“I wish I could paint like that.”

Do you have a voice like that inside, that whispers in your ear when you're walking through a gallery or scrolling social media? A deep longing to stand in front of an easel, to get lost in the creative process, to make stuff that moves and inspires people.

I had, for many years. Until I decided to take matters into my own hands and finally become that artist. Without waiting to get accepted into art school.

This is the path I took to go from awkward newbie, to full-time artist. And in this free guide, I will show you exactly how I did it. From "wish I was better at art" to:

• Actually picking up my sketchbook and getting started.
• Finding my role models and sources of inspiration.
• Figuring out what type of art I liked, and wanted to work towards.
• Designing my ideal art study curriculum.
• Gathering the best resources for learning the skills I needed.
• Building a daily practice that helped me improve quickly.
• Getting over the fears, obstacles, and limiting beliefs that had held me back for the longest time. (Like perfectionism, art-envy, and social media overwhelm.)

Let's get started! 

Table of contents:

1. Misconceptions about learning art
2. Gathering your art heroes
3. Learning to look at art like an artist
4. Designing your study curriculum
5. Building your school library
6. Creating a practice routine
7. Battling the art demons
8. In conclusion
 

1. Misconceptions about learning art

I see so many myths and misconceptions about learning art perpetuated everywhere, especially online.
These misconceptions keep so many people from ever starting an art practice (myself included). Or, they hold artists back, like a dead weight on their shoulders. If we want to pursue art, and actually enjoy the journey, we need to clear these myths out of the way first.

The most obvious one being:

“You need ‘natural talent’ to become a good artist”

There are very few activities in life that demand “natural talent”. In fact, I can’t think of a single one.

There are inherent physical and psychological traits that might benefit someone in the arts. There are circumstances that might push someone in the direction of the arts from an earlier age. These are advantages for sure, but not contingencies. People with no “natural talent” start painting/dancing/cooking/fashion designing/poetry writing/public speaking everyday, and eventually excel at it.

Meanwhile, someone who’s heard since childhood how “naturally talented” they are, might not feel compelled to work as hard. Might not actually get anywhere with their “talent”.

Just the word “talent” leads to a lot of confusion: does it mean something you’re born with, or simply the result of lots of study and practice?

In the end: Talent is something you earn, not something you’re born with. And earning talent is something that everyone can do, no matter when in life they start. All it takes is doing the work.

For further reading about this, I really recommend the books The Talent Code, by Daniel Coyle, and Grit by Angela Duckworth.

Let's deal with the second one:

“It takes forever to get good”

This is the one that kept me from starting and sticking with an art practice for the longest time. I really believed that getting “good enough” at art would take way more time than I felt comfortable spending. (And I’m a very impatient person.)

I figured I would struggle for years, and hate my art, and want to quit, and have to force myself to keep going despite of it all. A bleak picture that doesn't really inspire you to pick up that sketchbook, right?

To my surprise: Once I adjusted my mindset, and started practicing properly, I saw much quicker improvement than I expected. Most importantly, I learned how to cope with being a beginner in a way that didn’t constantly demotivate and frustrate me.

We all start from different places, of course. But even if you’ve never drawn more than stick figures and doodles, there are techniques and mindset shifts that can transform how you approach drawing almost immediately. The rest is just straightforward practice, and if you do that deliberately and regularly, you will improve quickly. Quickly enough to get excited and maintain your motivation to get even better. And on it goes.

We will never actually feel “good enough” anyways. (Might as well prepare you for that right away.) Any artist will confirm this: there’s always something more to improve, or change. The target of “good enough” keeps moving, and you will never see the end destination. Because there is none. And that’s a good thing. Who wants to stagnate? Who wants to reach the end and stand there like “…now what?”

It’s the challenge that puts the thrill into making art. May we never run out of it.

"It sucks being a beginner artist"

Another myth related to the one above is that being a beginner artist is a miserable existence. And it can be. It all depends on what your mindset and goals are.

If you go into art with the goal to excel, impress, and maybe even make a living on it as soon as possible, you've given yourself the worst possible starting point. You're pretty much guaranteed to feel stressed out and anxious just by looking at your sketchbook. You will have created such high stakes for yourself that messing up a drawing will feel devastating. Making art won't feel fun or relaxing at all.

Which begs the question: why even do it? There are other, easier hobbies. There are other, much more straightforward ways to earn a paycheck than the arts.

