So many child prodigies, do I even have a chance?

[bish0p2004]

With good time management, it is possible to study 10 hours a day.

Not if you work 40 hours a week.

Work: 8 hours
Sleep: 8 hours
Draw: 8 hours

That's 24 hours right there and that's not even including driving/walking to work, cooking, eating, shitting and showering.

I suppose you could sleep for 6 hours, but as far as I'm concerned, I need between 7-8 hours of sleep. Still, I manage to get between 3-5 hours a day (not including weekends) of drawing time on work days and draw off and on, on the weekends.

[Arshes Nei]

but nevertheless being paid for art means you are a professional artist.

So if kids sell lemonade at a stand and get paid for it, it makes them professional chefs and restaurant managers.

[Flashback]

Not if you work 40 hours a week.

Work: 8 hours
Sleep: 8 hours
Draw: 8 hours

That's 24 hours right there and that's not even including driving/walking to work, cooking, eating, shitting and showering.

I suppose you could sleep for 6 hours, but as far as I'm concerned, I need between 7-8 hours of sleep. Still, I manage to get between 3-5 hours a day (not including weekends) of drawing time on work days and draw off and on, on the weekends.

possibility is not certainty.

I certainly don't need 8 hours of sleep.

All I said is that it is possible to do it.

[[email protected]]

Uhmmm...






No.

So, you're really really slow?

[LordLouis]

I don't want to be overly cruel about that artist, and I know considering my own artwork that I really don't have a leg to stand on, but her gallery really doesn't look pro at all. Have you noticed how about 70% of her gallery is just headshots and picture of very stylised characters with minimal background? It seems like that's all she's capable of. Lots of them also seem to share very similar facial characteristics. I don't think that gallery is a very good example, and I wouldn't hire her for work if I wanted an illustrator for my product.

That what I meant with "point of view". Rationally and on basis of what other people can produce I know she is nowhere there (and yes, I notice the headshot-bias in the gallery), but I am equally nowhere where she is- point of view. I can't even draw a bloody cube. The word 'pro' is imho just a lose description used for what you have no idea about.. on the internet at least.

It is a choice when you give up other things for it, everyone has 24 hours in a day, but most of us don't spend them as wisely as we could.

Fully agree with your statement that we don't spend time as wisely as we could- at least I know I could get myself at least one hour more a day than I do.

The majority of people waste a lot of time working more than they really have to (I don't know where you got the impression that he was in some kind of luxurious position to work more than the average person without sacrificing something else?) and on other hobbies, or just waste time. If you're not motivated by someone who went from never having drawn to a pro level without being a one-in-a-million talent simply because he went to an atelier and actually dedicated a lot of time to it every day (over a period of many years), then I'd love to hear what kind of people do motivate you.

I didn't say he was in a luxurious position per se (as far as I gather from his sb, he worked in a bakery as well to earn money), but that having 10 hours a day is a luxury to have in my opinion.

What motivates me is people that have started at a later age that I have and made it, people who realized their dream as an artist after a career in something else- basically everyone that can proof you don't have to be a lunatic living in your car eating canvas and licking brushes because anything else wouldn't be 'true dedication'.

..I just read these forums too often. Waste of time, touché!
Thanks for the bold response.

[Medelo]

Hey, I used to think this way. Then I went walking in the park one day and met this 40 year old guy who said he finally got his job at Pixar as an animator and that he'd spent the past 10 years trying to get in -- and it was all worth it.

The focus should really be on your art anyhow, on what you want to do with your visions, your ideas, how you're going to make them come to life. The job is just a really nice side option. That's the way I see it.

[Lux_Aeterna]

Thanks a lot to anyone who answered to this post.

Well, with "pros" i do of course not mean people who sell some art for a few dollars. I just might give some examples:

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/sho...d.php?t=140145 18 years
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/sho...d.php?t=140145 . 19 y (you migh know him from the CA Sketchbooks)
http://maria-menshikova.deviantart.com/ - 19 y

These are child prodigies in my opinion. not to mention artists like jana schirmer, algenpfleger or Charlie Bowater who also had been amazing at a young age.

