5 Things I Wish I Knew as a BEGINNER ARTIST

As a full-time professional artist, there are so many bits of advice I would give to my younger self back when I was a beginner artist. I go through the top 5 things I wish I knew as a beginner artist.

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[dekuthecat]

I agree there is nothing wrong with drawing from a reference photo. When the "old Masters" were painting, cameras weren't invented yet. They kinda had no choice but to paint and draw from life. Photographs allow us to draw and paint things from all over the world without having to physically be there.

[mariannejensen]

The sketchbook is more for practices, quick sketches, to catch them, when ever they appear, just like musicians has small mics on themselves, because inspiration can hit everywhere at any time

[cherryj]

Thank you. I’m 68 and only started 2 years ago so I don’t have time to dither around. I love creating paintings with pastel pencils and pans and have just started with coloured pencils. I just want to enjoy creating and learning what I want to know. I’m trying to squeeze 50 years of non arting into whatever time I have!

[KikkiF]

Agree and will add ”Earth without art is just Eh” And to all us aspiring artist: Keep working and enjoying your art and don’t let other tell you what’s right or not!

[ananyamishra]

So many people Said to me that I have to draw by seeing objects around me not seeing a reference photo . It is really helpful to me as a beginner thank you so much ☺️☺️☺️

[keziagreste]

Just yesterday my father was questioning my drawing skills cause I drew a realistic potrait of my cousins from a "picture". It'd be a lie to say that his words didn't affect me. But now I'm glad that I came across your video :) you're such an awesome person 💜

[farasanchez]

Thank you thank you thank you, over 50 years ago when in high school my art teacher said I wasn’t good enough to go to art school. I put off my enjoyment of painting and drawing and did other crafts to compensate. After all that time, a few years ago I found myself drawing faces just simple pencil drawings. It’s time to finish them, you inspired me and I am grateful.

[KayBethBookish]

My biggest issue that I think I would have loved to know when I started out (like I'm not still a beginner at only 6 months in haha) is that art takes a lot longer than you think. I did a really terrible painting a couple of weeks ago and it took about an hour. Re did it this week and took three hours-funnily enough it turned out okay!

So yeah, slow down and always expect it to take a lot longer than you think so you don't get fed up halfway through!

[lir]

Mistakes: The point of a piece where I say " OKkkk time to branch out & experiment". Coming from a very poor childhood, my biggest obstacle was the fear of wasting materials so I never bought good stuff & was still hesitate to start. At 65 I still have a sketchbook that my Grandmother gave me at 13. I'd used 3 pages. Really too bad as the work is rather good. Your words would have been very welcome then & are a boost now.

[TheTerrylwg]

A friend who is a magnificently creative artist, when I mentioned to her that I had no creativity, told me that's it's something you are born with (or not), insinuating that I was out-of-luck and would never have any. This was a terrible thing to say and so untrue! Creativity can be developed! Don't let others tell you differently.

[RoryChronicles]

I had the opposite problem as a kid - I saved my good art supplies for the really good artwork... that I never felt good enough to do. I would tell myself to play with them and mess around to see what I could do with them.

[jameslyons]

As someone who's been drawing for five years now, I can agree with every point, especially the expensive art supply one! I remember thinking I needed expensive copic markers to make good art and so I was confused when I got them that my art didn't MAGICALLY transform. Even with the most expensive art supplies, you still need the skill to use them.

[achillelalonde]

First of all thank you for this video, a fine gift for beginners, as well as artists at all levels. I’ve been earning some of my livelihood creatively for over 50 years, and several of your tips were very useful for me to hear at the age of 73.

I wll take the Liberty to offer feedback and add to your offering. Hopefully you’ll not take offence, as this video seems genuinely intended to support folks.

Beyond allowing ourselves to use reference photos I would encourage people to allow themselves to learn and be inspired from the work of other artists. Part of classical training has traditionally included spending hours in museums copying the work of the masters. Japanese classical art includes repeatedly copying specific pieces over and over. Learn any way you find works for you.

As to fine art supplies, I agree totally, use whatever your budget allows. That being said, I had a teacher ( on YouTube, my art school) who early on encouraged us to use the best you could afford, and not simply the cheapest because ‘I’m not good enough yet’. As a watercolour artist this is particularly important with respect to paper. Good paper makes a huge difference for that medium, and if you learn on cheap paper, your work will not only progress more slowly, but when you switch to better paper later you will need to re learn to work differently.

I particularly appreciated you encouraging us to try different styles. Even after 50 years of I still have a tendency to judge my work harshly. For the past few years I’ve done photo realistic painting, and thought there was something wrong with that because it wasn’t creative enough. I saw other artists who were far “looser“, I somehow was ready to put my style down as not ‘artistic’ or original enough. Do what you enjoy, and perhaps also explore outside what you judge yourself good at, or comfortable with; allowing your work to change and evolve.

Also allowing yourselves to try different mediums; over the course of 50 years I’ve worked in many different mediums, as well as working at dozens of other professions; some not related to “art” whatsoever. You might want to consider the notion of the art of living.

As Hellen Keller said something like, life is either a great adventure or nothing at all.

Enjoy it all thoroughly, even the tough bits.

[dianaclift]

I love the "real artist" analogy, the poor, struggling bohemian who eats, breathes and lives art. I believe that art is a sense of being, how you feel when you create. Enjoy creating art and if you make money along the way, well done you :-)

[southpaw]

This is good advice/reminders for artist of all levels. Thanks so much.

[markaaron]

I remember when they say using grid is cheating but when I saw other professional artists using it I told myself why do I need to listen to others opinion if more professional artists do it and that really helps me on doing my own styles. I really love this motivational videos even I'm not begginer anymore I really still need some advice and this really help me. Hope you keep doing this kind of videos. ❤️

[Diego-Designs]

After my surgery I started using cheap supplies until my skill level got better again. Nothing wrong with doing art with cheap supplies. Great video!

[Disirablepossessions]

Thank you Kirsty, this was a lovely video and as an older beginner, I can relate to most of your advice.

[dhanashreechaware]

When you were talking about drawing only from real life objects and showed drawing of a tiger it was honestly funny

[Eva-emuj]

I guess I can be glad that I never really had all those thoughts and concerns about my art. I‘m not looking at my art in a way of always pointing out the smallest mistakes I made and then hating what I just drew. For me it‘s mostly about realizing what I could do better and to have a plan about what to change and practice. I also always knew that I didn’t need the craziest supplies and I knew that reference photos were just something to help me figure out what colors and shades I needed for certain parts of my drawings.