debt?college?jobs....

**floridaboy09** · February 7th, 2009, 06:44 AM

Hello i wanna thank you for who ever is taking their time to read this im sure you have better things to do but moving on.Im 22 ive always been fascinated by art (all forms of art) but i stopped drawing a long long long time ago.I recently started back up i dont yet have my ged but im getting it soon is it realisticly possible for me to get as good as the pros on here without college just from reading books and lots of practice,some local classes or whatnot whatever i can do to improve.Is it possible to land a job without a degree and just a G.E.D I am real passionate about this.Also i was wondering if anyone could estimate a given time frame of a normal person could acheive all this by how many years maybe.Or should i go to school if i were to go get a good education.I was looking at art academy online their illustration program but i dont know if im good enough for that program yet of if i could even keep up with it lol i dont know any advice will be of help.

**Viridis** · February 7th, 2009, 11:59 AM

Okay, first off, I have to request that you type properly. It makes it a hell of a lot easier to read your questions and therefore, answer them. If you're terrible at spelling, whatever, but please at least make an effort to use capitals and punctuation. Or at least some space between your sentences.

Anyway. For art, it's true you don't necessarily need a degree in order to get a job. What you need is skill. Most art jobs are just going to look at your portfolio and not your resume or degree. So sure, you could probably get a job with just a GED. It's not essential to go to college, although it might help speed up the process of improving than simply working on your own.

As for whether or not you can improve on your own just by looking at books and such, and how long it will take... it really depends on you. It's possible to do so, definitely. I'll give the example of Ursula Vernon, who, by her blog, was an anthropology major who started drawing one day for a friend's comic book, and ended up going into art full-time. I think she started this when she was around 24? She's currently 30 or so, got nominated for an Eisner for her webcomic, Digger, and has done at least two published children's books, with more on the way. So she's been pretty successful, and didn't study art specifically (though she did go to college.)

How long it might take for you I can't say. If you draw all the time and really work to improve, you can go pretty far in a short period of time. But it all depends on you and your personal work style.