Ask HN: How to Become an Artist?
I know nothing about the art world, and yet I'd like to become an artist (as a hobby, at least for now). I don't particularly care about making money; but I want to understand how an artist is launched, how he/she gets recognition, how he/she gets invited to shows, etc.
Anyone with experience, or suggested readings? Thanks in advance!
72 comments
[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 54.1 ms ] threadI'd like to see it. Good luck!
What was it? Can you link to it?
(If you scroll to the very bottom of the page, there's a search box.)
(I agree that the criticism was justified.)
My advice, admittedly cynical and maybe unpopular, is that you either ”have it or you don’t”*. The asterisk being that you might have an underdeveloped “it” and not even know it. There’s no substitute for practice.
If we looked at reading the way we treat creativity, we would all be illiterate.
I agree with what you're saying though, most people who want to "make it in art" have to find their own path which is ultimately entrepreneurship, but there's not really an answer to "what works", is there?
I really recommend that you talk to or informally interview some local artists. They can give you solid advice and probably tell you what you need to do next. They may even offer to review your progress.
If you're doing this as a hobby, I think I would really ask yourself what kind of publicity you need for this to be worth it to you.
If you can make art and be happy, you're done. Publicity adds all kinds of drama, expense, politics, especially the more you focus on it. I have some artist friends who paid to play and got lots of publicity, and then lost it as soon as they stopped paying.
Personally I have some ribbons but I don't find publicity that helpful in being the kind of artist I want to be. Everybody's different. Good luck to you.
As an artist myself I fully share your thoughts on this one. I create art (paint) for my own pleasure and don't have any desire to show it to the world exactly because I don't have the energy to deal with all the drama it brings about. I also feel that any external attention would probably take my attention away from the actual practice. Meanwhile I just go to my shared studio when nobody is there and spend 8 to 10 hours on sessions and that simply gives me the greatest satisfaction. One thing I came to cherish is spending time in the flow state. At this point I have hundreds of works that are quite interesting and born from that state. It's a beautiful experience and great therapy too. I feel like things go through me but they're coming from a different realm, as if I'm there as a medium to communicate and just adjust small things but not perturb the movement with hard decisions while in that state. My thoughts meander along, different things pop up from time to time but in a very gentle way. I just love this and it is one of the things that I discovered accidentally, though I have to admit that I've been looking around for most of my life.
At some point I may show them to the world but only if I find a solution that is completely effortless to me. Why perturb the practice if I get most benefits out of it already?
I just try to not fall into these traps. For example, I work small and stackable and work on 5 to 10 works at a time. I've got friends whose houses are filled with their past work or paying for storage to just keep their crap around. That would definitely stop me in my tracks. I decided it's all crap in the end, crap that we don't want to burden ourselves or our families with. This personal philosophy enabled me to not attach to my works at all. There are still some people who see my works from time to time and if I see that they're communicating or my works communicate with them I just give them away for free or donation. There is a feeling of slight regret when I give something away but the idea that my work may touch someone else compensates for that.
Money, yes, I'd love to be able to dedicate my time fully to my practice but again, trying to 'make it' in the art world and get paid enough money to quit my regular job is likely to ruin it all for me. I'm extremely grateful that I found my thing, had been feeling lost for a while before this came around.
There are also local groups for most art forms, hooking into those communities can be helpful for getting feedback and growing your network.
I completely and unequivocally disagree. This is one of the most misleading books IMO. It gets you to the point where you can draw and feel pretty good about it. It’s easy to verify how people are deluded by this book - the litmus test is as follows: Ask them to draw the same thing but now from a different perspective, say rotate the object about some axis by 30 degrees. They’ll fail. The way to learn drawing, if you want to be taken seriously is to internalize the 3D geometry and be able to modify it without much struggle. This is why good teachers start with basic shapes such as Cube and Cones. I would strongly discourage anyone from using this book unless you’re doing it for fun and as a hobby.
There are many good sources, search for Sycra on YT or take a course from Jeffrey Watts on basics of drawing.
