How did you learn art?

[musket]

In part I was hobbled at art school during my brief stay there because from my soph year of high school on, I had what would then have been considered a radically progressive art teacher.

By the time Mr. Krauser was done with me I already knew almost everything that was on the freshman curriculum at Cooper (my freshman art teacher in high school was a stodgy old guy who was terminally dull and gave me the only F I ever got). The other thing about Cooper was that you didn't get to choose your major until you were a junior. Before that you had to take foundation courses, which included a whole bunch of stuff I had no interest in whatsoever, along with a lot of boring lectures by professors with German accents featuring words like "gestalt."

Of course, it probably didn't help either that the day before I entered school, me and three friends tripped out on morning glory seeds. Heavenly Blue, not Pearly Gates.

 

[xie-kitchin]

I feel like most artists are "self-taught" in the sense that you have to be motivated to seek out skills and knowledge on your own. You have to do the work. But no one is really "self-taught" because we're usually learning something from someone else somewhere. I've never talked to a "self-taught" artist who hadn't read a book on how to draw. Many have usually taken art classes at some point.

I did the whole private fine art college thing. In some ways I really needed it, in some ways is was insufficient, but that's also judging in context of the overall cost. A friend of mine who studied at a couple schools and graduated from a public university art program seems to have been about as well prepared professionally. The foundation program at my school was really helpful, but IDK if I would've said that at the time. Like, there was the 5-hour largescale still-life charcoal drawing I was 100% *not* enthused about, but in retrospect, it taught me a big lesson on patience and actually checking your work. Maybe it's easier to remember those selective epiphanies and less the classes I got virtually nothing out of. But also the biggest mistake I made was more my lack of initiative to seek out an internship. OTOH, I didn't get any direct encouragement to do that and maybe would've been better served studying illustration/design like I originally planned.

 

[Artyczar]

I appreciate what you're saying, but I just can't agree with you that no one is self taught. That is an opinion based on the assumption that you "can't imagine" that no one would ever open a book on how to draw. Or that no one ever showed them something, or that they didn't take a class "at some point." I will agree with you that an artist, as they continue to work into their adult years can't stay under a rock forever. Once they live in this society, they will evolve, a least master their own technique, and get more exposed to other artists. But that doesn't mean anyone showed them how to hold a brush--ever, or showed them how to draw a bunny or a human head. How can you not differentiate the truly self-taughts from someone who went to school?

People that went to school at a young age at least were shown how to eat paste and make a mother's day cards out of popsicle sticks or, something. I never did, but I wouldn't blame someone who claims to be self-taught if that was their only exposure to being taught art by a teacher. I'd say they were still self-taught. That's craft, not art. Either way, I wouldn't know. I got no formal education, not even grammar school.

I don't believe Youtubers are "self-taughts" as they are getting lessons on their computer. People who study HOW TO paint are not self-taught. People who paint and figure it out on their own are self-taught. No one gave them one bit of confirmation as to what they were doing was even close to whether what they were doing was in the right direction or in the right ballpark.

People in arts schools get that luxury. A teacher, a mentor, critique, socialization, other artists, comparison, I can go on. But do you see what I mean?

 

[xie-kitchin]

It is most certainly my opinion, and I'll agree that claiming "no one is self-taught" based on a few is a broad generalization. My argument is also pedantic/semantic. Of course one can differentiate between someone trained at a certain level in an academic or more formal setting and someone who's not. I think that is really the distinction people are making when they describe themselves as self-taught.

 

[Claude J Greengrass]

I consider myself to be self-taught despite having attending a few art "classes", read/own 100+ books on the subject, and almost managed to watch in its entirety one or more YouTube videos. I opine that all artists are self taught regardless of formal/academic education or not. For a painter, there is no substitute for the hours spent at the easel. Other branches of art have a parallel to 'easel'. It's the work you do on your art that is the real learning experience. Oh, I don't discount other sources of input as being helpful. These all pale in comparison to the hours spent actually working on your art.

 

[stlukesguild]

I remember being enamored with Art... especially drawing... from an early age. My mother was very supportive of my interest and frequently bought me various art materials and craft projects.

-Tyger Tyger ( A future William Blake fan in Kindergarten)

-Dad Reading the Sunday Paper

-The Nina, the Pinta, and where's the Santa Maria?

-Assassination of Lincoln

By 2nd or 3rd grade I was already headed toward a career as a narrative painter.

By the time I was a pre-teen I was fixated on B-Horror films and comic books. I often completed my school projects before other students and so I would draw obsessively in my sketchbooks or in the margins of my notebooks. By high-school I was drawing favorite rock stars and bad Surreal images inspired by Salvador Dali... the first "Fine Artist" who interested me enough for me to save up $90 (a fortune!) to purchase a thick coffee table edition of his paintings. For whatever reason (embarrassment?) I have no drawings or paintings from this period.

More later...

 

[snoball]

Wow David, I don't have masterpieces from that far back for sure, even though I did make them. I remember drawing in the margins too and even in the back flypages of my text books in school.

 

[Artyczar]

Wow St. Luke! Those are soooo cool! I love them.

I made my mother a book when I was five or six, but I almost don't remember making it, I was so young. It was a book about moms. I posted the whole book on my website, but here's a couple of pages.

And here's my first real attempt at drawing, but I don't know how old I was. Definitely older than six!

