time I'm just always so impressed if somebody from China very cool you guys thanks for letting me know where you are so the thing is I listen to the podcast because I focus on that because do you guys ever find that if you're not slightly distracted you just end up bothering self the whole time like if I were to give you guys a stream of consciousness if I don't have a podcast on I'm looking at the work I'm going crap I should have done that instead oh man so-and-so posted this thing the other day I'm so jealous their work is so much more liberated and exciting oh crap Eloise told me that I should do this for the collage but Lauren said I it's like this horrible like whirlwind of thoughts and so listening to the podcast keeps me going and the nice thing about podcast is that they're fairly long at least the ones that I listen to they're like at least 45 minutes at a time sometimes I don't like listening to music because it's broken up into individual songs and segments and so there isn't this like extended period of time that I feel like committed to because the thing about listening to a podcast I can't just listen to a podcast for three minutes and be done with it with music you can't you can be like oh well I just listened to songs I'm done I can get up and walk away but usually with the podcast I want to finish the whole thing and if that's a good 45 minute chunk that's a good way to get started Melbourne Australia lawanda California San Francisco Bay Area very cool you guys yeah and those of you who are in the top box tell me what your struggles are in the studio because it sounds simple doesn't it I'm an artist I work in the studio right I love it that's why doing it trust me I would not be doing it for any other reason and yet there are a lot of challenges for a lot of people now another thing that helps me is I have what I like to call well maybe I should have a different word for this because I know people use the word trigger in terms of like trigger warning so that's not a very um positive word I should come up with maybe signal okay a signal in terms of okay Clara time to go to you doesn't matter how you feel you're gonna go right now okay so there's two things that I do the first thing is oftentimes it's a physical act where I put a tool in my hand so let's see what's here okay we got a pallet knife see this okay so if I'm working on a painting and I need to get myself to the studio I just Lulay do this I take the knife I put it in my hand okay now the knife is in my hand and sometimes this tool is the physical engagement I need to get off my butt and go to the studio and paint for a long time I was doing these sculptures and I had this one sculpture tool I don't know if I have it over here my supplies are like such a total disaster you guys know like actually Casey just brought up keeping the studio organized see this retractable he told I had to cut a couple sheets of corrugated cardboard the other day because somebody bought a bunch of prints I could not find this knife like I tore apart like half my house like I opened all these boxes I like them oh my god and it's like I was like maybe I can use the pair of scissor I might know you need your retractable utility so this is a good incentive for staying organized because you don't to tear apart your entire house but anyway no matter what tool it is like let's say it's this brush okay and so you put the tool in your hand once it's in your hand that's the signal that you need to go to the studio now in terms of music I know a lot of people like to listen to music when they are in the studio you can create like a playlist that only listen to when you're in the studio and it shouldn't have songs that are in other playlists it should be very specific to the studio because the funny thing is the music I listen to in the studio it's not the same music I listen to when I'm cooking and it's not the same music that I listen to you when I'm on the treadmill like when I'm on the treadmill I listen to total trash like I listen to like super poppy corny like boom boom boom music because I gotta get all revved up okay but when I'm in the studio I listen to like very like mellow movie music that is like on but not really prominent because I listen to music that's like too exciting it's like I get distracted by that and I find movie music is nice because it's there but it's not meant to be the main attraction and so that sometimes helps as well mr. t is saying art has endless possibilities it can be easier to put restraints on yourself it helps me focus yeah that's why I like having these routines to fall back on because if I just say oh go work in the studio it's sort of hard to know what are the steps to actually do that I feel like a lot of the times especially on the Internet I hear all these things about oh how to be a better artist and people say things like be yourself sustain your passion and like yes I know that but what about the actual concrete steps you can do to actually make that happen and that's what I'm trying to address today so the thing about the trigger or a signal sorry I should use signal instead I actually do this thing where when I'm in the studio and this is so obnoxious and I could never have a studio mate for this reason I don't listen to playlist I just put one song on that's it I just listened to the same song over and over and over again I don't know if anybody else does it but I don't know why it's like there's something about that it sounds like a really annoying thing but when I'm in the studio