How I became an artist
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I think that living a humble life doing simple things that don't necessarily lead to professional success, is still a very noble lifestyle. The pressure society has brought upon us to follow our dreams, simply because it's nice to follow your dreams, is a bit of a pipe dream.
What I'm trying to say is that success isn't objective, it cannot be measured with the amounts of projects you've built, or with the amounts of professional artworks you've produced. Success is being happy about the simple things in life, whether these are output of your work (art, code, music, etc.) or experiences you've had in life.
This is a reasonable goal for artists to pursue, because it's one that only really depends on them, and they are unlikely to be successful by any other measure without it.
Or do you think art is solely about self-expression? But then again, how can you express what you mean, if you don't control the output?
Very simple, low-skill artworks can be extremely powerful. Artworks that took 20,000 hours of practice can be dull.
A large part of mastery also goes beyond the technicalities of expressing, it's also about having a good eye for what is worth expressing and what is mundane/boring/etc.
But it basically boils down to: art [of all kinds] is tricky and takes a lot of practice.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/7474079@N02/
Boring isn't it? (Interesting as history maybe?)
The "what is worth expressing" is where creativity happens. Technique makes you a competent hack. It's not enough for originality. So it's misleading to think it's all art. Technique and originality are different skills. The best artists have lots of both, but they're not related skills.
(Software has the same problem.)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/7474079@N02/17227816585/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/7474079@N02/18470207921/
Interestingly, I feel the same way about many works on ArtStation [1]. The artists try to draw something "cool", like a fantasy creature, but end up with just a basic picture of a human with lots of greebles [2]. Lack of imagination is very obvious.
At the other end of the spectrum for me is something like Wayne Barlowe's "Wargate" [3], an image with a whole new visual language for what it's trying to say, or Paul Veer's pixel art for Nuclear Throne [4], with very simple technique but very imaginative character designs. Apologies if my taste is pedestrian :-)
[1] https://www.artstation.com/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greeble
[3] https://simotron.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/tumblr_mv4vmddu...
What do you classify as interesting?
My criterion for whether something is art is whether it changes how I see the world. I guess something like Wayne Barlowe's "Wargate" (referenced in a sibling post) doesn't change how I see the world. It's too far removed from my life. But the light in Monet's winter day...
See the highly popular /u/Shitty_Watercolour on Reddit or "Get Your War On" comics by Rees, David.
Practicing technique can be nice, but it can also hinder spontaneity and creativity.
The magical inspiration in art is something beyond technique. The way you practice that is to just live your life.
Lots of people hold themselves back from drawing, dancing, and singing because they are afraid of being judged for not having enough technical skill.
But you are getting into a debate that hasn't really been resolved in modern art either, this has been a debate in the concept of kitsch and collage, dada, Greenberg, photography, etc.
If you want to dance around the question linguistically, that's all fine and good, but there are people in the world who believe that art must be sold and there are people in the world who find value in it other than the fact that it sells. You've got the past and the contemporary interpretations of art conflated with the trends of culture. Plus, these circles weave and web together, people derive influence and inspiration from all sorts of places, art comes to mean different things depending on who is listening, who is speaking/painting/etc.
I mean, there is obviously either a rigid definition for Art which has no form in language and is thus inexpressible for all eternity despite the various shapes it may manifest as, or art is something else. No, just kidding, I have no idea what I'm patring on about.
Or, conversely, you're a perfectionist and kicking yourself over the single calculation mistake in an otherwise field-defining paper, masterful performance, etc.
When you participate in a craft, there are measures and standards of quality orthogonal to your emotions, and they matter a great deal in determining whether a work is successful.
Which metric do we use to define success here? Can shitty software be considered successful just because everyone uses it?
People don't buy the best most perfect fancy publishing platform, they buy something that lets them publish their content and move on with their lives.
I think the success is pretty self-evident?
Sorry for pedantry, but think it helps with the metaphor.
This description != a worthless piece of art.
E.L. James is probably the most obvious recent example of someone who is almost universally decried by the above professions, but still writes something that at the very least is enjoyed by a lot of people. However, there are dozens of - often very successful and much-beloved - writers who fit the same description.
Defining quality in art is a very, very difficult proposition.
On a side note, there are plenty of dreadfully-written, insecure, $register_globals - dependent PHP apps out there solving real problems for real people.
He treated high costs as damage and routed his career around them.
This lesson is as true in business as it is in art: always look for cheaper, more efficient, yet still effective alternatives. Productivity is output/input, and when the output (commercial success, in his case) is a very noisy function of many factors you don't control, figuring out how to minimize input costs while keeping P(success) as high as possible is the key to making good choices. He showed creativity and pragmatism as well as dedication.
