Roundtable: HOW-TO learn? An open discussion of techniques for learning art

[Sepulverture]

I'm starting this thread because a lot of the generous artists who leave critiques around these boards often give great advice about what a person ought to study, but there's not really a whole lot of talk about HOW to go about making a good study.

What is it that you personally define as being a good study? What differentiates a good study where the artist is gaining a wealth of knowledge by hammering out the rough spots in a study, and when said artist is gaining nothing from a study?

In other words: How do you determine if a study is a good study, or not good? When one is useful, or not useful.

I've heard a lot of people say that "there is no such thing as a bad study, drawing is drawing" but I beg to differ. I believe that some studies are just time wasters, and you're better of scrapping that study and starting a new one at a certain point.

What are your thoughts and feelings?

Please share, and everyone is welcome to join in!

[Psychotime]

Oh. I was expecting an answer to the question.

...I'll wait.

[Anid Maro]

Well, I'll start with a broad answer to a broad question:

HOW-TO learn?

I approach learning with a quote that is attributed to Confucius:

“By three methods we may learn wisdom: first, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third, by experience, which is the most bitter.”

This isn't a step-by-step list, but rather a reminder that there are always different approaches to the same thing. Some people seem locked into thinking you have to approach this thing in this way or that thing in that way but never think to approach this thing in that way or that thing in this way.

If you're trying to learn perspective, for example, you're not stuck just reading books (reflection). You can also try looking at perspective drawings from other artists and either replicating them or overlaying perspective lines (imitation), or you can try setting up the perspective points on paper or draw on sheets of glass like the old masters and work it out yourself (experience). Heck even if you feel you really understand perspective it may be worthwhile to try other approaches if you never have, you may gain some deeper insights you had no idea about.

Now onto the question about studies:

What is it that you personally define as being a good study? What differentiates a good study where the artist is gaining a wealth of knowledge by hammering out the rough spots in a study, and when said artist is gaining nothing from a study?

In other words: How do you determine if a study is a good study, or not good? When one is useful, or not useful.

A good study, in my opinion, is one that is as brief as possible. Study only what you need and no more, no sense spending time studying things you already know and are gonna work out time and time again outside of your studies. You're making a study because you need to solve a problem, so do exactly that and don't let anything else distract you.

Brief studies are good because:

• If you were in the middle of something (like a bigger art project) you can get back to it.
• If the study didn't help you, then you're not out much in the way of time and effort.
• If you need to do more studies then you have plenty of time to do so.

Also, there is no shame in taking "shortcuts" for the sake of learning. Some studies require more setup than others, for example if you wish to study the effects of coloring a line drawing then you'll need such a drawing before you can color. So go online, find a nifty line drawing, download it or print it, and color that. You're not making art, you're making a study, so do what you've gotta do and toss the study when you're done.

[OmenSpirits]

Some topics I would like to see covered are HOW-TO get a good start learning about art history, a topic which is grossly under-discussed here, but pays exponentially when studying.

How-to learn art history.

This is how I learned art history, which was more for self-improvement and build personal knowledge in art.

I grew up in an area where study and art were not the top of the list in life for those around me, nor was it readily available for me in high school, so what I did was read encyclopedia printouts from a cd-rom on information about the different movements in art history, focusing on the Impressionists. When I was able to afford it, I'd go to bookstores (borders) and look through their art books section and make a list of the books I wish to purchase in the future.

Whatever I could find on the topic of art history I'd read. Then I would analyze the paintings in the books and study from a book on color theory, complimentary colors, and why the paints as a whole work. How the colors harmonize with one another and what the artist's intent with the brush strokes and color variation to creation dimension balance.

I kept on reading, analyzing, and after years & the advent of the internet, I was about to read up on more, thus expanding my understanding. Reading discussions on painting theory and art, I'd found I had come the same conclusions as those whom studied in MFA programs and went to college to degrees and was able to hold my own in conversation about those topics intelligently.

This is just me, since I was self-taught 98% of my artistic journey.

Learning about art history takes the desire to want to know, and the drive to keep at it. Starting anywhere in the long history of art will have to lead you to the beginnings. To get a well-rounded sense of art history, your mind has to be open to the legitimacy of all fields of art history and their contributions to the greater whole.