Most of us are drawn to art (or any other creative hobby) because it feels good. It's a fun challenge. It's meditative to work with your hands, fulfilling to develop a physical skill. It's rewarding just for its own sake. We wouldn't consider making it into a career if it wasn't. And no one who's even remotely successful in the arts have gotten there by hating the process of making their art. They got there by loving the process, no matter their skill, no matter the outcome.

It's by remembering this fact that we can enjoy our art practice no matter what stage we're at. Because sitting down to practice is still fun, and it always will be. There's no rush, no need to "chase" anything.

“You need to go to art school”

Did you know that only 10 percent of art school graduates go on to become working artists? And only 16 percent of working artists have an arts related bachelor's degree. Meanwhile, art educations are some of the most expensive ones out there. So…how necessary can it really be?

In my opinion (and experience): Not at all. And I say that as someone who has both gone to school, and studied on my own.

Art school, of course, will be what you make of it, just as with most college educations. There will always be those who claim that art school was indispensible to them. But a lot more, it seems, who claim the opposite.

In this line of work, what really matters in the end is your body of work, and your willingness to put it out there into the world. You won’t learn anything magical in a MFA that you can’t learn on YouTube. You won’t gain any special industry shortcuts or connections that you can’t go out and get on your own. And you have just as big a right to call yourself an artist as those folks who have gone to art school.

“What’s the point anyway? Everyone out there is better than me…”

Another big one for me. For many years, I looked at impressive artwork on Instagram and all I felt was "Phew. Glad I'm not in that game. Must be exhausting to compete against so many other talented artists..." Or "I'm glad I'm not an artist. I would never reach that level of skill anyways, so might as well spare myself the disappointment."

This is a testament to what hustle culture and the social media age has done to us. Pitting us against each other, even in fields where the term "competition" doesn't even make sense. Making everything about the finished result, and taking all the joy out of the process. All that matters is winning, or at least being perceived as a winner.

This mentality is hard to resist. I fall into it from time to time, and have to keep reminding myself of why I started painting in the first place. Not to get rich and famous, or get likes on a social media platform, but to take pleasure in making beautiful things with my hands, and building a physical skill. To make art I want hang in my home. To retreat from the madness of the world, into a relaxing painting session. To remind myself of who I am and what matters to me. To express myself.

All of these things I can do right now, regardless of my skill level or "competition". Painting is just as rewarding to me 4 years into my journey, as it was in those first few months when everything I made looked like crap. I wouldn’t even want to be without the bad art days, and the failed paintings, because without them there would be no challenge. And without challenge, there’s no euphoric feeling when you do create something you’re proud of.

I can’t tell you what "the point" of making art is, for you or for humanity at large. I only know what the point is for me. And if the point was to be better than everyone else, I would have quit a long ago.

2. Gather your art heroes

Now that we've cleared away some harmful misconceptions about the artist's journey, let's get you started on yours.

I've thought long and hard about what the best possible first step for a new artist would be. But since we're all different, and are drawn to art in different ways, there isn't just one path but many.

I've dropped in and out of art many times throughout my life. Apart from a period during my teenage years when I dreamed of becoming a concept artist and character designer for video games, my dabbling in art has been casual, goal-less, and therefor highly sporadic.

If I could point to just one thing that turned my occasional art dabbling into an actual, serious art practice, it would be this: Finding my role models - my “art heroes” - and turning my envy of them into concrete action steps and hellbent motivation.

I believe this can be a great point-of-entry for other new artists as well.

I’ve often felt a strong desire to develop as an artist. But each time I’ve contemplated taking art more seriously, I’ve had the same trails of thoughts, as described back in part one: “What’s the point, I’m way behind, it’s going to take many years to get good, and where do I even start?”

But everything changed for me back in 2020, when I was on sick leave for burnout, and had recently started painting just for relaxation. I remembered and re-discovered an artist whose work I had seen a few times, but hadn’t looked further into. His name is Karl Mårtens, and he’s a Swedish watercolor artist known for his loose, expressive bird paintings.

 

Karl Mårtens, in front of two of his birds. Image borrowed from here.

I saw this short documentary video of him on YouTube where he demonstrates his painting process. And my jaw was on the floor. I was already impressed by his work, but seeing him making it awakened something in me. A deep need to be able to do that. Even if no one ever saw it but me. My goal went from “creating art that looks like that” to “creating art in a way that feels like that.”

That mindset shift made all the difference. I suddenly had the goal and the motivation to really start practicing art. And here was this person I could study and learn from, in secret. A guiding light in the huge, dark forest that is “learning art”. In fact, I wasn’t interested in “learning art” anymore. I was interested in being able to portray birds - my favorite animals - in watercolor, in a similar way to Mårtens. This eliminated a lot of the “shoulds" that I thought I was supposed to be practicing, like anatomy, figure drawing, landscapes in perspective, linework and shading, et.c. The path forward became clear.

