How to Be Good at Art

Perfecting Your Craft

Find your art form. It is important to find a type of art that you enjoy. This can mean trying a few different varieties settling on the one you love best. Consider drawing, painting in oils, painting in watercolors, drawing with charcoal, sculpting, making installations, and wood carving. Be open to experimenting with different styles of art. You might find that a trip to the art store will make your choice for you. Certain art media are more expensive than others. Consider starting off with something like drawing, which does not require expensive materials, and then moving on to other forms of art once you have the skills and resources to support them. You might also find that as your skills evolve, you will move on to more complicated forms of art. After you develop the ability to replicate shapes in drawing, you might want to introduce colors and move on to painting.

Go to the art store. It's hard to be a good artist without the right gear. Think about the basics first, to keep it affordable to allow you to experiment. Once you're happy with the art form you've chosen, start to expand your art kit and add more advanced items until you have a decent amount of tools at your disposal. If you can't afford the items, look online for locals selling their art equipment.

Find a teacher. Go to art shows or look online for local artists. Once you find one who you like, talk to her/him about lessons. Remember, you don’t need to rediscover all of the artistic techniques that have been developed over the past two thousand years. There are people who can teach you these methods. Professional feedback can also be very helpful for your development. Learning from your mistakes is vital and usually requires someone else who can see your work objectively.

Go to school. Usually art school is the best way to master your craft. But, if you’re having trouble getting into a good art school or don’t believe that a four year degree fits your schedule, there are other options. Most community colleges offer art class that you can take individually. These are usually cheap and can even help you develop the skills to get into a better school. Fear not. Although art school can be a great way to improve your skills, there are few fields where your degree matters less than in art. Ultimately, you will be judged on the basis of what you produce.

Never stop reading. There is always room to learn new techniques and styles. While the internet has some of these resources, you will find the most comprehensive treatment of these subjects in full length books. Start with the art books that you can find in your local library and then look online for the best reviewed books.

Practice. If you don't practice, you won't get better. You should make practice a habit. Allot a specific amount of time per day to practicing—even better allot a specific period in the day to practice. Don’t be afraid to challenge yourself and try new things when you practice. Try things that you know that you can’t do. You can learn a lot more by grappling with things you don’t know than by repeating things you’re already good at. Don’t worry about how good what you’re doing is. The only way to learn new things is to experiment. Try a master study. A master study a type of practice wherein you take a great work of art and replicate it. It probably won’t be perfect. But you will be learning from the best.

Give yourself time to improve. Give yourself plenty of time to improve and test the direction your art is taking. This means being patient and giving yourself time to stand back and obtain a bigger perspective of where you're headed. Most importantly, keep at it. Personal style takes time to develop. Don't expect it to be innate. It is like the sculptor chiseling away at the rock; what you're capable of can take years to be revealed.

Finding Your Creativity

Be strange. Vanderbilt psychologists have found that people who are a bit weird are more creative. Art that is unique generally sells better than art that simply shows a high level of skill. Having a distinctive style of living is often part of an artists’ trademark. In other words, bucking norms might help you become a more original artist, and, even if it doesn’t, it certainly makes for better marketing.

Get out of here. Art is about recreating personal experience in an original way. In order to do that, you need to have experience doing something other than looking at a computer screen. Get out of the house and go see the world. A walk through nature, like a walk through woods or along the beach, is thought to increase creativity. These sort of walks allow us time to be alone with our thoughts and introduce us to experiences that we don’t encounter in our everyday life. Travelling to another country can introduce you to a new culture and unfamiliar experiences. A lot of studies have indicated that spending time abroad can improve creativity. Even thinking back to a time when you were out of the country can cause a temporary burst of creativity.

Be aware of your influences. It is common for great works of art to pull on the work of other artists. It is also, however, easy to replicate other people’s work without realizing it. A particularly impressive image can be engraved in your memory so that you unconsciously recreate it while searching for something new. Expose yourself to a lot of influences and, when you create something, ask yourself how if it too closely resembles the work of someone else.

Be prepared to change your style over time. Keep things fresh and be prepared to pursue new paths as you grow as an artist. Even if you have developed a signature style, you might find that it gets old with time. Experimentation does not necessarily mean giving up what you have done before, just developing a wider repertoire.

Building a Career

Consider the value of a career. Art isn’t necessarily about money. But it is a lot easier to devote the time to developing your craft when you don’t have to work a full time job at the same time. Think of the money you earn from art as liberating you to pursue what you love. A career can cascade; as you earn the money to support yourself, you can spend more time developing skill and a reputation as an artist.

Advertise. You should build a portfolio of your own work and then do everything you can so that other people find and purchase it. Today that is normally done online. Post your work on social media and build a website that features your best images. If you want to be old fashioned, find a coffee shop that looks like it needs some extra decoration. Bring your portfolio and show the owner your work. Ask if she would be willing to put it on display and refer interested customers to you. She will get a better the ambience out of the deal and you will get to advertise your work.

Network. Subscribe to local art papers and be aware of art shows, festivals, or seminars. When you attend events, be yourself and be sociable. Try to meet people who could connect you to clients or galleries where you can sell you work. Perfect an elevator speech. The principle of the elevator speech is that you can give it to someone on a short elevator ride and by the end they be interested in exchanging information with you. In a few sentences you should be able to tell someone what makes your work interesting. If it doesn’t seem to work, keep on revising it until you find something that grabs people. Bring a lot of business cards so that when you meet people who are interested in you work, you can easily share your contact information. Include a website that features your work on the business card. Keep track of all of the business cards you receive and set up appointments to meet with people after the event.

Join a community of artists. Become known in your art community as a supportive person with a genuine interest in the progress of your fellow artists. When you make comments, be constructive, not destructive. Help people to learn through guidance and constructive feedback. Use this community to get feedback on your work and meet potential clients. Don’t be jealous of other people. If you develop a reputation of helping out other artists, they, in turn, will help you. Consider forming a collective to pool your resources. You can rent out a space to display your art or even share the expenses of a studio collectively. In the end, you won’t just be saving money, you’ll be introducing one another to new customers.

Hustle. Ultimately, most artists don’t make ends meet by doing just one thing. They have multiple sources of revenue so that when one disappears, backup jobs are still on the table. Sell works online, put others in galleries, look for public art contracts, apply for grants, and teach. Not only is this a good way to make ends meet, you’ll also learn about what the most lucrative business models are.