actually helps me a lot and sometimes I get stuck on one song for like a month and other times like sometimes i fluctuate between like three songs between the last six months or something but the point is if it's a sound if it's a touch whatever sense you need to stimulate as a signal to get in the studio whatever works for you is great Oh Lyon is listening to this right now in the studio okay well Leon I guess I'm gonna be your podcast for today that certainly works actually one of my interns she told me that when she was in high school she would listen to my portfolio critiques on YouTube while she was working on her artwork because she found it very motivating so whatever works for you whatever is going to make that happen I think another thing to figure out is whether you are somebody who works better having like a marathon chunk of time or doing a little bit every day because I was gonna say earlier that it's better to break it up but then I was thinking you know what I had this session I think it was like last week I was working on the collages I was showing you guys earlier and I just cleared my evening and I just did that for four hours and I haven't done any studio work for awhile and most of the time my students in art school I tell them not to do the marathon because in art school it can really be a problem just because of the structure of school it's too difficult to do so I actually tell my students in art school that you know it's a lot more helpful to do a little bit every day like spread out your work on a drawing over three days instead of trying to get it all done at once but the thing is when you have a really unpredictable schedule like I do sometimes that 3-hour chunk is all I'm gonna get that week and if I don't do it I won't get it and for me I was talking to Lauren Welch about this teaching artist here at art proof that it's not so much that the art takes so much time as much as it is that finding the headspace for the studio is hard and so if you feel very fragmented with all your different commitments maybe it is better to say you know what all day Saturday I'm just gonna do Street I'm not gonna do anything else sometimes that can work about other times you can approach it almost like a musical instrument like for example I played piano and oboe when I was a kid and I think for music it is better to practice 15 minutes every day then once a week for an hour I think in that case it definitely is better but I think art is not quite the same thing I think it really depends on what rhythm works best for you and also what is your schedule I mean my schedule today is nothing like what it was when I was in art school and I don't think ever expected to go back to that and I'm always adapting depending on my kids schedules and whatever else is going on Palomas saying how do you keep yourself from becoming too mentally drained when working for a piece do you pace yourself take breaks keep snacks I feel fried after painting non-stop for more than three hours yeah that's really exhausting I mean I think the thing about being an artist is that it is physically taxing sometimes I mean I have a friend who works in engraving and I mean he told me that during his sessions he's just like bent over like this for like hours at a time and it really is a problem for a lot of people so I I do pace myself but I think sometimes paloma what I'll do is like a little shift of material like one thing that Alex row who is another actually he's in the picture over here this is Alex row Alex is primarily a painter he does illustration and a lot of drawing but one of his hacks which I thought was great he said he just has a hunk of clay on his desk and sometimes he'll just pick it up and just play with it a little bit I mean I suppose is sort of like a soothing thing but he said sometimes he just makes stuff and actually if you guys go to Alex's Instagram he was making a couple of these like little sculptures I mean nothing like major but I told him later on because I saw some of them Instagram I was like you got to make four sculptures these are really cool and so sometimes paloma switching up the material I think is very helpful and switching to something that's not so involved because trust me I love painting but painting is so much work it's like all the supplies all the tools and everything and so some days it just feels great to just hold a marker it's like so straightforward or just to like have a little sketchbook I mean for me Paloma I don't like to paint in marathons I'd like to do a little bit at a time whereas when I was doing these collages that I've shown you guys I made such a horrible mess that it just didn't make sense to break it up and so it made more sense to put it into one big marathon chunk so I think sometimes it depends on your workspace it depends on the materials I mean if I'm painting or sketching on site I don't use complicated supplies and speaking of complicated supplies there is I think for a home studio a good argument for keeping your supplies number one safe and number two simple because there are things I cannot do at my house that I could definitely do somewhere else I think for example like I was doing these masks actually I can show you guys I have a whole like so okay so these are these little fragments some of you guys might have seen on Instagram that I was just laying away at these things and breaking them up into little pieces this is my theme for this month taking old artwork and smashing it it actually feels great I highly recommend that