Finally rid of the overwhelm and confusion, I started practicing watercolor and bird drawing every day. Passionately. Joyfully. I studied everything I could find by Karl Mårtens. I bought his art book. I discovered learning resources specific to what I was trying to do. And I made quick progress. In less than a year, my art was already at a level that I was proud of.

Most importantly: I hadn’t grown bored, or quit.

Since then, I’ve collected a whole slew of other art heroes, in different mediums and subjects. I have role models and inspirations for charcoal drawing, oil painting, portraiture, landscapes, animals… And they all keep me motivated in my art practice. I’m no longer envious when I discover an artist whose work blows my mind. I just get excited, and add them to my list of art heroes.

Below are some comparisons where you can clearly see how influenced I am by Mårtens in my watercolor birds: from the white backgrounds, to the dynamic poses:

I can’t overstate how important role models are in creative professions.

Maybe it’s an obvious thing, and you’re sitting there thinking “Yeah…? Duh!” But at the same time, I see so many new or aspiring artists online asking that same question I did in the beginning: “I wanna learn art, where do I start?”

Forget about learning art. Find your art heroes. The people that make you go “I would do anything to be able to do that. I want to know what creating on that level feels like.”

That will give you everything you need: a clear goal, an art medium to start with, subjects to focus on, artwork to analyze and do master studies (re-creations of someone else’s artwork) of, and a deep drive to practice that’s not based on external validation or a bunch of “shoulds”.

If you feel jealous of them - great. That means you’re on to something. The reason we look at other artists and feel jealous is because we have a bunch of subconscious beliefs about learning art. We believe that others were born with a talent that we don’t have. That we can’t possibly ever learn to do what they do. That we will never develop a style that’s as good as theirs.

None of these assumptions are correct.

There’s a method to what another artist is doing, a kind of recipe. That recipe consists of a collection of role models and influences, a preferred subject matter and art medium, and a lot of hours of practice and exploration. That’s how they arrived at their style and skill level. That’s how you will arrive at yours. And it all starts with embracing the influence of other artists, not resisting it.

Your first and most important job as a beginner artist is to gather as much inspiration as possible, from as many different artists and sources as possible. Especially if you feel kinda clueless about which direction to go in.

Lean into your favorite artists. Lean into your natural interests and obsessions. These are your north star. The fuel for your own artistic development.

My “Watercolor inspo” board on Pinterest.

If you don't already have a Pinterest account, get one. Then, start your inspiration board by searching for, and browsing, art that inspires you and saving it to your board. Create several boards if you want to. I have inspiration boards for each art medium and subject that I like. So if you need a kickstart, you can start by looking through my Pinterest profile and pinning from there. You can also start saving posts by artists you follow on Instagram. Or taking screenshots of everything beautiful and inspiring you see and gathering it into a folder on your computer.

Then, try zeroing in on just one of your favorite artists for a while, and really analyze their work. Make a list of everything you love about their work. If they have videos or courses where they actually demonstrate it - watch them. If they have art books, buy them.

Do this, and you will essentially be a private student of your art idol, for free. You will improve your skills in a focused way. You will have more fun while practicing. And you can incorporate elements of their style into your own, and combine it with other influences and your own ideas and mannerisms.

This is, in my opinion, the very best way to learn art. Without falling into the overwhelm/confusion/demotivation trap.

But what does it mean to "analyze" someone's art? It's one thing to look at a piece of art and think "wow, that's impressive". It's another to look at it and learn from it - a crucial skill for all artists. So let's talk about that next.

 

3. Learning to look at art like an artist

Before I started deliberately studying art, I had no idea what made art “good” or “bad”, what made me like it or dislike it. Art was a big mystery to me, and that only added to the seemingly impossible task of “learning art”. It all just felt so abstract and un-graspable.

But, as I studied and practiced, I developed a language for art. I discovered what made me like a piece or dislike it. I developed strong tastes and preferences, and clear goals for my own art. I appreciated looking at art more. I understood what I was looking at, understood the decisions of the artist who painted it. I stopped feeling nauseously envious of other artists, and started learning from them instead. I learned how to look at art like an artist.