You may never favor one part over another, but you must study every aspect in some fashion to get a clear picture.

But, this is just me.

[Sepulverture]

Great start guys! Let's keep them coming!

Personally regarding HOW-TO learn I would have to agree with Anid Maro about studies needing to be brief, although I tend to think that a mixture is absolutely necessary.

I think somewhere along the lines of "I just did 3 quick line drawings of this piece of drapery, now I ought to sit down and do a longer rendering of it to get a more rounded understanding of this thing I just drew".

It took me a while to see this, but there was a period earlier in my development where I made a truck load of progress in a very short time, and on reflection I realized that it was because I was mixing methods a little bit. Quick Quick Long Quick Quick Long. Something like that.

I also realized that for myself if I simply push and push and continually study that I will not learn as much as if I do a series of studies, then completely forget about drawing for a day or two, or if I did a lot lot of studies, even several days while I digest what I just studied and try to observe the things I just studied in real life. If I spent the last week studying drapery, then It typically would do me well to spend the following day or so sitting outside somewhere and just watching peoples clothes to see how they react to different movements. I also spend a lot of time standing in front of my mirror with some loose garments on making the same idiotic pose over and over again just to watch how the folds in the clothes react.

[Sidharth Chaturvedi]

Great info here so far , lots of stuff to think about for my own work. I can't really add much here about studies that hasn't been said, just my own experiences with master copies. Measure. For a really detailed copy that's been the single most important thing, and whenever a copy has gone off the rails it's been because I didn't quadruple check everything and ended up with an arm too long, the head in the wrong position, that kind of thing. That alone is just good practice for copying though... I know a study, whether from life or from another painting, has been successful only when I can replicate what I've learned from imagination. That means waiting a day or two after finishing and then hitting the sketchbook.

With art history, I had a survey course or two to point the direction initially so that helped a lot. Learn what the major periods in art history are, and don't just study the works themselves. Take a lot of time to learn about the time period, the political and religious climate, anything to put the art in context. Aside from reading books though, it's been tremendously important for me to talk to other artists. Read blogs. I've learned so much about art history just from Stapleton Kearns' and James Gurney's blogs it's ridiculous.

That's all for now, I'll post again if I think of anything else. I'm still trying to learn all this as I'm going along as well, so Anid, Sepulverture and Omen, thanks so much for sharing all that so far.

[Sepulverture]

SIdharth - Those are some good points, and I'm glad you covered them. Measuring is something that always gets me in trouble, albeit something that I'm beginning to tame.

I'm also glad you mentioned the need to talk to people, because that's a point I was going to cover.

My introduction to art history was rocky at best, and I think that it has influenced my willingness to sit down and learn it by myself even up till now. My intro to art history was through my hischool Art History teacher. She was an egotistical nut from my hometown who was highly biased towards the traditional Indian art of the Native American tribes that once occupied the land that my hometown is situated on, and for some reason or another she was utterly obsessed with cave art from eons ago. Like caveman wall-scrawlings and the like so when we talked about all the periods of classical European art it was in passing at best, and eastern art? Forget it. Then when asked about those topics she would almost look down on you like she was saying "yeah it happened, big deal? We have cave men to talk about you dolt". I think her heavy handed and biased approach to art history really soured my interest in learning about it until much much later.

The point is that when you begin studying about it you ought to make sure that you are learning from a variety of different sources. At the time I genuinely had no idea about the importance of many of the art movements in western art history, and still am quite ignorant of it. Had I realized the importance of art history at the time, and simply gone to the college campus which was only a 15 minute walk away from my highschool i could have gained a great wealth of knowledge by talking to the professors there who I have since gone back to discuss things like perspective and rendering with (and both of the professors there have been super gracious in their willingness to take their off time from class to sit down, talk about it, and even gave me FOR FREE a copy of a fantastic text book that gives a good general introduction to art movements, and some techniques in drawing).

Talking to people is a great way to get started, but make sure you talk to a variety of people to make sure you're getting the whole story, not just their take on the story.

[Anid Maro]

Talking to people is a great way to get started, but make sure you talk to a variety of people to make sure you're getting the whole story, not just their take on the story.