you guys do it but the thing about these masks is that I had to carve them in ceramic clay I made silicone molds that then needed plaster mother molds and then I cast them with beeswax which you need like a big pot to melt like I could never pull that off in my home studio right now my home studio is not big enough I don't have all that equipment and everything and so I'm not doing stuff like that but the thing is I don't know if that's such a problem because I discovered other things that have definitely kept me busy like these collages that I was showing you guys earlier I mean this is just glue and some actually I was using tile grout for some of these but the point is this was really simple supplies and this is totally doable at home and so I definitely have had to be creative because I really can't do super toxic stuff when I'm here but I think that has gotten me to try out more different things mr. t saying I like doing my work in segments you can come back for the fresh eye and see things totally differently yeah I think that for sure for me at least is one of the most compelling reasons to break it up because you know when you look at your work for so long you just can't see straight at all it doesn't matter how experienced or smart you are it doesn't matter it's like it all starts to look the same after a little while and I think that's when it's time to take a break and sometimes if I really am frustrated I'll put something away for a long time like not just a few days like I'll actually take the artwork and I'll put it in my garage for like two weeks it's called my two-week roll I don't look at it for a long time and then I look at it and it's like you're looking at a different piece the other thing I do sometimes I don't know if you guys do this but I'll take a picture of my painting in my phone so I can see like a little version of it and sometimes that's a way of getting distance from the piece or another thing I do is I'll look at my painting in a mirror and seeing the reverse of that you start to see oh my god that I is like way too high up you see things that are somewhat surprising so I really enjoy doing stuff like that and then a couple other things that I like to do as well in order to keep the continuity of my work going because that I think is the hardest thing because my whole life is a million fragments it's like my kids my teaching my studio practice art prof. eating sleeping all those things that you have to do it's just a million little pieces and so how do you keep any feeling continuity because sometimes if I haven't been in the studio for a long time you guys might feel this way too it's like it takes you half an hour to remember oh my god what was I doing last time wait was I doing that and that is very hard to do is to like keep that continuity going on I think that what helps me is when I'm almost done working in the studio I know I'm about to leave or go do something else I never finished things I always leave something half done so I'll actually stop myself in the middle of something I won't finish it and get up and leave because if something is half-finished when you come back to the studio you know where to pick up from where you left off whereas if you come back and everything's finished then you got to think oh how do I jump start again how do I start something else and that is way more mental energy than picking up on a piece that is clearly not finished oh I missed this comment from lejana they say I put a curtain wall between my office space in my studio so I cannot see my computer yeah it's like out of sight out of mind I do the same thing with my phone I just don't want to see it I don't want to know that it exists Josh what Daniel is saying what would you recommend to do when starting in art Josh what do you mean in terms of starting a studio session or in terms of experience like let's say you haven't had a lot of years of experience if you can give me a few more details I can help you a little bit better sometimes when the questions to open-ended I can end up answering it in the wrong way okay so the thing about leaving something half-finished I think is very very helpful and actually you can use social media in a way that I think is very helpful in terms of motivation not in terms of like oh man everybody else is posting why have I not posted I mean you can use that but I think sometimes that becomes more to people's detriment than as a positive motivator but one thing that I did was I was doing this project many years ago on these self-portraits the project is called falling so if you guys want to check out that project actually let me pull up the link for that so you guys can take a look at that project if you have not seen this project before and so basically so it was a series I'm going to type this in of self-portraits and what I did on line is I announced that I was going to make 50 portraits now that was way more portress than I'd ever done in my life for one series most of the time my projects were like 20 pieces at a time and so 50 seen obscene that was like more than double what I was accustomed doing but because I now sit on my blog I thought oh man I got to do it now because I feel really lame telling people I'm gonna do it and then totally flaking out and says sometimes you can hold yourself accountable by making a public statement about what you're setting out to do I know it doesn't always work but for me it does because I have enough people that follow me in enough students who trust me would give me a lot of