I can’t overstate how important this is for a beginner artist. Getting over that inital feeling of confusion and overwhelm and inadequacy. Going from uncounscious incompetence to conscious incompetence - essentially understanding why we suck at art, and what we need to learn in order to stop sucking. 😂

We don’t need fancy degrees or years of experience in order to interpret art, or develop a personal taste. We don’t have to become professional art critics. As newbies, we might not yet have the vocabulary for describing why we like or dislike a piece of art. But we still have a gut instinct, and spontaneous preferences.

The next time you find yourself faced with a piece of art…
First of all: Pause, and take a breath. Actually take in the artwork.

We live in a culture of hyperconsumption of content, where so much is thrust in our face each time we go online that we’re almost growing numb to it. How many of us visit galleries and museums anymore? How many of us have the patience to sit through a 20-minute painting tutorial, or even a 3-minute timelapse? And now, with the advent of AI generated images, this impatience, numbness and inability to appreciate art has only gotten worse.

One thing we can do to counteract it is to look at art more slowly and deliberately. Really study an illustration or a painting, sit with it, live in it. And then, use it as a creative exercise to help us know ourselves and our artistic mind better.

Here are some questions to ask yourself while looking at a piece of art:

• What do you feel when looking at it? (And ”nothing at all” is a perfectly legit answer.)
• Do you get a gut reaction of some kind?
• Does it bring up memories or associations for you?
• Do you like the art? Why? Is it the atmosphere of the scene, the choice of colors? Is it the subject matter, and the way it’s portrayed? Is it the brushwork, linework or shading?
• Is there an underlying message in the artwork, or a story, for you?
• If you don’t like the art, try to pinpoint why.

Lean into your opinions, and trust them. There’s no good or bad in art, there are only preferences and opinions. Yours are as valid as someone else’s. And it’s by cultivating your preferences and opinions that you will build confidence as an artist and start developing your own personal style. You’ll be less inclined to just swallow up what is served to you by algorithms, or get stuck in a cycle of only making the art that gets the most likes or views. You’ll be able to stay more true to your own vision. You’ll be more original in your artistic expression.

Learning to analyze art will also help you improve your own art a lot faster. Making a failed drawing, saying “I hate this”, and throwing it away won’t help you learn from your mistakes. Neither will not analyzing your successful paintings.

Practicing analyzing and describing art - your own and that of other artists - is a way to supercharge your growth as an artist.

And let’s not forget to look at art purely for pleasure sometimes. We could all use more moments of beauty, stillness and reflection in our lives.

 

4. Designing your study curriculum

The benefits of being a self-taught artist are numerous:

• We save lots of money by not going to art school. Money we can instead spend on art supplies, art books, and art courses.
• We don’t waste time applying, waiting to get accepted, waiting for classes to start, waiting for feedback, waiting for grades and diplomas…
• We are free to practice what we want, how we want, and when we want.
• We get to pick our own teachers and mentors.
• Our portfolio speaks for itself. No degree necessary.

Does this mean that learning art on your own is a walk in the park? Of course not. Being self-taught comes with its own unique challenges. The biggest of them being overwhelm and demotivation.

When I set out to teach myself art a few years ago, I searched for “self-taught artist curriculum” online, and I found, among other things, this website:

Radiorunner’s curriculum for the self-taught artist, coded by Brendan Meachen.

This is what most pre-made art curriculums online look like. They contain EVERYTHING you might POSSIBLY want to learn as an artist. Or they are tailored to a very specific type of artist (usually a concept artist, digital illustrator, or animator.)

No offense to the creator of this curriculum - it’s very well put together and visualized. 👌🏻 But does every artist need to know human anatomy? Three-point perspective? Or even color theory?

No. Each artist is different, and has different preferences and needs at different times throughout their journey. There's no one-size-fits-all for learning art.

The other big challenge many of us face as beginners: We might not yet know what we want to do, where we want to go, or what we need to learn.

We might feel, as I did at first, like we should learn a little bit of everything. Become a “well-rounded” artist. Keep all doors open, so to speak. And then we realize that a lot of the stuff on those pre-made curriculums, we absolutely hate doing. And when we hate doing something, we lose motivation, and then we eventually quit.

All of the times I've quit art, it's been because practicing felt like doing boring homework. I hated drawing figures. I hated drawing architechture, or cars, or flowers. I didn't even know my own purpose with learning those things. So of course I quit.

It wasn’t until I ignored all of the well-meaning advice from other artists, listened inward, and allowed myself to draw and paint ONLY what filled me with joy (birds and animals), that I was finally motivated to stick to a regular practice, and enjoy making art.