This is actually a very important aspect of learning. One has to understand how strongly interpretation comes into play. Truth be told, there is more information about any subject than could be taught in the amount of time anyone has to teach or could be learnt in the amount of time anyone has to learn.

Period.

As a result, material has to be compressed somehow. Some people will try to cover everything briefly while others will focus on the "most important" parts and cover them in depth. Some people have learned so much that they have to cut the material down, some people never learned anything beyond the short-hand version they were taught. At any rate you'll never learn the full story from one person, or even several, or ever.

But at least you can be aware of this fact.

If you're taking an art history class and your instructor spends a lot of time talking about the Renaissance, find out why. Look at the other courses that instructor teaches, find out what degrees they hold, and maybe just ask them upfront. Maybe that teacher got their masters/doctorate degree by writing a paper about the Renaissance, maybe they just really think art from that era is the bee's knees, maybe the university told them to focus on the Renaissance, or maybe they were taught to believe that Renaissance art is the most important art evar.

Once you know why your instructor teaches what and how they teach, you can put it into a context. This will increase your knowledge of the era, it will help you understand how we understand the era today, and it will keep you from getting confused if you ever hear contradictory information.

This of course goes beyond art and classrooms. It really gets down to something called critical thinking, which when I went to school was oft spouted but rarely taught.

[OmenSpirits]

This of course goes beyond art and classrooms. It really gets down to something called critical thinking, which when I went to school was oft spouted but rarely taught.

I feel critical thinking when it comes to art history, or the understanding and analyzing of anything, comes down to the individual and their desire to learn and the need to understand. Critical thinking, was the end result.

I grew into a researcher and critical thinker out of necessity due in part that, in my life, there was no one to ask the questions, or who had the answers, so I had to search, research, theorize, and breakdown both mentally & emotionally any information I came across in a rational fashion without any kind of emotional bias. Facts alone had to be adhered to for the understanding of the information I was reading to be put to practical use.

Ex. I, before I grew into my knowledge, disliked most painting styles beyond my person bias which was Impressionism. Realism felt too static, cubism felt too unnatural, surrealism was just people on drugs or severally bent in their perceptions, romantism was repetitive.

BUT, after I studied them, and I did for the sake of a well-rounded understanding of history as a whole, I started to accept the values in each form and the technique in each.

Even in pop art, which I actually tried some years ago (there were Humphry bogart stamps coming out from the US postal service and I decided, since I worked in a mail room at the time, to use the cancelled stamps to create a pop art cover for one of my 11x17 sketchbooks) & I found that it looked interesting.

All art, in all its trend, has a value in its creation. The end result might not be to a person's liking, but, if you go through the process of creating it, you'll learn a technique that will benefit your chosen style of expression.

[libsonluv]

Just taking admission in eductional institute is not more than enough. One must dedicate himself thoroughly for the purpose of study and fulfill all the requirements of shool teachers and administrations.

[Sepulverture]

Good to see people still discussing in here! Let's keep it going!

Just taking admission in eductional institute is not more than enough. One must dedicate himself thoroughly for the purpose of study and fulfill all the requirements of shool teachers and administrations.

Can you elaborate on that?

[Anid Maro]

Just taking admission in eductional institute is not more than enough. One must dedicate himself thoroughly for the purpose of study and fulfill all the requirements of shool teachers and administrations.

Can you elaborate on that?

Well, at risk of stepping on Libsonluv's toes, I have an elaboration for that. If there's anything I say that you'd wish to correct Libsonluv, please do.

If you really want to learn, you have to take your own initiative. It's not just enough to show up for class, do the assignment, and get your credits. There just isn't enough time in getting a degree from start to finish for you to really learn everything... heck there probably isn't enough time in your life.

One semester isn't enough for an Art History course to teach you all the artists you should and want to know, it isn't enough for a Figure Drawing course to make you the Michelangelo of anatomy, it isn't enough to make you the Cezanne of colors, it isn't enough to make you the Mucha of design.

All a one semester course can hope to do is teach you enough to pique your interest and cause you to study the subject further on your own. If you take multiple courses on a single subject, all that can hope to do is merely make you adequate at the subject. Being good takes years of effort beyond the classroom, being great can take a lifetime.