crap if I did not follow through on what I was gonna say that that's actually very motivating okay so Joshua you're asking what to do when starting out with art in terms of experience my suggestion to you Joshua would be to get a sketchbook and to really establish a constant sketchbook practice so that you are always making a little something every day because I think the productivity thing is really important when you're getting started if you don't have a lot of years experience you just got to make a lot of work like those of you guys who are applying to art school this year one of the pieces of advice that we give people is you just gotta make a lot of work you got to log the hours you go to produce produce because for a lot of portfolios they'll say okay we want 15 pieces so students will say okay I'll make 15 pieces I'm like no you're gonna make 30 because then you're gonna pick the best 15 out of those 30 that is being productive so Joshua got a sketchbook and we do have actually a whole bunch of sketchbook videos that might help give you some ideas because I think everybody has a totally unique way of using sketchbooks it might be nice for you to do that so I'm gonna just type in this chat box sketchbook videos okay so you guys can look at that and let's see Paloma is saying draw from less I would say draw what you see not what you think you see Paloma was your question about drawing from life oh I guess you're responding to Joshua's question yes I totally am onboard for that that's great advice and that's another reason for getting a sketchbook because you just whip it out anytime you want in fact I have a little sketchbook it's not in here right now but it's literally like this big it's tiny and I don't really show it to anybody but I have it in my purse and I carry it with me everywhere basically if I have my wallet I have that sketchbook and there is one day we were at jo-ann fabrics and we were picking up Halloween supplies for my kids Halloween costumes and so we were there for like three hours okay so long and I remember at one point I just was like oh my god get me out of here and so I just picked up my little sketchbook and I started sketching the people that were waiting in line to have their fabric cut and it made my day just a little bit better their crappy drawings I didn't show them to anybody but it's like that was valid even if the drawings are crappy because I think a lot of people they put pressure on themselves oh god that drawing wasn't good that painting wasn't good it doesn't matter you guys any time you log making art is valuable we're garde 'less of the results in fact sometimes is the pieces that you bomb on that you learn the most although it is really a big bummer when that happens but you cannot make art and not gain something out of it in some manner Lizzie Annie saying I buy so many sketchbooks I never filled them out never in my life I filled one out fully how do I consistently use one with ripping out the pit without ripping out the pages you know something if you guys watch Kat Wong's sketchbook video let me see if I can find the link on the page she says literally the exact same thing she said that she never finishes her sketchbooks I don't think there's anything wrong with that I think that's actually sort of a funny quirk and it's like anything goes with this sketchbook I feel like a sketchbook is just like primordial soup it's like whatever works for you is totally fine it's without ripping the pages that actually you know what I've been doing because my students on Saturdays I have them all burn their sketchbooks and I just check in with them one on one to see what they're doing and sometimes they'll say to me oh yeah I did these sketches but they were on another piece of paper and I don't have them right now but I'll bring them next time and so what I say to them look if you have these like piecemeal drawings that you do somewhere else just take them and just paste them into your sketchbook like I actually think that having like some element of collage and a sketchbook is really fun and actually I would say you guys look at Monica's sketchbook because she has tons of collage in her sketchbook I'll just put it in the lake Monica's sketchbook and I know that when I was traveling in Europe when I was in college one thing I had a lot of fun doing in terms of collage was I would collect all the train tickets I had anytime I went to museum I would collect the ticket if there was like a street map or just a magazine that I picked up I would just cut things out and put them into my sketchbook and so it was nice little scrapbook of my journey combined with the artwork and in fact some of my students they they put like post-it notes into their sketchbook to like cover up the drawers don't like because I say to a lot I'm like guys don't go over the drawing and scrape it out like just put another piece of paper or post-it or something on top of it if it really bothers you that much but like I said everything is valid and you can't get hung up on own oh there's a bad drawing in my sketchbook because trust me that's gonna happen that's just part of the process and be totally okay with that now in terms of social media getting back to that as a motivator I think that you have to be careful about it because sometimes it is sort of a bummer like for example those of you guys who are applying to art school this year you probably have seen online there's a million videos of these are my portfolio pieces that got me into this art school and they're