Also: failure is always an option (I say this as someone who has failed more often than he has succeeded in his major life goals, although the successes have been more than worth the effort.) Hard work and talent are necessary but not sufficient conditions for success. Maybe there is no audience for the kind of art you love (I'm a formal poet, and have more-or-less made my peace with this.) So make sure you're doing it for love, not money. If the money is there, you've won the lottery, but regardless of that aspect of it, making the art you love, and putting in the hours and deliberate practice to get better at your craft, is worth it.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9837493
[2] sorry to use this as an example, but looks like new account / throwaway
As an artist, I constantly have people stumble across my recent work and exclaim how much they like it. That's awesome! It makes me feel so good. But they see that without the context of the years that came before it. They don't understand the struggles that lead to that piece.
So this article was all about providing some of that context.
Going through the article, I felt two transitions: a. Where you did portraiture with landscape background, b. where you did the imaginative landscapes
would do imaginative sketches of landscapes
But then I started getting annoyed. I got annoyed with how students are taught
and with how art schools take advantage of eager young art students.
I saw too many of my peers taken advantage of. They charge tens or hundreds
of thousands of dollars and give very little in return.
So for one thing, I wrote that angry rant that a few of you might have read.
In 2013, I started Art Camp.
Kudos!
The site is for anyone to use and we have quite a few artists using it already: https://streak.club/s/8/daily-art-2015
Here's a post I wrote talking a little more about the site: http://leafo.net/posts/introducing_streakclub.html
Anyway, thanks for the great article! This might just be the kick I need to start taking art seriously. :)
Anyway, my hunch (and reading between the lines of the article) is that something similar happens with art. Once you learn to intuitively visualize shapes in three dimensions, and once you develop a large mental "reference library" of architecture/landscape/characters/etc., you'll be able to create imaginitive new worlds without much effort. But without having that foundation, you're still stumbling around in the dark.
I had just finished college and found a great job. With all the free time I didn't have in school, I decided to buckle down and start taking art seriously (instead of doodling cartoon figures). I knew I need to start out by building a solid foundation, which meant that I have to really familiarize myself with the basics and maintain a daily habit of learning+practicing (even if my brain no longer wants to operate after 7-9 hour of work). That's what I have been doing in the past 8 months.
It takes quite a bit of self-discipline and sometimes it's just hard to get yourself to commit to it, but it the end it's all worthwhile. I have made (small) decent progress... It's a wonderful feeling, to know that you are able to confidently produce something that you would've not been able to do so several months ago. Here are some of my recent practice sketches: https://i.imgur.com/gtR8T2t.jpg
Proko has several tutorial series that I strongly recommend for beginners that are looking for somewhere to start: http://www.proko.com/
The bit that stood out to me in particular was his embrace of deliberate practice. It's been identified in studies as the most powerful tool for learning skills like this - good to see it born out in at least one practical example too.
I've been a working artist for 20 years now (filmmaker). One of the biggest advantages I've had in sustaining that career is that I'm pretty damn good with a spreadsheet.
As others have said, it's a long game, and skills that will sustain you through that long game are critically important.
What an excellent piece. I am reading this to my kids.
Hope they're inspired! Give 'em plenty of art supplies!
I want to read your story to my eldest, 16 years old, who says he is struggling to find what he really wants to do with his life (career choices etc). He is a good kid. The truth is, I am going to read that story again mostly for me too.
I didn't know at 16 what I wanted from my life either ... but I spent a good decade in my 20s "going with the flow", rudderless. I wish I had been more awake to my possibilities then. I don't regret those years completely, I became a father when I had him in those years. But ... it would have been nice to be told that your brain's plasticity is more forgiving earlier than later. :-)
You keep painting. And loving it.
I'm not a programmer, so I can't build an app... I'm certainly not an artist and can't paint or sing... Although I like carpentry and ok at it, I don't want to be a carpenter... So for me, being successful and earning a decent wage is either from climbing the corporate ladder or building my own company. Both are possible, but talent is really not much of a factor.
Anyways, the point I'm getting at is that it's impressive and inspiring to see talented people (like yourself) with artistic skill-sets and ambitions put the hard work in to get their inherent skillsets noticed and make a career for themselves.
Talent doesn't get you everywhere - and neither will hard work - but together they can do great things.
As a product manager I wish I had spent more time on either learning to program or preferably designing interfaces for product ideas that I had. I did some of this stuff but not as much as I now realise I could have.
As a CMO the best evidence of your skills is in marketing a product of any kind. It could be a blog or product that you've created yourself, or pro bono work for someone else.
None of this is to downplay the chops of this artist - it really is amazing.