That is, the ability to draw rotated geometric primitives without reference is not on the critical path to be taken seriously as an artist.
Drawing forms in perspective is a large hurdle, and it is important if you want to work quickly on a variety of projects with little reference(a common need in professional illustration) but also not the defining thing of "drawing". The huge number of artists that define themselves in a completely flat style should signal as much.
I found it was more important in my studies to prioritize proportion. Proportion rules over and interacts with everything else - it is unavoidable, and there are many proportioning tricks and strategies out there. Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain is fine at guiding this basic principle. The other things can be done with a bit of reference and specific techniques:
If you understand the proportions correctly in an orthographic side, front and top view, you can already create character turnarounds: just rotate the top view in 2D and then draw guidelines downwards, and you have the horizontal location of everything after rotation, which can subsequently be matched with the vertical from front and side. It is a major labor to do this because you will most likely not have perfect proportions in your original views if you drew them from scratch, but the process itself is intuitive and accurate, and involves no cubes or cones.
Form in perspective is likewise mostly reducible to knowing the location of the horizon line and then informally distorting proportions according to the rule: "above horizon=looking up, below horizon=looking down". And then doing studies of the perpendicular cross-section to internalize the detailed form of real objects. Again, cubes and cones are not a priority. They are a method of simplifying, which helps when you aim towards arbitrary constructions from imagination, but the drawing assignments I've undertaken are achieved with most accuracy by starting from either using a maximum detail reference image to set proportions, or first working in orthographic views to simplify understanding.
The emphasis on primitives is primarily a yesteryear's art education phenomenon, because it was much, much harder to get accurate references then. Artists were known for possessing giant stacks of source material. We're in a world defined by digital processes, and the stacks are disappearing accordingly. You can easily tell the computer to make an accurate cube and then trace over that, and if you need more details you snap a quick photo on your camera. You can build up exactly the reference you need via photobashing. The process is a giant shortcut that doesn't give the same results, but when pushed hard to be stylized, it still leads back to the traditional skills of observation, and eventually to drawing cubes.
It's frankly a depressing grind more often than not. I've been a hobby artist for about 5 years now, and I have ~6k followers on two platforms. About 60% of that came in the last 2 years. It kind of snowballs the longer you keep at it. Consistency is incredibly important!
For more ground level practicality, try What They Didn't Teach You In Art School, by Rosalind Davis or I'd Rather Be In The Studio by Alyson Stanfield.
Recognition and shows usually come from connections, many of which are formed over a four year liberal arts education. Indeed, college and university art programs put on multiple shows a year, and a local community college art class can be a very cheap way to enter into a small but passionate art world. Many of the fine artists/illustrators from my school's art program ended up working for commissions in one form or another, promoting their work and socializing with other artists constantly on Instagram and social media.
There are tons of small coffee shops running small sales and shows of art all over: it doesn't take college connections to show art here per se, just a certain amount of charisma and a good portfolio.
If you are interested in becoming an artist, I'd encourage a HN reader to keep a few analytical and rational practices when approaching the art world, but to throw away the engineer's notions of done, perfect, and exact. One should gravitate towards art they love and imitate it until they are enjoying their artistic process.
To start gaining recognition, you need to start producing a ton of work, a ton. You also have to think critically about your work and constantly look to improve. Look at a ton of art for inspiration. Basically look at a lot of art, and produce a lot of art.
Then you need to start showing off your best work everywhere, be active in all the social media, create a Website, etc.
If your stuff is good enough, you will start getting recognition. It won't be overnight. These days, especially with social media, there are tons of work of every kind. You need to have both quantity and quality (maybe even gimmicky) to stand out.
Also, start networking with other people in the industry. In my genre, I reached out to makeup artists, stylists, models, other photographers, etc.
But let's try to answer your other questions.
Making money - look up the 1000 true fans article, that's the core of it. With this there are many routes like having a storefront online, money from ads on YouTube, creating products (like a coffee table book or a card deck with art on it, or a coloring book, or others), but as for getting into galleries that requires being somewhat known in that local community, for that you have to do competitions, go to shows, and participate at the local level, basically focused networking.