very popular they all have tons and tons of views but almost everything art student i talked to says to me when i watch these videos i feel so stressed out and so crappy about myself and so i say to them you know don't watch them okay i know you want to it's like a car crash like you can't help yourself it's there you're gonna look at it fine get that done and out of the way but here's the thing there's a time and a place to be looking at artwork and here's what I mean because I am the biggest advocate for studying art history looking at contemporary art being influenced by other people there's a huge part of being an artist and should absolutely be there but this is a time and a place for it because I know for me for a while I would be reading these like contemporary art journals I'd read reviews in New York Times and stuff like that and I would have the exact same reaction as the high school students watching those accepted art portfolio videos I just feel like crap about myself I would be like my career stinks I'm not doing as well as these other people their work is better than mine they're showing in this gallery and it just would depress me so much so you know something at a certain point I said I'm just gonna turn that stuff off I'm just for a little while I'm not gonna read any of that stuff because it became a huge distraction so it's like there's a time and a place and then sometimes I'm like you know what I could use a little bit of inspiration now I'm gonna go over and I'm gonna read this magazine I'm gonna do this and so the thing about looking at other artists is that you have to be a little bit choosy about when you do it because I think it can be very detrimental in terms of distracting you from your practice because I think that artists should not work in a vacuum I think art history has always been about reacting to what's around you you can't make art work and not have it in some form be a reaction to the time period that you live in and so that's very important but I think sometimes seeing other people's stuff doesn't help you like that's why I almost think that Instagram can be really harmful sometimes because I have students who are like I found all this stuff on Instagram and I'm like yeah but you got to just focus on yourself for now like that's actually sort of a problem Lissie Annie says I've watched so many of those videos that got me anxious to live and when I'm not at that skull level yet yeah I mean that's that's how I feel when I read like hyper allergic or when I read the New York Times and I see what's showing in New York City here I see the biggest show or who's at the Venice me it's like that's my version of that Oh God I'm never gonna be good enough I'm never gonna live up to that level and so just look at that stuff when you feel ready for it but be okay you guys just putting that aside you know I gotta be super selfish I got to focus on myself and not look at other artists artwork or another things sometimes is um I sometimes find it very refreshing to read stuff that's not by artists because I think a lot of times people say to me they're like oh well you're an artist so you must read about artists and I'm like yeah I do but I also really like reading stuff from other fields like for example I was reading this book by Atul Gawande go on I don't know how to pronounce their last name but he is a surgeon in Boston actually and I read all of his books about the medical profession and I loved it because there actually was quite a bit of correlation with being an artist but it was so refreshing to me to read about a completely different field and see how it was different and how there were crossovers and stuff like that and for example there's this wonderful article by Matthew whiner I don't know if you guys know him but um let me see if I can find the article so Matthew whiner he was the guy that produced that TV show Mad Men the one with Don Draper and what's-his-face John Hamm John Han was the actress in it actor in it and so I usually don't like those like motivational artists or calls that I see everywhere I find a lot of them really not helpful really generic and it bothers me because sometimes they're written by people who had like a lot of health like they're written by people whose dad was like really well connected or or like actually here's an example so I once read this interview with somebody who was really young I think they were like in their 20s or something and their father was like this huge photographer in the contemporary New York art scene like creme de la creme like capital a art world and obviously they got into the gallery world pretty quickly and easily because of their father's status and in the interview they said yeah people in the fields even if you're well-connected they don't want to help you if you don't have really good work and I was like yeah but it helps it just like made me really mad when I read that because I was like yeah but you kind of have a big leg up versus the rest of us and so Louisville is articles start to make me really mad so this one by Matthew whiner is great it's like literally the only motivational artist article I've ever read that I loved and I'd read it over and over and over again and I'm somebody who never does that so I'm gonna put that into the chat box so this is Matthew whiners article for struggling artists an article that actually isn't really annoying ok so here's the link for those of you guys who want that oh wait that's a little bit too long can i second let me okay so here