[Nibras]

I Love this thread so far. It would be cool to open in in the art discussion or lounge just because it would get a ton more answers and then put the good ones back in here

But anywayz, amazing advice everyone. Already picking up so much

[Line]

Study has many forms and purposes. So, for me, one thing that has to be defined clearly
with every effort is the purpose, what is the goal of the study. If I want to practice my
drawing skills I am going to concentrate on drawing as well as possible, if I want to hone
my ability to use even very small tonal differences, I'll render the image more carefully.
Of course, as time goes on each 'layer' that is part of an image is given equal amount of
care, and as one becomes more proficient, things move on faster.

Something I feel is needed tho, to learn and grow is variety. For instance, it's good to do
cast studies with that dramatic spot light, against a dark background, but it's also a hell
of a great study to try painting that cast when it's fooded in halftone, against an equally
lit background. The fact that there is literally nothing to work with, no contrast, makes
this a different kind of challenge, you have to understand why you are seeing what you
are seeing, before you even figure out how to translate it into the optical language of
your medium. Or a landscape painting of a summer scene, at nood, when everything is
bright and hot. The same thing! Or a dark moon lit scene etc etc.

Also, time helps too. Short studies help you see the big picture, yes. But also longer ones
especially those that turn out bad for no apparent reason, I feel, help you inspect your
initial study and results and in having to re-think the problem at hand, one may discover
more hidden underneath that isn't visible at first.

[Sepulverture]

I Love this thread so far. It would be cool to open in in the art discussion or lounge just because it would get a ton more answers and then put the good ones back in here

But anywayz, amazing advice everyone. Already picking up so much

I did open a thread like this in the Lounge, but it got very few replies. So far it's done much better here. I may link to it in the art discussion forums though, good idea.

[Sepulverture]

Study has many forms and purposes. So, for me, one thing that has to be defined clearly
with every effort is the purpose, what is the goal of the study. If I want to practice my
drawing skills I am going to concentrate on drawing as well as possible, if I want to hone
my ability to use even very small tonal differences, I'll render the image more carefully.
Of course, as time goes on each 'layer' that is part of an image is given equal amount of
care, and as one becomes more proficient, things move on faster.

Something I feel is needed tho, to learn and grow is variety. For instance, it's good to do
cast studies with that dramatic spot light, against a dark background, but it's also a hell
of a great study to try painting that cast when it's fooded in halftone, against an equally
lit background. The fact that there is literally nothing to work with, no contrast, makes
this a different kind of challenge, you have to understand why you are seeing what you
are seeing, before you even figure out how to translate it into the optical language of
your medium. Or a landscape painting of a summer scene, at nood, when everything is
bright and hot. The same thing! Or a dark moon lit scene etc etc.

Also, time helps too. Short studies help you see the big picture, yes. But also longer ones
especially those that turn out bad for no apparent reason, I feel, help you inspect your
initial study and results and in having to re-think the problem at hand, one may discover
more hidden underneath that isn't visible at first.

These are really good points I think, thanks for adding them. Time is important, but I'd say that managing time is more important in many cases.

I think that there are times when you just let your pencil do the talking and you can go willy nilly just drawing whatever you will in the student. Rendering the hell out of it, while at the same time spending a ton of time trying to nail those lines precisely as you see them, or are imagining them, however most of the time I think you need to be conscious of how much time you're spending on a single study to make sure you're not overworking it while not learning all you could be by completing this study and moving on to another one.

The comment about variety is also good, but I have a little I'd like to add to that.

I think it's fairly common understanding among more experienced participants in any discipline that practicing a variety of skills related to your discipline is essential for improvement, but being conscious not to study such a broad variety of things as to over stretch yourself without gaining sufficient proficiency in any of them.

Finding out what you want to do and how to do it through experimentation and whatnot should be the first step, then when you find that one part of your discipline that you want to master, you focus on that while prioritizing additional skills.

