Maggie on Online Art Education, Part III

Both tiger and clouds are quick pieces demo'ed in the workshop this weekend -- just two of the references students worked on.

I'm back from my workshop! Stuffing information into willing victims was fun and rewarding as usual, but the best part of it was staying with my friend Marian, who took me riding on her fantastic stallion. I used to ride like a fiend but I haven't had the opportunity in years. It was great to be back on a horse again and he had a gorgeous canter. I don't have enough adjectives to describe him -- or Marian for that matter. Marian, if you're reading this, I had a great time as always!

As promised, I'm going to post the last bit of my online education series tonight and then on Wednesday I'm going to do reader questions -- I specifically didn't plan a series topic for this week so that I wouldn't get distracted. So anything you want to ask, throw it in the comments, because that's all I'm doing this week. Well, anything but the color of my underwear or what my first name was before I changed it to Maggie in my teens. Those are top secret and must remain thus to preserve the integrity of future Trivial Pursuit editions where surely I will be a hot topic.

Long time readers might notice, by the way, that I've cut down the posting on my blog from daily to three times a week. This is part of my rabid attempt to stuff more things into my life and unfortunately is here to stay for the foreseeable future. I've just found out that I have a 90 day deadline to write the sequel to Lament so I'm going to need my evenings for that. Who needs a social life anyway? Moi?

Okay. To finish up the online education series, I wanted to say that no matter what sites you used to get your education (there are some excellent recommendations in the comments to the last education post), the functions they fulfill are the same. What you're looking for in your self-directed study is:

TECHNIQUE
These are sites that are specific to your chosen medium. For me, it's colored pencil, so the WetCanvas colored pencil forum was a great start for me. I also recommend Nicole Caulfield's blog, as she's always experimenting with new techniques, and Ann Kullberg's site. If your medium is a more common one like acrylic or oil, you'll have a huge pool to choose from -- lots of artists practicing the medium means lots of artists sharing their techniques. If you're working in something a bit more rare -- I read about this guy who made sculptures out of cow poo -- you're going to have to look harder for technique and probably have to supplement with real-world workshops.

THEORY
Learning to color-by-number isn't enough -- you need to learn to interpret and shape your pieces. To do that, you need theory. That's what function sites like James Gurney's blog fills for me. He makes color theory fascinating through plenty of visual examples. Theory can be complicated, snooze-worthy, and overwhelming -- so find a site that speaks your language. For weird bits of theory, I often have to dig deep, like when I was having my great Dynamic Symmetry hunt of 2007 for my Maxfield Parrish project.

INSPIRATION
This is why I do my artist-of-the-month studies when I can. It's always inspiring to take apart a great artist's work and see why it ticks. For me, looking at the work of John Singer Sargent, Waterhouse, Maxfield Parrish, and other greats always makes me want to pull out my pencils. Find who does it for you and bookmark the pages.

MOTIVATION
This isn't the same as inspiration! Inspiration is that passionate rush to the canvas. Motivation is what gets you there when the passion's not around. For me, being part of a forum really helped push me, and then having a blog also motivated me to have something to post. Then when I found the daily painting movement, I really got motivated. I wanted to be able to say I'd done more than 300 drawings and paintings in a year. Find someone or something to keep you accountable and stick to it.

FEEDBACK
You can't work in a vacuum, or else you run the risk of practicing the same mistakes again and again. This is what I think I miss the most about not getting a college art degree -- the idea of someone telling me "lengthen that bit" "intensify that color there" "crop the edge." We all want an Obi Wan to tell us what we're doing wrong, but working out of our home, you're not likely to find a light-saber wielding mentor. I'm part of a small online peer group of artists who chatter about art daily, and they've been invaluable -- I highly recommend finding other artists online at the same level as you and become critique partners. It helps with accountability and also gives you that objective feedback that you can't do for yourself.

And now bring on the questions!

Getting an Art Education Online, Part II

You may be wondering why there is an alien baby in today's post. Well . . . I wanted to show you what I looked like before I started my online art education. This alien baby is actually a drawing I did of my daughter back when she was about six months old. And I thought it was good.

Ugh. Anyway, do the math. This drawing is a little over three years old. How far I've come!

As if you need any more encouragement about online education, right? I've decided this is such an important topic to me that I'm going to do an additional post about it tomorrow and hopefully attack the questions as well.

Today I want to post on the online resources I've made use of in the past three years. There are hundreds more that I'm sure I've not encountered yet, and I encourage you to post the ones that were actually useful to you in the comments. Not the ones you ought to post. Not the ones you thought about reading. The ones you did. The ones that really made an influence.

Now, as a bunch of the commenters noted in the last post, art education in any form is what you make of it. Essentially, all artists are self-taught -- it's just whether or not you have a professor to guide you. Online, you have to be your own professor, your own study-guide. You also have only you to be accountable for, which can be a problem. No deadlines mean lackluster study habits. So it shouldn't be a surprise that the first and absolutely best resource on my list is an artists' forum. Surround yourself with people who know what you're working on, because then you'll have an excuse to get your work done and to strive harder.

Without further ado, my top five resources:

WetCanvas: http://www.wetcanvas.com/
Hands down, this is the best resource in my arsenal. There are other artists forums out there -- ScribbleTalk, ArtPapa, etc. and I'm certain they're also useful -- but WetCanvas just happened to be the first one I ran across and the one that became my home. Why was it useful? First of all, there were a ton of struggling beginners just like me, posting their works in progress for all to critique. Even if I couldn't work up the nerve to post my works for critique, I learned shovel-loads from observing how other people laid down color and attacked their artistic problems. Plus, as mentioned above, suddenly I had accountability. If I posted a work in progress, I felt motivated to finish it and post the next step. I'm Piper1 on WC and you can see just how far my work's come since I began posting on the colored pencil forum. It's a huge site -- plan on taking a while to get familiar with how it works.