 

[snoball]

Love the "Mom" book and the ballerina is very good. I can remember some of mine but don't have any photos of them. Didn't seem important at the time.

 

[Artyczar]

I bet they were great!

 

[snoball]

Not real early on.

 

[stlukesguild]

Wow David, I don't have masterpieces from that far back for sure, even though I did make them. I remember drawing in the margins too and even in the back flypages of my text books in school.

Sno... one of the requirements during my last year of art school... one of the best assignments IMO... was that we needed to give a slide presentation of our "career" as artists to that point... going back as far as we could. We learned how to take proper slides with tungsten lights and all and we learned how to talk about our art... our influences... where we had come from and where we imagined we were headed. I no longer have the artwork from this period as they were in a portfolio in my car when it was stolen. The most embarrassing stuff for all of us were our high-school junk: drawings of rock bands, bad copies of comic book characters, sappy drawings of unicorns and such.

 

[laf.art]

Wow, wonderful work Musket, sad that you no longer can

 

[Artyczar]

The first time I had to give one of those slide presentations, I was so nervous that I said all kinds of inappropriate things, and was very clearly petrified, that most everyone said it was one of the funniest things they ever saw. I was at the Vermont Studio Center and when I went back to my studio, I covered all my windows with paper towels because I was mortified to be seen after that. Ha ha ha ha.

 

[xie-kitchin]

Makes me wish I had some of my childhood drawings here at home!

@Artyczar - Love your book! A couple years ago, I found a book I made when I was about 7 years old, which I do remember making based on instructions from a kids' activity book or mag (I know I got the idea from somewhere). It was an ABC book w/a stitched binding and cardboard covers w/green tissue paper.

My parents were both interested in art but never pursued it, so they were always really encouraging. My mother saved *everything*...

 

[OliveOyl]

I’m taking a break from painting and having a good chuckle at our earlier selves.

David’s dad drawing is beyond charming and he looks like he’s floating in a little boat in a sea of space. And wow, check out the drama of Lincoln’s assassination! And Arty’s yellow and fat mom who eats too much (awesome) and the paper towel story. Haha. And I certainly relate (ummm...just a bit) to the saying of inappropriate things.

Later, when I’m sitting at the “big” computer, I’ll have to dig around for some of my own kiddie masterpieces so you’ll understand the genius among you. But now...I must return to my current old lady masterpiece.

Thanks for posting!

 

[OliveOyl]

I should have kept my mouth shut about posting my early work. All I can think after taking a trip down art memory lane is...I seem so schizophrenic! There's charcoal, conte crayon, pen and ink, colored pencil, regular pencil, watercolor, gouache, pastel, etching, lithography, mechanicals, textile engravings. And as many different things as I experimented with, they're also all different styles. Who WAS this hyper creature????

So...it was 1968 and this is in my first sketchbook. Groovy!

I threw out all my subsequent sketchbooks but saved a few doodley bits like this. Maybe high school.

Good grief. A marker doodle of...party?? people?? Maybe this was back in the Basquiat days.

More recently, I played around with them digitally. My, isn't this "better?"

 

[OliveOyl]

Now I'm in art school. (Hello!) This was the very first time I used oils and the model was a blind boy named Skotch.

Another sketchy oil attempt. Gee. I wonder why all I do is figurative paintings? I obviously was never interested in doing anything else and yet....ironically...I find real life people very annoying and would like to avoid them at all costs. Hmmmm.

Some oddity from printing class. Is this an intaglio print???? Can't remember.

Post college. This was a print made from a mechanical and I have a stack of them. Why? Who knows!

Ugh. How many people live inside me? And now, I have to get off this thing. Got reading to do. So I'll leave you with this delicious "eye candy" but don't indulge TOO much because you'll just make yourself sick.

Toodles.

 

[Maybenartist]

I drew a lot as a kid, from the usual cartoons to more complicated stuff. Then I never did any art (or perhaps only the odd drawing). I was always too busy working later and any spare time I had I believe my kids deserved so I was either at work or out somewhere with the kids.

Later in life my wife decided to organise parties and one particular time when she was throwing a party at our home for homeless street kids the artist she employed to paint panels for her parties went sick. She was distraught and I asked her why she didn't get someone else, asking how hard can it be to paint a 2 metre panel of some cartoon figure?
She said, to quote her, if it's so easy Picasso, why don't you do it? Seeing how upset she was I went to the local store, bought an airbrush, compresser and some card to use as stencil. I painted it in secret to surprise her and her smile when I showed her it was worth the nightmare of trying to use an airbrush for the one and only time in my life. I gave the compressor away after and the once used airbrush I gave to some guy on WC years later.
Anyway she produced a great party with maybe 50 street kids floating around everywhere and she provided them with desks, pencils, paints and paper which she called her office of arts. It was probably the only time the kids got to experience art, maybe one of them will become an artist. I wish I'd never done it because then my wife was forever going on at me to paint!

That's the first time I'd painted since school and later I decided to paint my wife's portrait, but I needed to get up to speed so joined an art forum and started painting a lot because time was short and I was nowhere good enough to begin a portrait in oils which I'd never used.

Here's the crazy panel, hope it doesn't infringe and copyright rigmarole.

 

[snoball]

That is gorgeous! No wonder she was pleased. Now you need to post some of the horses and the portrait.