And so, my friend, I can’t give you a pre-made curriculum. Because your art journey will look completely different from mine, and anyone else’s. And it will keep changing and evolving.

What I can do is help you identify your personal role models and sources of inspiration, find your favorite subjects and styles and art mediums, set some goals, and create your own tailor-made curriculum. That’s what I did, and it changed everything for me.

The number one thing that should be a staple in your DIY art school - the skill that’s a non-negotiable for most artists, regardless of medium or subject - is sketching technique.

Unless you only feel drawn to abstract art, you’re likely going to want to learn how to accurately capture what you see onto the paper or canvas. How to make your hand obey your intentions. How to get proportions, perspective, and shading right.

This doesn’t mean that you must learn how to make pencil art, how to do clean linework, shade with a pencil, that kind of stuff. But you should always be practicing your sketching skills. If your sketches are inaccurate, or sloppy, or weird-looking - it’s going to affect your final pieces. And most great drawings or paintings start with a good sketch: a thumbnail sketch, to brainstorm ideas or help plan a painting, or some type of under-drawing or sketch on the paper or canvas, to guide you as you paint.

Learning how to sketch well means practicing your:

• Technique (How to hold and move the pencil, how to look at your subject.)
• Accuracy (How to capture your subject accurately, getting your proportions right, et.c.)
• Perspective (Understanding how distance and angles affect how things look.)
• Shading (Capturing light & shadow in your art. Also called “values”.)

If you’re a complete beginner, I would recommend only focusing on these concepts for now. You can search for tutorials on YouTube. You can look for beginner drawing courses. My course, Pencil Sketching For Beginner Artists, is made with the complete beginner in mind, and uses animal studies to practice these skills. My course Portrait Drawing for Beginners is also great for complete beginners, but focuses on portrait drawing.

Sketching, with a focus on your preferred subjects, should make up the biggest part of your study curriculum. The more of a beginner you are, the more time you should spend practicing sketching.

Then, when you're ready, you might want to add the fundamental techniques of the art mediums you feel the most drawn to. Like for example watercolor, or oils, or ink drawing, or digital art.

If you have no idea what medium to start with, you’re not alone! I was the same, and had to try several mediums before I decided to commit to watercolor. And I’ve tried lots more since then.

You don’t have to pick just one - most artists work in multiple mediums. The best advice I can give you is to look at the art that inspires you the most, and see what mediums are most prevalent there. That will give a good starting point for what to start experimenting with. And then, to try as many art mediums as you want! (Here’s a video where I rank every art medium I’ve ever tried. That might also give you some inspiration.)

After having practiced your sketching and fundamental painting technique for a while, you might be ready to deepen your practice by including more art theory. Three important concepts you might want to study are anatomy, color theory, and composition:

Anatomy will be relevant if you’re interested in figures, portraits, or animals/creatures. Even landscapes and florals have anatomy to them.

Color theory will be relevant if you plan on working in color, but not if you only want to make charcoal drawings for example.

Composition - how to arrange and design the various elements of an artwork - is relevant for all types of art, but especially if you’re drawn to landscapes/environments or abstract art.

Below is what a study curriculum might look like for someone who starts out an absolute beginner, later feels drawn to landscapes and animals, and wants to paint with watercolor:

The first few weeks or months, (depending on how much time they spend and how quickly they progress), they focus only on sketching and fundamental art concepts. They explore various subjects to see what they most like drawing.

Then they might start specializing in drawing landscapes and animals, while also incorporating fundamental watercolor techniques and color theory. They build an art practice routine for themselves, which we will cover later on in this guide. They practice consistently for a few weeks or months.

When they start feeling confident, they add some more complexity to their practice. They might study landscape composition and landscape specific techniques and color theory, animal anatomy, and other concepts they come across in tutorials and courses. All the while making lots and lots of art. Lots of ugly, failed drawings and paintings, that they analyze and learn from.

After a while, they might get curious about another art medium, and start exploring that. Or expand into a wider array of subjects. And on and on it goes. 😊

Are there more aspects and concepts than these within art? Of course. I have distilled it down to the biggest and most important areas, for most artists. I believe in simplifying things, not complicating them needlessly. You can make your study plan as broad or as narrow as you want. It should never be set in stone, and shouldn't feel limiting in any way. It will evolve and expand with you as you go.

As you practice and improve at the fundamentals, you will eventually feel ready to step up your game. You will know what it is you need more of. That’s when you should seek out more specialized resources tailored to your preferred medium and subject. Like an in-depth course for example, or more advanced tutorials on YouTube.