Making a Mark: http://makingamark.blogspot.com/
The blog of art maven Katherine Tyrrell is a veritable haven for beginning and advanced artists alike. She covers a huge range of art subjects and writes about them sensitively and intelligently. I would say I'm biased because I'm also a close friend of hers, but we met on WC and became friends precisely because we approach art-making in the same way. There's always more to be learned.

Gurney Journey: http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/
This is the blog of James Gurney, the artist who created Dinotopia. Don't let that throw you. His blog is a wonderful resource for color theory and art techniques -- my mind boggles at how much time each of his intensely useful blog posts must take to write. I highly recommend it for intermediate and advanced artists -- beginning artists might find it a bit overwhelming.

John Singer Sargent Virtual Gallery: http://jssgallery.org/
Ironically, the painter who had the most significant influence on my work is dead as a doornail. John Singer Sargent's work still hits me everytime I look at it, and I spent literally hours going through this site. I don't think everyone has to idolize JSS, however, I do think having an artist mentor, alive or dead, is useful.

Endless Summer Art Fair: http://summerartfair.blogspot.com/
This is one of clever Casey Klahn's blogs -- this one is full of tips on setting up art booths and generally not making an idiot of yourself when you're displaying your art in public. A must for working artists.

More tomorrow . . .

Getting an Art Education Online, Part I

"Genesis" - work in progress
colored pencil on rtist-x board
copyright 2008 Maggie Stiefvater

I thought that I'd take this week to talk about how I've gotten my education as an artist. I know there are many wonderful art schools and programs out there that have produced many wonderful artists . . . but I'm not one of them. If I wanted to get an art degree now, I'd never have the time with two small ankle-biters on the loose (and two dogs, too). And back when I could get a traditional art degree, I couldn't.

Imagine the scene: bright-eyed Maggie, a stellar but bored history major approaching the art department with her portfolio.

ME: Lookie. Drawings. Do you think your class . . . and I . . . we could . . . you know, get together sometime?
HEAD OF DEPT: (looking at portfolio)
ME: I'm hoping that long pause means awe of some variety.
HEAD OF DEPT: (looking at porfolio)
ME: Okay, now it's just rude.
HEAD OF DEPT: Right. These suck. Go study dead people some more.

Okay, so they didn't say "suck." They said "not sophisticated enough," which means suck. Anyway, the long and short of it was that I wasn't going to be taking art classes any time soon. So I put my art away, short of my in-class doodles, until after college. When I decided to pick it up again after I graduated, I knew it was going to be all up to me.

So tonight I want to talk about what sort of mind-set you need to have when you tackle self-teaching yourself art. And of course, as usual, this isn't the only way, it's just the way I did it (which is of course the right way, duh). On Thursday I'll be talking about resources and non-traditional learning methods that helped me.

Things You Need in Your Brain Matter to Teach Yourself Art


1. Self Confidence. No, you don't have to style yourself "Future Queen of America" (what kind of loon would do that anyway?) or strut around with a really high opinion of yourself or think that you know all the answers. In fact, two of those will hurt your chances and one of them will tick me off. But you do have to believe that you can teach yourself to be a better artist. You do have to believe that you have that better artist somewhere inside you, and that if you just rummage around long enough, you'll pull her (him) out of your innards.

2. Curiosity. If the way other artists work and compose and shape their art doesn't interest you, you might be looking at the wrong hobby or profession. A well-developed sense of curiosity about new techniques will always serve you well. Without it . . . yeah, you're one of those kids in sleeping in the back of the classroom.

3. Insanely Keen Powers of Observation. You're teaching yourself, so there's no wise Obi Wan figure here. A lot of times there will be a brilliant concept in front of you for the taking -- but no one's going to explain it to you. If you see a painting that you love, don't just love it. Deconstruct it and steal its soul. It's what I would do.

4. Constructively Critical Eye. This goes along with #!. You need to be able to look at your work with a helpfully critical eye. This takes a nice dose of #1 and #3. There's a big difference between knowing your work can be better and thinking that you suck.

unconstructive criticism: Wow. These paintings look like chimps on amphetamines painted them with q-tips dipped in curdled yogurt.
constructive criticism: Wow. These paintings look like chimps on amphetamines painted them with q-tips dipped in curdled yogurt, because I need to work on how I apply my pigment. But $%^&, look at those colors! I rock (for a chimp on amphetamines).

5. Willingness to Listen. There are a lot of blogging artists with very big brains and also a lot of generous artists who talk a lot in person. Recommendation? Don't tune them out and begin fantasizing about next time you can catch Family Guy on TV. Ask questions. Listen. Put it into practice. And then show the artist, if you can, how you've put their advice into practice -- because then they'll give you more. I can't tell you how many people told me that they gave me advice because they saw me putting other artists' advice to good use. I'm starting to get cynical myself -- a lot of people who ask for my advice do nothing with it, and it makes me feel like I'm wasting my time giving it. But when I see someone who is using other advice wisely? I feel like they're a good investment.

6. Motivation. You gotta want it, grasshopper. You have to want it enough to ride out everyone who tells you your portfolio isn't sophisticated enough, your drawings not precise enough, your colors not saturated enough, your subjects not salable enough -- because there will always be more negative around you than positive. So you have to be your biggest cheerleader.


So questions and comments in the comments as usual! For those who have gotten a non-traditional education or want one!