And, the reason why I want to become good at art:
Drawing is my passion; its what i love to do. I gave up on many, many things to improve my skills: Social life; I have one but way less then before i started the practice.
Playing my favorite PC games. Writing.
because illustrating is my vocation and i want to do it as an occupation until i die - or at least until i'm not able to hold a pencil anymore.

It's not about fame or something...no way. its all about what i want for my life and my future.
after reading your comments it feels like a little bit of the pressure is gone because many of you brought me to think about my fears.
i am a person who tries to be optimistic in every area of the life and of course i never give up working.

[Arshes Nei]

So you gave examples for THREE people. How many artists do you think are in the entire world?

If you are worried about your future, worry about your future and stop comparing.

In short the people who worry too damn much about everyone else make threads like these

The ones who worry about their future and meeting their goals make threads like these

[Shaggnasty]

Well, with "pros" i do of course not mean people who sell some art for a few dollars. I just might give some examples:

You're not a pro until you're capable of completely sustaining yourself with art.

And SamC, you'll notice is on page 79 of his sketchbook thread. Algen is well over 100. This tells me they got to where they are with a lot of work and dedication, not by being child prodigies. They just started working harder at a younger age.

[yochanan]

Picasso painted this when he was 14 years old.



Should we stop painting?

[OmenSpirits]

Learning to create images, art or otherwise, is not always about physically doing the act.

Learning to think is also apart of the process. Learning to analyze is apart of the process. Learning to understand the why of the process and why this works and that does not in an image is apart of learning.

So physically doing the work is not the only thing of importance, but seldom emphazised.

[LukasA]

This explains it

[vineris]

Thanks a lot to anyone who answered to this post.

Well, with "pros" i do of course not mean people who sell some art for a few dollars. I just might give some examples:

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/sho...d.php?t=140145 18 years
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/sho...d.php?t=140145 . 19 y (you migh know him from the CA Sketchbooks)
http://maria-menshikova.deviantart.com/ - 19 y

These are child prodigies in my opinion. not to mention artists like jana schirmer, algenpfleger or Charlie Bowater who also had been amazing at a young age.

And, the reason why I want to become good at art:
Drawing is my passion; its what i love to do. I gave up on many, many things to improve my skills: Social life; I have one but way less then before i started the practice.
Playing my favorite PC games. Writing.
because illustrating is my vocation and i want to do it as an occupation until i die - or at least until i'm not able to hold a pencil anymore.

It's not about fame or something...no way. its all about what i want for my life and my future.
after reading your comments it feels like a little bit of the pressure is gone because many of you brought me to think about my fears.
i am a person who tries to be optimistic in every area of the life and of course i never give up working.

There are many, many ways to be "good at art". If you look around you it's very obvious that not all art is highly-rendered dramatic digital art. People make all kinds of art -- trendy vector fashion illustrations, simple cartoons, crazy collages, disturbing ink art, freaky underground comics art and so on and so on.

It's your job to find out what kind of artist you are and where your audience is hiding.

To paraphrase Alexandro Jodorowsky, "Good for Algenpfleger to be Algenpfleger, not for me." I am not some other artist, I will never be some other artist, so I'd better master whatever the fuck I am and nail things to the wall with that.

[QueenGwenevere]

Picasso painted this when he was 14 years old.

Should we stop painting?

Again, he started early and drew a LOT. If you look at his early childhood drawings, they look like any childhood drawings. He started from square one like everyone else. It's not magic. It's called "practice".

Also, frankly, in the grand scheme of things, that example is a rather mediocre painting, taking it by itself and not grading it by the artist's age... As are most of the examples of so-called "child prodigy" art given so far. It doesn't serve much purpose to look up to work that's mediocre but "so much better than me at age X!!!"