Speaking of courses and tutorials: how do you find the best learning resources online? There's no shortage of it, which is both a blessing and a curse. Let's talk a bit more about that...

 

5. Building your school library

A self-taught artist has no teachers or classmates, no course literature, no study guide. So where do you look for instruction? And how can you get feedback on your work?

The good news is that everything you might possibly want to learn when it comes to art is available online, for free.

The bad news is: you’re going to have to search for, and curate it, yourself. Not always an easy task.

So let’s talk about how to find good study resources.

For me, YouTube has been my single best resource for learning art. I have invested in a few courses that have been helpful, and a few books. But I would estimate that 80% of what I’ve learned, I’ve learned through watching YouTube videos, following artists and art tutors on the platform, and exploring the resources they recommend or provide themselves.

The downside to learning on YouTube is overwhelm, cinflicting advice, and a lack of direction. This will be a lot easier to deal with if you’ve done the work of finding your role models, analyzing your favorite art, and getting clear on what you actually want and need to learn. I was all over the place in the beginning of my art journey: jumping wildly between anything and everything that was recommended to me, feeling very scattered and overwhelmed.

But once I had some goals, and a clear direction to go in, I could safely ignore most of the tips and tutorials I came across. I knew I wanted to paint birds and animals in watercolor - my favorite art/artists led me that way. And so I searched for bird drawing-, and bird painting tips and found a handful of relevant and really great YouTube channels. I watched their videos while practicing along and taking notes. I saved my favorite videos into playlists, so I could refer back to them. And like that, I built my own personal school library which I still use sometimes.

Whenever I’m in over my head with something, are struggling, or feel frustrated with my art: I go on YouTube and search for tutorials, or simply for artists doing what I’m trying to do. And then I watch, take notes, and try to imitate. This is the habit I would like for you to develop as well: Never despair over your “lack of talent.” Remember that there is way to do it (many ways, in fact), and you simply need to find the right instruction, and practice it until you get the hang of it. Watch - practice - evaluate - watch - practice - evaluate.

You will soon have a handful of favorite artists that you look up to and are inspired by. And by analyzing and studying their work, you will be able to learn from them, for free, without their knowing. 😊 (Needless to say: if your art role models have courses, they're probably worth investing in too.)

As for feedback: Some people want it, others (like me) prefer to just go their own way and evaluate their own art in relationship to their inspirations and goals.

We are always a little bit blind towards our own work though, so getting outside eyes on it is valuable. Be selective with who you trust for opinions. Family and friends tend to be biased and will probaly praise everything you do, to encourage you. Which is kind of them, but it doesn’t help you become a better artist. You also don’t need the opinions of people who are not artistically minded themselves, or who don’t resonate with the type of art you want to make.

The best advice will come from other artists in the same “niche” as you, and artists and art teachers you look up to and trust. Look for Facebook groups, Reddit forums, Discord servers, art courses with community functions, or art teachers who provide coaching and critique.

Some of my favorite art learning resources:

Art Prof YouTube channel (Art in general)

Proko YouTube channel and courses (Drawing)

John Muir Laws YouTube channel and books (Nature & animal drawing)

The Art of Aaron Blaise YouTube channel and courses (Animal drawing/painting)

Jenna Rainey YouTube channel (Watercolor)

Emily Olson YouTube channel (Watercolor)

Matthew White YouTube channel (Watercolor, and landscapes)

James Gurney YouTube channel (Watercolor, gouache, landscapes)

Stephen Bauman YouTube channel (Drawing, oil painting & portraiture)

Paint Coach YouTube channel (Oil painting & portraiture)

Arthur Gain YouTube channel (Oil painting & portraiture)

Sarah Sedwick YouTube channel (Oil painting & still lifes)

Mario Bucci YouTube channel (Art in general, and digital painting)

Jeff Haines YouTube channel (Charcoal, and portraiture.)

 

6. Creating a practice routine

Have you ever made plans to practice drawing, but when you sit down to do it… you kind of zone out, don’t know where to start, don’t feel inspired, and end up doing something else instead? Like, maybe browsing for references and getting sidetracked by the algorithm.

Sitting down to “practice art”, without a plan can feel a bit like going to the gym without a program and just hapazardly moving between machines, hoping you’ll get stronger somehow. Might it work? Sure. Any time spent drawing or painting will do something for your progression. But in order to feel motivated and actually stick to our practice, we need that extra bit of structure and clarity.

And we get it by designing an actual practice routine.

