 Many people are under the false assumption that art is a gift that people are born with. Like some magical power that they wield, and command. This notion couldn't be further from the truth. Art is a learned skill! Painters, sculptors and any other kind of artist there is- all started out not knowing anything about art. No matter who the artist may be, there was a time in their life when they saw a painting, sculpture, or drawing and said to themselves, “wow that’s neat, how the hell did they do that?” Every artist had that “wow moment” that made them want to further explore the field of art. One of my first wow moments was when I was very young. My brother and I were very much into comic books. At least once a week (usually more) we would go to our local comic store and spend all of our allowance. The art in these comics really spoke to us, so before long we were drawing our favorite super heroes, trying to get every detail right. This is where artistic competition really helped me improve my drawing skills. We were always trying to one up each other, and often we did (back and forth). Then later, I saw my first figure painting and from that point on I was hooked! My main point here is, every artist first gets inspired by something, then starts learning how to create. These are not skills that they were born with; they are just skills that they decided to develop.
 The only thing that you need in order to become a great artist is the desire to do so, a lot of practice, and patience. If you really want to get better, you will. A piece of advice that I’d like to give to people that think that they could never become a great artist is, your dead wrong. Find something that inspires you and try to emulate it. In the beginning, your final product might not be great, but you would have learned a lot. And the next thing that you create will most definitely be better. Art is an ever expanding process. No matter how long you have been working on your craft you will always be improving. I guarantee you that even when the old masters finished their last painting or sculpture before they died, they still thought to themselves “My next one will be better”. This is why art is so great, no matter how long you practice your craft there is always something new to learn, or try and all along the way you are improving.
The apprehension that most people have against becoming an artist is the fear of failure. The thing that they don’t realize is that all artists fail now and again. In fact I would say that I have learned just as much from my failures as I have from my successes! A final note to all you potential artists out there, if you don’t even try because you’re afraid that you might fail, than you will most assuredly never learn anything! |
