Anonymous User asked: How did you become such a solid artist, beyond just practice? How did you practice, what did you practice, where did you start?
How did you become such a solid artist, beyond just practice?
a ceaseless desire to learn something new. new skill, technique, art style, brush, effect, discipline--doesn't really matter what it is i just like learning new shit. it all has ripple effects on what you've previously practised, either by helping inform those things a bit more or changing your approach in a way that better solidifies 'your' art
How did you practice
every waking hour as a teenager and it's basically never stopped. practise isn't just sitting yourself down and, like, going 'im gonna do some studies!' it's just literally anything. my most complete works are practise to some degree.
what did you practice
see first answer
where did you start?
got a digital tablet for my birthday when i was 16 and picked up the pen and just started. digital tablets are a lot cheaper now, it's never been easier to just pick that shit up and get movin
My main thought reading the question above was "practice is the thing I want to do, and that's what guides my practice".
My context is software but I think for most forms of making it's very difficult to get really good if you're only in it for the results. You don't have to find making fun—while that helps a lot there's tons of things about programming that are tedious but I have to be good at them anyway. But there a difference between "wanting to have made something" and "wanting to make something". You have to find something you get out of the act of making itself beyond it simply being a means to the end of having a thing made.
It can be direct enjoyment, or it can be an outlet for feelings or stress, or it can be a physical practice of being present, etc. You also don't need to have this before you start—you can learn or develop in yourself a sense of what drives you to the process of making things. It is not solely the domain of people who were born with some innate need to make.
You can also lose that motivation. Burnout is real. Not wanting to make for a while (or ever again) doesn't invalidate your past desires to make.
But almost every experienced maker I've met who stuck with their craft found that the process of making something was valuable to them in some way that drove them to keep doing it. It's hard to sustain that kind of effort if you only care about having the things you make after they're complete.
this is one of those things where your craft being your job can be your blessing and/or your curse, because you have to do it or you don't get paid - but that means you have to do it or you don't get paid. But also they have to pay you even when you aren't good yet.
When I was working at the plastic shop, I had to practice every day making things because... It was my job, I had to. The fact that I enjoyed it was only the sugar on top, it was immaterial to the thing, a bonus. If I didn't have the whip at my back of "if I don't become skilled at this I will be fired" it might have taken me ages to get good, if I hadn't given up in the first place. I didn't even have that satisfaction of showing things to people and getting oohs and ahhs really because if I'm being honest with myself, nobody finds a display box that impressive. It's like the picture frame - even a really ornate one is still just a frame.
But the thing is, they also had to pay me while I was a raw beginner - so even though I wasn't capable of much, I could still live off of my work. And that was critical to get me through the rough early stages and allowed me to master it.