The 3 components of a practice routine:

• A library of references we’ve collected ourselves. (I highly recommend using Pinterest for this. Create boards for all of your favorite subjects and build your own reference library. It can be photos, or other artwork you'd like to do master studies of.)
• A library of learning material we’ve gathered beforehand. (Nothing beats YouTube here. And maybe a course platform like Skillshare or Domestika.)
• A pre-designed routine to follow when we practice, similar to a list of exercises you might bring to the gym.

Having a bunch of references and tutorials saved up beforehand is critical, because otherwise you’ll spend your precious practice time browsing the web, trying to find a good photo to draw from. Or feeling confused about how to practice something.
And having a routine makes it much easier to get started, and have a bit of structure to your practice.

Scheduling time for your practice is also critical, because otherwise… we all know what happens. 🙄

Some artists swear by a daily practice. I have never really managed to pull that off for more than a few weeks or months here and there. What works for me today, as a more practiced and established artist, is to make Saturday my dedicated painting day, followed by a few shorter sessions here and there during the week.
As a newer artist, I spent a lot more time than that. I was on sick leave, and later, ran my own business and had plenty of time for practice.
That might not be the case for you. You might have a full-time job, and a family to care for. But I assure you: you can still carve out pockets of time for your art practice, and make meaningful progress.
Don’t feel forced into a routine just because someone else swears by it. You’re different, and have different needs and prerequisites. If you live a crazy busy life, maybe a daily routine wouldn’t work for you, but maybe a weekly one would. Or one weekend of intense practice each month. Any time you can set aside for your practice is better than none.

Designing your routine

Let’s say I’ve scheduled one hour each weekday evening + two hours every saturday morning for my art practice. Here’s how I would structure that time:

One third daily sketching practice with pre-saved reference photos or videos.
One third watching a tutorial or working with a course.
One third applying what I’ve learned in a project of my own.

I might start by pulling up my Pinterest board with bird photos that I’d collected. I write the day’s date in the corner of a new sketchbook page, and then I fill a page with sketches from my references. These are my basic "practice drills". The image above is what it typically looks like for me.

During the sketching process, I will likely struggle with some aspects of my drawings. Let’s say I can’t seem to get bird feet right. Or I think my drawings look flat, lacking in threedimensionality. I would then pick, or search for, tutorials that could help me solve my problem. I would watch a video and follow along in my sketchbook, taking notes. And after that, I would do another round of sketches - or a finished drawing or painting - putting those new tips into practice.

I’m sandwiching “studying” in-between practicing on my own. Both parts are important. We don’t want to get stuck only watching tutorials.

Hopefully now you have an idea of what your own routine might look like. It should be tailored to you, your preferred mediums and subjects, and your time commitment. (Early on in my art journey as a watercolorist, I made a video about how I organized my daily practice at the time. You can watch it here.)

Write out your practice routine on a piece of paper and put it up wherever you usually do your art practice. Make it concrete and easy to follow, even on the days when you might not feel as inspired. (You will be, once you get going.)

And last but most important: Enjoy your practice time. View it as relaxation, or creative self-care. Put on some good music. Make a cup of something delicious.

Practicing art should not feel tedious or boring or stressful. It will likely feel challenging, and might feel frustrating at times. But also exciting, stimulating, and relaxing. It should be something you look forward to. If it doesn’t feel like that, maybe you need to investigate your reasons for wanting to learn art, your pre-conceived notions about learning art, or your chosen medium or subject.

Speaking of the challenges of learning art, there's one more topic of importance I want to talk about before we wrap this up...

 

7. Battling the art demons

Art demons.
We all have them, to some extent. Making art feels fantastic one week, and dreadful the next. We make huge progress one day, and feel on top of the world. The next, we can’t seem to draw a line we don’t hate and we wonder where all that progress went. We fear the blank page, we struggle for hours with the same drawing, we compare ourselves endlessly to other creatives and feel miserable…

All of this is normal in our line of work. We’re always going to have negative thoughts about our art, no matter how skilled and experienced we become. The solution is not to feel defeated by the fact that you have negative thoughts about your work, or shitty art days, but to accept it and train yourself to keep going anyways.

Here are three challenges - art demons - I struggle with on the regular. And I believe they are shared by most artists to some degree:

Perfectionism

Also called “fear of the blank page”, or “being a chronic control freak".

Perfectionism stems from believing that our value as a human being is dictated by our accomplishments. We set very high standards for ourselves, hate failing, or looking like we don’t know what we’re doing. We hate being beginners at something. We hate not being in control.