it is let's see Elsa says I love sketching people in line at the pharmacy the DMV the coffee shop oh yeah the DMV would be a good place because that usually a DMV is like white like a minimum hour later it's our long line or something Julia B's working on your capstone painting thesis for your BFA I feel so doubtful about what I create I feel like I'm creating no pieces I graduate in May how can I push myself more um Julia B I think what could be helpful is to create a schedule of exactly must what must be done by the end of the week so in other words like set rules for yourself like when I said guys I'm going to make 50 self-portraits okay I set rules I said every single one is going to be this big they're all done on this because the thing is julia b i think that if you have to reinvent the wheel every time you sit down to work on a painting it's too much work so if you determine the size the material the subject so you're not totally starting from scratch for every single painting it makes things a lot easier so for example for these portraits I did they were all self portraits they were only faces I did not have shoulders or arms or anything it's like you cut back on the number of factors that you have to deal with then you Whittle it down to something very specific so Julia B I would recommend recommend specificity will really help you a lot and the thing is within that area specificity there's still plenty of room to move around I mean if I had enough to go on for 50 images I mean I could have kept going for sure I felt like I was not running out of things to do like here's an example like if you guys think about a good TV show okay a TV show has a base foundation it has got a premise certain number of characters that are there all the time there's usually a setting but then there are infinite variations on that setting now this is totally gonna date me but if you guys ever watch that TV show cheers the movie that not the movie the TV show cheers it's set in a bar in fact there's very few episodes where they're not in the bar that was actually sort of rare and you think oh well it's a bar that's not a lot of variation how many things can happen a bar a lot of things think about how many people come and go at a bar people who work at a bar and it's incredible I mean they had seasons and seasons of just people in a bar that was the premise so Julia B what is the premise for your TV show think about that I think that will be helpful during cassettes I love your live streams always comfortable and great to listen while I'm doing or at home work thank you oh good maybe that's your structure you guys every time we go live you got to go in the studio maybe we are going to be your signal that you guys have to get into the studio let's see Elsa says well I don't have people to draw I have animals drawing animals seems impossible at first because they're always moving but got easier after year and it sharpens your observational skills Elsa you totally just read my mind you know why because we are going to be releasing probably very very soon like I don't know exactly one but really really soon Lauren Walsh and I we just literally this Sunday we've wrapped shooting this gesture drawing tutorial and it's all about drawing her cats so I'm gonna put that link into the chat box so gesture drawing with cats and you guys can go to that page you can watch the preview video but I'm serious it's coming out so soon I've been like busting my ass trying to get finished but yeah I love drawing animals because you know something they move but I like that part of it I like the challenge of it and honestly I think that if they stood perfectly still I don't think it would be as fun because you don't capture as much of their character because once I was drawing my friend's bulldog this thing was like a mythological beast like I've never seen he's thinking like this Bulldog before he was huge and he would not stop moving like Lauren's cats they moved but they were definitely like napping half the time or they would like shift alike like they were so lazy compared to this bull this Bulldog was like the biggest spaz and I I just at a certain point you just start scribbling like crazy but I love that so much if you guys go to my Instagram if you scroll down a little bit you'll see it's like a colored pencil sketch let me see if I can just pull up the link to my Instagram so you guys can check that out so I'll just put this in the chat box so Bulldog sketches on my Instagram you guys can take a look at that but yeah animals are a great example of how you can do gesture drawings and draw from life and have a lot of fun because I had so much fun drawing Lauren's castle I feel like I know her cats now here's the thing I'm not a big cat person like I like cats but I'm not obsessed with my with cats like Laura hits but after spending time drawing her cats I feel like I know them I feel like I understand their personalities and it's like if you draw from photos of some random cat online you're never gonna have that connection and that's what I love about drawing which is very very exciting okay so I want to remind you guys that if you support us on patreon in addition to getting rewards for being patrons you can also be automatically entered into a monthly giveaway now this is very cool because all you need to contribute is one dollar a month and you're already in the giveaway you could for example if you win the giveaway when a portfolio critique you could get an Instagram critique a website critique you can