Why Self Trained Artists Struggle to Evolve - 3 Tips You NEED to Do #brushsauceacademy #artmentor

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[TylerEdlin]

Guys I have links in the description for everything you may need. What’s your art goals for this year ??

[arubani-]

This matches pretty well with a quote I vaguely remember: The comfort zone is a beautiful place, but nothing ever grows there.

[wolflahti]

"The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind-the-scenes with everyone else’s highlight reel."
―Steve Furtick

[aurchs]

A few more thoughts.
1. Make sure to produce lots of personal original work, don't become too OCD about training fundamentals only. Divide your time between study and experimentation, find the balance.
2. Make Art for yourself! Your Art journey is not a competitive grind.
3. Don't fall for the work 16hrs a day mantra. Reality is that very few people will ever benefit from such a mindset and even then there will be a great cost.

[xuanxh]

As much as I've improved as a self-taught artist (still with several classes here and there), I feel like I have reached some sort of plateau and I can't move to the next level without extra help, specially with my job taking a lot of my time: I can't figure out a learning path to follow, I struggle to create sets of exercises to follow and to properly improve.
Because of that, I've decided to apply for an intensive year and a half concept art program offered online here in France: I don't know if my application will be accepted, it is highly selective, but we will see.
If that happens, it also means I will be leaving my job of 10 years. I have spent the last few years saving, but it still scary.
But I think this is the moment to try and make the career switch happen!

[BBrinckmann]

Personally I've found out that it is extremely important not to look at others artists as competition/comparison, but only as inspiration. If there is something you like, but you have no idea how an artist managed it, just try it out for yourself. Always experiment and always accept failure. I'm smalltime, but I do work proffesionally as an artist. Quite often I might not be entirely satisfied with how something turned out, but in almost all cases the client loves the end result. When it is your own work you usually only see all the mistakes you've made, but this goes for any artist no matter how skilled or proffesional they are. Experienced artists make mistakes constantly, but they just know how to work with their failures.

[uidsea]

As someone who has really only taken art seriously the past 2 years, I realized that all these tips that veteran artists give us is less about the art process and more about growing habits for our learning process. When I first started I was looking for a quick and dirty way to improve quick and there is none. You have to set yourself down and make realistic goals with lots of practice over time. Wish I would have understood that at the beginning but hey, that's how you grow.

[artofgiuls]

my problem is i can't balance study with personal work. I study most of the time for hours and when it comes to painting something for myself i don't feel inspired or skilled enough and i struggle a lot.

[clairejarvis]

This year, I'm illustrating a book for the first time. I've been halfheartedly thinking about it for years, but as you reiterate here, it's a matter of breaking it down into specific, achievable goals. I'm beginning with two months of online courses in character design and advanced digital painting techniques . Thanks for your insight & encouragement!

[cadef]

Something that I learned is that different people might need to break things into even smaller parts. Or everybody's definition of 'manageable' may be different. I've always struggled with setting goals. I would separate it into smaller parts but something I realized was that I need to break it down even smaller. For some, '50 heads in 1 week' may work. But for me I need to break it down further. '10 heads/day for one week. But with 2 allowance/buffer days in case something happens or to give myself a break'. This may seem like such a simple concept but it was mind-blowing to me.

[lrdalucardart]

As an artist my self, I have gone through this turning point myself since last year. And yes it's all true what he said.

Its all up to you, if you have 1000free hours you choose, spend them leveling a character in a game or spend them in your art, is just a matter of priorities really.

[poppinmms]

Man... I feel like I have been drawing blindly... I wanna be great at drawing landscapes, potraits, animals, people, everything really! But maybe since I like drawing people the most, I should only focus on that for a while and learn many ways to draw the head to start off.

[bituin]

Thank you! I was getting stuck and overwhelmed because I didn't know what to work on because I have resources but never really knew where and what to begin with ( anatomy, presprective, gesture, figure drawing, painting, acrylics, accch!!!) ! I didn't know what I was supposed to do because there were sooo many things that I wanted to do! I'll do my best to label all these down, thank you so much have a fantastic day!

[Dismythed]

I'm entirely self-taught, but I progressed like lightning and continue to do so, not because I study a hand 2, 000 times, but because I analyze where I need improvement, practice enough on that area of improvement until I have the muscle memory for it, then move on. I never spend more time on a lesson than I need to in order to have it down cold before moving on to the next lesson. I learned to do this for myself because I was improving slowly at one time and I had no one to teach me. So I had to improve or fail.

Take speed improvement for example. I used to draw so slow that I would lose the initial concept in my head before I got even half way through a character outline. The character would move on me. So I thought of what would be needed to get the entire image done before I lose it. It involved scratching in the key feature points quickly and then connecting the points with single fluid lines. I did that once and never thought about it again. It immediately became second nature because it was already set in stone after that. Now I have the entire image marked in within a minute.

Most of the things I have learned occur just like that. But one that took more practice was figure frame. I had to practice figure frames to burn them into my brain, but around 15 detailed images was all that was needed. Now I see the frame without having to draw it.

Another one was hands. That one I only need to touch up from time to time. It took 10 or so hands the first time I set out how to draw them, but once I had it, I had it. But from time to time I have to do just a few hand studies to refresh my knowledge. The same goes for most muscle anatomy.

I have never had to practice shading, values or contouring. Those things just require knowledge and observation.

Linework is really the only one I have had to give constant practice to. That can only be improved through live practice. (Not just drawing a bunch of lines, but putting them to use as you draw in a sketchbook.)

This is all accomplished through knowledge acquisition, constant observation of light effects and basic muscle memory, none of which require a thousand drawings. If you love something, you will retain it.

My one and only handicap has ever been not having access to a knowledge base because they didn't have the internet so pumped full of content when I was young. (Born in '73.) Now there is no excuse for lacking knowledge as long as you have an internet connection. It should be your habit to observe constantly, and muscle memory is simple to acquire with a small number of practices. You don't need to be perfect, you just need to focus on constantly improving. If that is not your constant thought, then you can't improve. If it is your constant thought, then you will improve no matter how much or how little you draw as long as you learn, observe and draw.

You can even get muscle memory while watching someone else do it due to a nifty feature of our brain called the parasympathetic reflex. Yes, it really works. Not as well as doing, but well enough to improve on the fly and through extended periods of not drawing.

[itshel]

This really helped untie a big ass knot in brain. thx <3

[ileentirkey]

Thank you, Tyler making this video, I need to hear this today

[snowy]

7:16 is one of my favorite quotes. amazing and i needed to hear that ending

[DragoonBoom]

As someone who has the goal of learning to draw the figure from all angles without reference hopefully by the end of this year, I'm just speechless at the progress I've made in becoming more comfortable at drawing within the past year. The annoying this is in knowing whether to continue drilling myself in figure drawing fundamentals or if I should be more ambitious and push my skills further. Arrrjgjfnfnfngnvnsjfkgjdnfj this isn't even getting into painting/rendering I'm so at it ughfhhfh

[artzerial]

Wow somehow i did all you said without even you telling me, noice but i still have a long journey to go, this is so damn awesome!

[rottensaging]

Aaahh such great timing, I really needed this. I've been having a slump cause I feel lost regarding my artistic journey. Thank you so much for this💕