Better to look at the best of the best and aim to be better than that.

Or better still, aim to be better than you, wherever you're at now.

And then practice.

[Rengin]

Lux_Aeterna, I've felt the same way and I still do. The way I like to look at it (and a bit of a reaction to what yochanan said about wasting time, and having fun drawing) is that ultimately, it all comes down to priorities. Almost every person in this thread has a point, but this is based on their priorities. Flashback has the priority to push everything aside and draw 10 hours a day. Like him, there are a multitude of driven people here and out there who want to be superstars when they're 20, and manage to drive themselves to push aside everything else to draw with every spare second they have.

I myself am a person with many interests, curiosities, needs and principles, only it happens that the largest part of it is focused on 2D visual art. However, I also want to be able to play the violin, speak Turkish, spend time with my friends and family and catch a few rays of sunshine while reading a book, make sure that my grades in school stay up and sleep (at least) 8 hours a night.

The point im making is, if you want to become a pro at drawing asap, then you should probably listen to the advice of the people telling you to draw every second you can. However, don't stress out about not drawing if you don't want to (and not wanting to, I think, is different from not having the discipline to go through the motions and draw the shaded cubes and spheres), because if drawing doesn't make you happy or feel fulfilled, it's not worth it anyway.

I'd like to add that I also think that with all creative processes (so especially when working on an illustration or something similar, though I also think studying anatomy and composition needs to click in your head at some point) you need to give your subconscious some time to process the creative problem you're dealing with, and doing something else might provide you with new inspiration, or allow your problem to fall to the back of your mind and let it rummage about there, where it can be solved. There's a few talks on this that are part of the TED conferences (ted.com), though I can't seem to find them right now (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's talk about flow is a classic I always like to refer to though, you can go from there).

- If you think there are fifteen year old art prodigies on DA you are doomed to mediocrity anyway, so yeah, its too late for you.

Aren't there a lot of people who post their work both here and on DA? I kind of dislike this elitist generalization that everything and everyone on DA must be inferior to art posted here, since it might very well be posted at both websites. I do agree that the target audience of both websites differ, but the fact that the majority of DA likes to draw anime kittens doesn't mean that there aren't any serious artists on there. It's a place to show your work as much as any place on the internet, of not for harsh critique then maybe for the pick-me-up that everyone needs once in a while - and I have noticed that if you offer serious critique yourself, you attract the people who will do the same for you, regardless of the domain name.

- Want inspiration? Go outside, you life in Germany and you guys have more nature in your country then I have in The Netherlands, I wish I could swap.

No nature in the Netherlands? I'm just going to assume you live in Breda since you seemed to describe the IGAD course, and I can tell you there's lots of nature 1 km away from the faculty. (Just no mountains, boo =p) If you don't live in Breda.. There's lots of nature if you just take a train out of Rotterdam or Amsterdam.

[Noah Bradley]

This thread has made me realize that I'm now in the twilight of my career.

Oh well.

[bish0p2004]

possibility is not certainty.

I certainly don't need 8 hours of sleep.

All I said is that it is possible to do it.

Fair enough.

I still agree with LordLouis' post regarding MindCandyMan's thread and how he was a unique example with certain "luxuries" that many people do not have.

It's just not realistic for most people (at least those who work full time jobs) to have that much time to draw.

At the end of the day though, you gotta make due with what you have and I think that 4-6 hours of drawing per day is still good enough to improve at a fast rate....at least that's what I got from Magic Man's sketchbook. Talk about a prodigy...he became pro 6 months after taking art seriously.

[yochanan]

Again, he started early and drew a LOT. If you look at his early childhood drawings, they look like any childhood drawings. He started from square one like everyone else. It's not magic. It's called "practice".