Sure, I can start a blog talking about social media marketing, but basically it's starting from absolute zero - whereas Noah even early at his earliest started from a place a bit higher. For me to start a blog and say unique things about marketing that haven't been said before and then get that noticed... I consider myself to be smart, but I don't know if I'm on that level.
And sure, like you and I both said, I can build a product (I'm trying as we speak like everyone else is on HN) to develop my marketing skills, but then lets face it... if it's actually worth doing, my job isn't going to be primarily about marketing; it will be about leading a team, building a great product, and yes a bit of marketing.
As you know, marketing is all about the packaging, and how you sell the sizzle, not the steak. So even if you think it's all been said before, it doesn't have to stop you from saying it in your own way, with your own unique insights, distribution methods, etc.
Like Noah you can find an old master to train under too.
A lot of self-taught coders do this by building websites for friends and family when they get started, why not do the same with marketing?
But overall agreed - not easy to demonstrate marketing chops until you're in the hot seat. :)
Hard work, persistence, and luck. Stir and serve chilled.
I have a question for you, if you'd be willing to entertain it: As your own art has improved, would you say that your own imagination has improved as well?
For me, I'm interested in a few things that aren't [strictly] visual art -- creating video games and writing stories -- but I often find myself having trouble fully visualizing the ideas that bubble up from my imagination. For example, I might have a story that involves a futuristic space ship, but I can only retain a shadow of its image in my mind's eye. The general shapes might be there, and a few details, but it's a far cry from the rich detail that I can conjure up of, say, my home growing up.
One idea I've considered, as a means of sharpening my imagination, is getting into sketching or painting. Perhaps learning the techniques of putting imagination to paper will make my imagination all that much sharper, more vibrant, more real. Would you say that there's any merit to that line of thinking?
One of my greatest fears around the time I was beginning to take this seriously was that I simply wasn't creative enough. I didn't know what to paint. But I found that as both my technical abilities expanded, I was also expanding the person I was and the things I was exposed to. Forming the person you are also forms the way your mind can come up with ideas.
http://www.quora.com/How-do-you-get-a-job-as-a-designer-with...
A great takeaway is how he offered free prints during his Illuxcon convention. I rarely see artists (even amateurs) doing this at conventions. I imagine this accelerated his success as his free prints were probably hanging on the wall in various art directors' offices.
And you can call it art--I'm not snooty about the word.
On a different note, most artists I know are successful because they excel in making insightful commentary on contemporary culture. They look at human agency and make sens of it. They crate a playground of imagination for possible futures.
Skills in traditional art practice are often secondary to the latter.
https://d262ilb51hltx0.cloudfront.net/max/1600/1*nLdIY0f1MIa...
I travel a lot so I'm on my Surface Pro 3 most of the time. I've used most everything out there. They all have pros and cons.
There are a ton of great resources. Start with the stuff linked in my don't-go-to-art-school article.
Also being an artist is a curse. In just finished reading the trial by Kafka for the fourth time: it must have been extremely painful and hard to write such a deep novel. I wouldn't wish having this curse even on my worst enemy. Normal people far very much being an "artist" and they are right, as bring one means having the most miserable life, no sane relationships with other people, and if success is there you get paranoia.
Even worse is a young guy who knows nothing about that and says "me too! I want to be an Artist!". Just like those fools willing to become soldiers in 1914...
Now suppose that OP has the least meaningful message in the world - however, it is steeped in positivity.
If nothing else, let this be a lesson in how much your attitude matters.
You'd kept slaves in slavery with this powerful reasoning.
That indefensible statement alone is enough reason for a downvote, imho.
"Becoming an artist", for real artists, is a life-long achievement, it takes a lot of struggles, travels (inside and outside), it requires knowing a lot, reading a lot, et cetera.
"How I became an artist" from a 20-so is a absurd, risible, as "how to learn Python in 20 mn"
confer: http://norvig.com/21-days.html
(Also, you truncated my post, "How to write blog posts" would be perfectly ok from a 20-so, for that matter.)
Getting good sucks. It sucks, a lot.
An anecdote I remember reading of the lives of famous musicians:
"[A fan] once came up to Fritz Kreisler after one of his concerts and said to him, “I’d give my life to play as beautifully as you do.” To which Kreisler replied, “I did.”
Positive spin might feel nice to read in a blog post, but I don't think it reflect the reality of the endeavor.
Also I agree with you, just replying here for, whatever.
All of that and more in a mere 3 short paragraphs.
How did you NOT see why it was downvoted?
Well, if you weren't bitter and depressed enough after the 1st time, having 4 readings under your belt would go a ways towards explaining the nihilist pessimistic emptiness of your post. When you're done staring into the abyss, the actual meaning that we all have the opportunity to elect to participate in (and which young people still rightfully believe in, stop trying to extinguish it) will still be waiting.