Getting Started with Art

Welcome to my blog. People ask me all the time me how to get started as an artist.

The simplest answer is to begin drawing. The subject truely doesn't matter. You can draw anything that pleases you.

Let's keep your learning process just for yourself and just for now. I prefer a sketchbook. It's small, it's private, and I can carry it around. For example, while waiting in the doctor's office, you can draw a chair leg or practice your caricature skills on the person sitting across from you.

This is the central process of art. The secret is to do it all the time.

To get started, you need a small unlined notebook and something to draw with. You can use your sketchbook as a graphic journal by dating your work and adding notes.

Sometimes my sketches are more like doodles. The birds were done with no bird in front of me. Sometimes, I will decide to master the ins and outs of a sunflower, or whatever the subject. Making a start at drawing is more important than technique or the resulting piece of art. Drawing gets better the more you practice.

I am convinced that everyone can do as much art as they want to. Once, teaching a high school class , which just happened to have half the football team registered, I asked them " Are you attracted to certain record labels? Do you enjoy looking at photographs? Do you show the world your good taste by the clothes you wear?" And, since they all did those things, they suddenly felt that being in an art class was not having been sent to Siberia. At the end of the quarter, that turned out to be one of my best classes.

In this blog we will move through drawing and painting. Artists at all levels are welcome.