The upside to perfectionism is that inner drive to become better, to challenge ourselves, to go the extra mile. And ironically, these are often the qualities that make us successful in the first place. So we might not want to get rid of our perfectionism all together.

But these same traits can easily tilt over into a debilitating condition that holds us back and robs us of all joy in our creative practice.

I've made peace with the fact that my perfectionism will never go away, but I’ve made a habit out of challenging it and keeping it on a leash. I ask myself “Do I even know what perfection looks like in this case? Or am I just acting out because I'm uncomfortable with uncertainty?”
“What does ‘good enough’ look like here?” is another helpful way to question your perfectionism.

I talk in depth about perfectionism in my video about overcoming fear of the blank page.

Comparison/envy

Next up is a problem that’s been amplified times a hundred in our social media age: the affliction that I like to call comparisonitis. Endlessly comparing ourselves to others.

Comparisonitis is an extra tricky problem for us artists, since we’re also dependent on getting inspired by, and learning from other artists. How do we tow the line between healthy inspiration that motivates us, and crippling envy? I believe that’s for each individual to figure out for themselves, by paying attention to their own thoughts and emotions.

As I've touched upon before, envy mostly stems from the belief that other artists have something that's not available to us. ("Natural talent", a personal style, and impressive body of work, career opportunities, et.c.) We need to remember that they once started from scratch. They worked hard to get to where they’re at. They've spent countless hours, months, and years at their craft. They've earned their success.
And how much time and effort have we put in yet? Is it really fair to compare ourselves to them?

We can never have exactly what someone else has anyways. We don't even know everything that went into their journey, including luck, personal relationships, and other circumstances. But we can put in a similar amount of work, and unlock our own skills, build an impressive body of work, and get career opportunities.

Our role models are not competitors. They are paving the way for us, in a way. Showing us what’s possible, showing us interesting ways of doing things. The more role models we have, the richer our own artistic toolbox will be. We should cherish artists that fill us with envy, because that means there’s something there for us to pursue, and incorporate into our own practice.

Still, I don’t think it’s healthy to overwhelm ourselves with the input of other artists. Especially not the kind we haven’t deliberately sought out or discovered on our own. I see very little value in the type of forced, algorithmically created curation of art and artists that are now so prevalent on platforms like Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. Balance is key.

I talk more about the problems with being an artist on social media in my video “You do not need to put your art on TikTok” (also applies to Instagram, and most other apps where people share their art with the masses).

Impatience/frustration

Sooner or later in your art practice, you will become familiar with the phenomenon of “bad art days”. It’s those days where, for some inexplicable reason, everything you do turns to shit. Nothing works, and it’s like you’ve suddenly forgotten everything you’ve learned and erased all of your progress.

Those days suck.

We want our progress to be neat and linear, when in truth, it’s more of an upward trending, wildly fluctuating curve. The road to artistic growth is paved with hundreds upon hundreds of failed artwork. We need to remember that we’re growing even when we’re failing. Maybe especially then.

Two things have transformed the way I deal with my bad art days:

1. Simply drawing or painting my way through them as best I can, and then patting myself on the back for bravely putting in the work.

2. Practicing a less judgemental, more laid back attitude towards my art. Not taking my failures so seriously. Instead, laughing at the mess, and then taking a step back and analyzing my artwork as if it was someone else’s. Making a few notes about what went wrong and what I can do better next time. It makes the failure so much more worthwhile, because I’m getting important lessons from it.

I talk more about how to deal with being a bad artist in this video.

 

8. In conclusion

Embarking on this life-long artist journey is one of the best decisions of my life. And I’m so happy I decided to do it my own way. I actually got accepted into an art school a few years ago, and was over the moon. I thought it was exactly what I needed, the clear and obvious path towards a career as an artist.

I quit that school after day 1 of the first semester. 🙈

Having already studied art on my own for a while beforehand, I’d gotten a taste of the self-taught life. And now, after just one day at school, I realized that spending years of my life there, getting further into debt, to learn skills I could practice more efficiently at home, would only waste my time.

Sure, having a place to go can be nice. Having access to materials, workspaces, teachers and classmates can be nice. For some people, those things alone might justify going to art school.

For the rest of us though - we who are anxious to get started, eager to improve quickly, and just want to start making art now - I firmly believe DIY art school is the way to go. Our opportunities will be largely the same as those of the MFA graduates. Our chances at a successful and fulfilling career are just as great. And the journey there will be just as fulfilling and exciting.

I wish you the best on your own art journey, friend. 👋🏻 If you need extra support, check out my other resources for artists, such as my art courses, and my Studio Companion Notion template.