Focus on your primary, while giving less than equal attention to secondary skills, and paying cursory attention to tertiary skills, being careful not to under-study those additional skills, since all skills play on each other for advancement. To me it doesn't make a lot of sense to become a master of human anatomy if your primary focus is on landscape paintings where there are few, if any human actors present in the painting. Still one should have a good foundational knowledge of all other aspects of their art, as these "lesser" skills will ultimately come into play into your art at some time in the future, and in the future your focus may shift to some aspects of art that you had preciously deemed lesser, or unnecessary to your advancement.

the ability to keep a wide-open mind to different possibilities is a hugely beneficial tool to have in your possession when undertaking these kinds of tasks.

[Blondebeard]

Some great advice already.

I'll add in what I've picked up on my own with recently by spending the last two weeks here at CA and doing a loooooot ref drawing =). Feel free to disagree or agree.
-

A good study is something that deals with a foundational idea that will only serve to contribute to your visual library. Get a good idea of what you're weak in, at what level you are weak in it, and develop the study from there.

I also find it important to separate the notions of basics and refinement. Basics should always be the core of learning. Refinement is expanding upon those basics. The more basics I spend time on the more tools I find myself having for when refinement is the focus.

As has been already mentioned doing your studies as a series is a very good way to keep the flow going, and the focus concentrated. It also serves as a way to gauge your improvement and mistakes. They should also be brief and to the point with the occasional extra time picture tossed in to break things up.

[Angel Intheuk]

Some good advice here, I agree with you Blondbeard and I am striving to be more structured like this in my learning, thank you for putting it concisely.

I tend to only study what I need to at the time to complete the painting I'm doing or what has caught my ever changing interest (suspect I have ADD). This (non)method is not very structured and I have lots of gaps in my knowledge so when I try and draw from my memory I find I can't and have to resort to reference which can make the drawing look stale, disjointed or I just can't find the reference at all and abandon the drawing.

Because of my lack of attention I developed the habit of being random and seeing what happens which has often given me some suprising results and god-awful ones. But this is how I learn and I remember my mistakes more than my successes (which is normal, from what I can gather) so from an experimental viewpoint no study is wasted.

This thread has given me some good food for thought. Thank you Sepulverture!

[Erin_Something]

I have the good fortune of working at my schools library and am in charge of keeping the art section tidy. I've found a good way for me to learn about artists was starting at the very beginning. I went to A, picked the first book off the shelf and skimmed through it. Then I went to the next book. If something caught my eye I wrote it down in my sketchbook or set it aside to check out when I left. There's about 8 rows in that section and I haven't finished the first one yet, but I have another three years so I'm not in too much of a hurry. This is a great thread! Very informative.

[QueenGwenevere]

I think what makes a "good" study depends on the purpose of the study... If you're doing studies to develop a specific picture, what's useful will depend on the picture.

For what it's worth, my process for a finished painting is something like:
*Do a whole lot of thumbnails to to figure out the basic elements and composition.
*When you've got a thumbnail you like, do larger rough drawings based on that until you have something you like.
*When you have a rough you like, do any necessary life studies, collect any necessary reference, do any necessary research, and then combine all that in a final full-size drawing - this is usually very thorough, as I like to work out all the details, make sure the perspective is correct, etc.
*Do some color/value studies based on the final drawing. When you have colors and values you like, do the final painting.

Of course that's just me. I'm not saying this is the best or only process, it could be totally backwards for all I know... But it's worked for me so far...

For a really finished piece, I usually find that doing some life studies is useful (either getting someone to pose or using a mirror) - they don't have to be super-polished, it's more about the looking and understanding than making a finished study. Once I've tried to draw something I internalize a lot of information about it. If there's no time for a drawing, just posing in front of a mirror and studying the pose can work. I don't think live studies are ever a complete waste, as long as you don't fuss with them forever - even if I do a drawing of a pose and then change my mind about the pose, doing the drawing helped me decide whether or not to use that pose...

Doing color studies usually seems to be useful, too, just quick-and-dirty roughs in Photoshop trying out different color combinations and values and so forth. Usually after I've done a final drawing for a painting, I slug it into Photoshop and scribble rough color studies on top of it and then look at them all side by side to decide what I want.