even get mystery artwork for me original artwork original art from DT or you can get mystery art supplies that's a pretty good deal you guys and that's on top of all the other rewards that we have for you on patreon so I hope you guys will consider supporting us on patreon because I want to keep making content for you guys and thank you to all of you who already do contribute on patreon we cannot do this without you guys thank you so much for your continued support but we have some pretty cool prizes that I'd love for you guys to look at also if you guys need help with stuff like this like studio tips websites staying motivated go to professional development this is a whole section on our website and I did revamp a lot of it it gives you guys tips for basically all the parts of being an artist that are not the making part of it like the motivation the mindset the approach galleries all that extra stuff because while the making is super important there's a whole other part of being an artist that's important I think even if you are in high school sometimes it's good to have a little bit of a preview for what to look at somebody is saying nine eight four two I want to have my MFA portfolio critique well I would suggest you guys here's the thing you got a lot of options okay you can either just pay for it you can purchase a portfolio critique I review MFA portfolios Lauren Welch does as well or you can do a Skype call or if you guys want to support us on patreon somebody every single month is going to win a portfolio critique the value is usually $200 but if you contribute $1 a month you could win that portfolio critique for $1 that's not a bad deal and we are doing this every single month okay and we don't have that many donors you guys so if you enter the chances that you might win this giveaway are actually pretty high it's not like we've got 50,000 I wish we had 50,000 supporters but we're not even close so what I'm trying to say is I'd get in on this now because this is pretty awesome I mean I just started doing these website critiques and mystery artwork that's pretty cool as well Palomas saying how would a portfolio review for transferring from community college to art school differ from a high school to art school portfolio review I transfer in May what advice would you give okay well Paloma we actually do have a portfolio critique by a student who was critiquing who is trying to transfer so let me see if I can pull up the link to that particular critique because I do explain in greater depth what is expected there so let me just make sure I click on the right thing let me see it's which is that one oh you're curious okay so I'm gonna put this in so this is a portfolio critique by someone applying to transfer to art school I mean the short answer Paloma is that you probably want to show a little bit more representation of your intended major because most art schools if you transfer you usually skip the first year which is for a lot of schools foundation you go right into your major so that's probably the biggest difference I think most transfer students you apply as an illustration major or as an architecture major whereas a lot of art schools if you apply to be a first year you just apply like you don't apply first year as an architecture major words for transfer you do but again that really depends on the school so definitely check out the school's requirements and see what they actually do but that is my basic guess as for how to do that so anyway if you guys need help with art school portfolio stuff I would highly recommend that you check out our revamped page I like tripled the content on this page there's a lot of videos but there's a lot of stuff that I wrote down because it's faster and quicker to get you guys that information I am working on I'm still got other stuff to add but check out this page because there's a lot of new content there that was not there even a month ago so hopefully you guys will take a look at that but um anyway you guys thank you so much for tuning in to this stream love hearing from you guys is a great dialogue I mean if we're talking about staying motivated I feel like you guys are a big reason why I stay motivated because I'm like you know what I got to go to class I got to teach I got to keep everybody together and it's like having this conversation with all of you gets like me all revved up so I think it's like win-win situation it's like really great Elsa Grace is saying bulldog and red yes it was wow you have an incredible memory yeah beasts doing colored pencil sketches and the cat drawing tutorial which is coming out really soon that one also is done with colored pencils and I do talk more specifically about my technique for using colored pencils for just drawing so hopefully you guys will check that out anyway thank you so much for joining me and I will see you next time

Channel: Art Prof: Create & Critique

Views: 12,287

Rating: 4.9674134 out of 5

Keywords: art advice, art block, art block tips, art hacks, art hacks for artists, art problems, art tips, art tips and tricks, art tips for beginners, art tips for young artists, artist advice, artist career, artist career advice, artist issues, artist motivation, artist motivational speech, artist motivational video, artist problems, artist professional, fine art tips for beginners, professional artist, tips for art, tips for art beginners, tips for art block, tips for artists

Id: ViDphp_KICE

Length: 61min 31sec (3691 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 14 2019