Also, frankly, in the grand scheme of things, that example is a rather mediocre painting, taking it by itself and not grading it by the artist's age... As are most of the examples of so-called "child prodigy" art given so far. It doesn't serve much purpose to look up to work that's mediocre but "so much better than me at age X!!!"

Better to look at the best of the best and aim to be better than that.

Or better still, aim to be better than you, wherever you're at now.

And then practice.

It was a rhetorical question. My point was exactly that it's utterly irrelevant how good someone else is at a certain age, and unless your income depends on it, the skill of other people in general should be irrelevant. If it matters, then people need to change their attitude or find something they actually enjoy doing.

[dpaint]

Aren't there a lot of people who post their work both here and on DA? I kind of dislike this elitist generalization that everything and everyone on DA must be inferior to art posted here, since it might very well be posted at both websites. I do agree that the target audience of both websites differ, but the fact that the majority of DA likes to draw anime kittens doesn't mean that there aren't any serious artists on there. It's a place to show your work as much as any place on the internet, of not for harsh critique then maybe for the pick-me-up that everyone needs once in a while - and I have noticed that if you offer serious critique yourself, you attract the people who will do the same for you, regardless of the domain name.

I was very clear in what I said and I stand by it. Holding up 15 year olds as prodigies is just ignorant and shows such a lack of art knowledge in general its laughable. So they are prodigies? Compared to what? Back it up with some facts and some proof you know what you are talking about and have an understanding of the art world in general.

[JDSart]

I can enter the main page on Da right now and i´m sure the popular deviations would be some girls showing her cleavage or some cat picture with 12, 000 comments, so there´s that. Its a social network and social networks operate on different standards.

And even if there´s kids with skill, who cares? thinking on those bases is just finding excuses to bruise your ego, no one´s here coming at you judging you because of your age

[QueenGwenevere]

I can enter the main page on Da right now and i´m sure the popular deviations would be some girls showing her cleavage or some cat picture with 12, 000 comments, so there´s that.

Ponies. I guarantee that if you view the main page by "popular" you will get ponies. I guarantee that if you view by "newest", you will also get ponies.

Miscategorized ponies.

And yeah, sure, there's some good stuff buried on the site, but the overall site standards are about as low as you can get. So judging by who looks good compared to DA standards or judging by who's popular on DA is pretty naive.

I have yet to find an "amazing fifteen year old prodigy" on DA who was truly amazing by real-world professional standards.

[dpaint]

I worked a full time job and came home and painted for 8 hours a night. I painted all day on weekends for five years. If you want something you have to work for it. I got rid of my tv and quit playing games until I made it as an artist. If you believe you can do it, what's it to you to give something up for a few years?
But see most people hedge their bets and allow outside things to decide for them. Its the easiest thing in the world is to not follow your dream, to sell short have a bunch of interests and not decide, and just fit in or care what other people think.You either have the courage of your convictions or you don't, and no one cares what you choose.

Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.
Henry David Thoreau

[Blackthorne]

Thing about DA is there is a lot of kids who are really good at copying and/or using gimmicky tricks to make keeeewwwwl looking pictures. I've seen some blatantly fake drawings with thousands of favorites. You'll be much better off spending more time HERE than over there

[Elwell]

You know what? Whatever you do, whoever you are, no matter how hard you work, there will always, always, always be people who are younger and better than you. And the older you get, the more of them there are going to be.

So, what are you going to do about it?

[Noah Bradley]

So, what are you going to do about it?

Murder. Lots and lots of murder.

[Elwell]

This isn't Highlander, Noah .

[QueenGwenevere]

This isn't Highlander, Noah .

No? Guess I won't need this broadsword, then...

[pixel cheetah]

No, you don't have the slightest chance. Give it up.

.
.
.
.
.

Is this the answer you want to hear? If not then why are you asking?

[vineris]

This isn't Highlander, Noah .

Don't listen to him, Noah. He's got zombie elephants.

[JDSart]

umm, i personally like Sakimichan´s stuff.