Sometimes just getting outside and keeping an eye peeled can get you necessary info for a picture, too. If I'm wondering how to paint a particular sky or landscape or light effects or something, walking in the park can give me some clues on how to proceed. Likewise if I need to invent a person and I have some specific ideas about how they look but need more research, I'll take a walk and try to carefully observe anyone I pass who has the right kind of face/build/etc. (living in a diverse neighborhood is a huge advantage, here.)

And research never hurts. I often find that even if I think I know what something looks like, it doesn't hurt to do a quick double-check, usually by looking at a whole bunch of pictures of whatever it is I need to know about until I get the gist of the thing (Google images is your friend.) Also if you're doing something that might benefit from a particular historic or cultural style, researching that style can give your picture an extra edge.

Re: learning art history. The way I did it was to read every single art book in my local libraries, and any other art book I could get my hands on, willy-nilly. I actually ended up knowing more art history before college just by reading books and looking at pictures than I got out of all our college art history classes. Although, I will say that if you have an opportunity to go to any major museums, GO. When I finally got to see for real the pictures I'd only seen in books, it was a HUGE eye-opener.

[Sepulverture]

Hey I'm really glad to see this thing still going. I've been busy with my own studies and whatnot, currently taken up leather-crafting (since I'm unable to find some things that I've been looking for for a long time, figured i'd just make them myself) and haven't been particularly active on the boards, and haven't been keeping up the tutorials section.

I'm liking what everyone has been discussing so far and I hope to see more people join in and reflect on each others ideas and discuss.

Great contributions people!

[Angel Intheuk]

QueenGwen - thanks for that good advice. I also read obsessively at college but it wasn't til I went to Amsterdam and saw Monets Water Lily's in real life that I truly appreciated it (it's huge and so lively!).

ah google image! love it! I'm always saving pictures I find interesting or that might be useful, but now I have so many it takes hours to search, it's just easier to google again.

I wish I had time to just sit and study a particular piece of cloth or a landscape or life-studies, I really should make time I guess but I always run out.

In the meantime I need to find a program that can sort pictures with keywords so it's easier to locate what I want...does anyone know of any?

[Wanna]

Great thread here.
Some more info can be found in Christians (Christian223) thread too:

Here is how we'll do it, study the first post from here: http://www.conceptart.org/forums/sho...d.php?t=177756 and try to memorize the head from above using that method. Post everything you have done and what you have learned, I'll do the same and we'll critique eachother.

[JeffX99]

I've heard a lot of people say that "there is no such thing as a bad study, drawing is drawing" but I beg to differ. I believe that some studies are just time wasters, and you're better of scrapping that study and starting a new one at a certain point.

Yes - good thread Sepulverture - thanks for linking it.

I completely agree with you, it takes more than just "going through the motions" to get something out of your time and effort. It isn't just "pencil miles", you have to be engaged to learn - one of the painters I've studied with called it "diligent study".

Often it seems people are doing "studies" of some particular thing/subject just because everyone else is, or they've read it somewhere - and it is clear that they are not understanding, processing or growing from the effort.

As far as an answer on "How" to study better or how to know if a study is worth pursuing...that is pretty individual - and I think just comes down to being analytical and critical about what you are gaining from the effort. The one thing I always try to do, with every piece of art I make, even the simplest sketch, is make it better than the last one or the best I can at the time. This seems to move me forward, not as quickly as I might like of course, but forward at least, and I never find myself in a rut or not learning.

As far as art history...I was fortunate that in Junior College I had a great art hitory teacher that really brought the artists and their times to life. This kept me interested and I took more elsewhere - at the university I had the opposite kind of teachers and flunked. I was also fortunate to take a history of design and architecture which was great. I've learned a lot about the history of illustration on my own by reading biographies of famous illustrators. I find it very interesting that the great illustrators of the "Golden Age" (Wyeth, Pyle, Sundblom in particular) created such archetypical illustrations that they set the style for characters, mood and atmosphere we still see in todays films and illustrations. Anyway, to me it is very interesting to learn about all that and to learn who taught who and influenced each other, etc.

[alamed]

In the meantime I need to find a program that can sort pictures with keywords so it's easier to locate what I want...does anyone know of any?

How about Picasa from Google or Window's photo gallery ? But I guess you have to manually tag them.

[MightyApplejacks]

This is where I seem to fall down... a lot. One thing I picked up is to mix gesture work, nitty-gritty bone and muscle studies, and building it all from imagination, all into bite-sized portions.

This principle I have no trouble with- or at least, can pretty much grasp to a certain extent- it's actually getting the best out of the effort, and applying the knowledge into imaginative stuff. As a lot of what I'm going to say here is in retrospect.. feel free to pick at any niggles Here goes...

---------

I think a lot of the success in studies boils down to your way- and direction- of thinking. If it's all over the place, it seems there's little chance of anything coming of it; if you have had such a study, you can still re-assess what you did. So not all is lost if you have a bad day with memory studies, for example! After all, if you're just beginning with these, it will most definitely horrify you with how difficult it is. The human body is pretty complex, after all.

Analyse yourself, and what makes you tick. Think about 'eliminating' a part of your thinking that hinders a particular study, so that you can move forward with future such studies in a more 'forward' way, being able to progress with them as opposed to repeating the same process (and feeling absolutely dreadful about 'getting nowhere'). Think about all the possible things that may hinder you.

For example? Gesture studies. Do you have the irrepressible urge to attempt a perfect outline? It's not good enough to just 'do it quickly', you have to look at it in very, very basic forms, and master the means of doing so before you can progress. Doing it quickly without forethought to the process, will almost always result in a mess. If it helps, don't go on the 30 second feature just yet, simply look at a random pose for the time being and 'think basic'. Draw it, and draw it again. Where did you go wrong? Does it have a flow? Can you 'read' it well? Can you 'see' the line of action? Can you see it interacting? Can you recreate it?

Have small studies at first- no matter what they are- assess them afterwards, and take about ten minutes to write down your thoughts. Then next time you have a study- perhaps later in the day- refer to it and get your mind back in the right mode. Example: if you were doing a bunch of skeleton studies of an arm (like yours truly...), and wrote that you could have worked on the proportion or relative sizes of one bone to another, then you could 'break them down' into bits next time, draw them more 'loosely', so that it looks more correct to the image. Basically, think of whatever solution that seems to work, and write it down so that you remember. Come next session? Try it out!

Try to rely mostly on yourself and your own judgement in regards of what to do, when you are doing it, otherwise you may find yourself hopelessly lost. Learning art is about learning initiative and what works best for you- there's no wrong way of learning, just as long as it progresses you personally. If it doesn't progress you, you're not learning, plain and simple. At least not yet.

If you're really, really stuck, it means you need a lift, and there's no shame in that. There really isn't- that's what critique is for. You may find that you (always) miss a little something also- there's no sense in analysing ridiculously for every wrong, when you can have a little help. Just go with the flow, because you will develop a sensible balance between drawing your experiences from others' wisdom, and drawing them from your own initiative. Never rely solely on one or the other- they should 'feed' off each other, and aid your mental prowess.

If you're serious about progressing yourself, do whatever it takes. Think about it a lot, and do it a lot. <--- QUOTED FROM SOMEWHERE... Dx

---------------

Holy damn that went on... talk about catharsis. I hope this wasn't too rambly and made at least enough sense.

[battlebattle]

i wish i knew the answer. years and years of hard work with insanely minor steps forward has finally burned me out enough to have lost my passion for it.

a really interesting topic and a cool read though.

[Dacountno2]

I know this is an older thread, not sure if anyone is still reading through it, but I'm gonna take a shot:

For ten years my art did not improve, because I would always sit around drawing the same old stuff, and I would then get frustrated that my work looked so crappy. SO I began actively seeking out tutorials, tricks, techniques, listening to any art interview / podcast i could get my fingers on, and am now slowly but surely seeing progress.

So I think it is this: You have to want to learn. And then actively go and do it.
I'm not where I want to be with my art yet, ( when I finally pay me rent with my art, or get hired by blizzard... but i am getting there, getting a little better every day, because I want to, and am purposefully going out of my comfort zone. Good luck to yall, and to myself too

[BGrizzMayne]

Anyone have any good tips for learning digital art?

[Trolsk]

If you want to learn digital art, look up tutorials, for example deviantart or here.

This thread is great. Thanks to all of you who've taken the time and effort to answer, it's been really helpful!