Getting Known - Besides that you'll be doing what most marketing people do for yourself an your art, lots of social media posting(probably daily multiple times a day even - see successful Instagram campaigns), joining and building communities interacting with them and tailoring/catering to them. Ideas for content include 1.showing the art, 2.my process commentary, 3.speed painting, 4.tricks & techniques, 5.reverse engineering another artist's work, 6.inspiration and references - these matter as artists are a big part of the audience themselves.
Shows - once one has talent, network/community and awards then they get invited to shows and galleries. It would probably be best if you asked someone that works at a local gallery how they do it and what they look for, and what they know.
But all of that said the first steps is to get good, for that I recommend "Draw a Box" or college courses - professors are a good source of networking too, after that the local community is where it's at, go to art meetups, figure out where they hang out, some communities even have studio space to rent or live in things like that. It pretty quickly becomes a small world, so careful who's toes get stepped on along the way.
To get recognition for doing a thing, you have to begin with doing the thing. And you're not going to make a mark in any field without being aware of what other people are doing.
Additionaly, if it's one thing that a BFA (design and technology) has taught me it's that concept is everything (self and peer critique are close seconds).
Foundations in drawing, color, light, space, form, etc are highly recommended not just for execution, but also for your way of thinking about how you perceive your environments.
After going through the foundations, it's about how to formulate and refine your concepts. What do you have to express? What do you care about? Why does it matter to you and/or the world at large? Does it even matter or is it even worth people hearing? What does it address? How is your perspective different from precedents set by others who've created works regarding your topic of choice? The list goes on.
Only once you've answered those questions and more should you start to consider the medium for execution. From there it becomes an iterative process of creating prototypes/drafts, repeating those steps mentioned, and receiving as objective constructive criticisms from others in order to refine and come up with a final piece.
All in all, you may not get any attention for what you've created, but you will feel fulfilled. Seeking attention is what marketing is for and attention seeking has little to nothing to do with creating.
[1] https://www.vulture.com/2018/11/jerry-saltz-how-to-be-an-art...
There are light years of difference between getting a slot in a small-town gallery or show (not hard...), getting a slot in a Beverly Hills gallery (much harder, but not necessarily dependent on quality) to becoming a name on the mainstream NY/London circuit (needs insanely good contact management and party skills, and an ability to write/speak art bullshit with a straight face).
You can also be a successful niche artist who panders to a popular audience (Kinkade, Vettriano), a full-time Etsy pro, a full-time Deviant Art pro, someone known locally for pet portraits, and so on.
For the top gallery scene I'd suggest books like Art of the Deal by Horowitz and Dark Side of the Boom by Adams.
For art in general try Grayson Perry's Playing to the Gallery.
For an inside view of the top go to as many big art fairs as you can - Art Basel (Miama, Basel), Frieze (London), the Armory Show (NY), Scope (NY, London, Basel) - and ask gallery staff how the system works. Tell them you're doing a research project or something like that.
Do not try to sell them art.
Don't be surprised if some laugh at you or cut you dead, but a few may take an interest.
Also, don't underestimate how good the best artists are. There's plenty of bullshit, but there's also plenty of solid talent - not so much basic drawing (although it can help), but a kind of abstract visual intelligence and feel for composition which not everyone has.
Look at a lot of art, and try to understand visual metaphors, shape and use of space, dynamics and movement, social references, and other abstract features.
Representational skill is the least interesting part of it.
Honestly, my advice for you is spend at least a year or two playing with different mediums and subjects, and see what sparks joy for you personally. Art these days is supremely cool because there's such a staggering variety out there from physical mediums such as guache, oils, acrylic, colored pencils, mixed media, to digital art which is even more broad than anything.
Drawing still life work (drawing what you see around you) is recommended to slowly pick up fundamentals of lighting and color and shape (same with figure drawing and anatomy), but I wouldn't limit yourself to just that - play with characters, play with drawing mechs, fantasy, surreal work ... sky's the limit.
I'd also start collecting/saving pictures of art that resonate with you and save it in an inspiration folder so that way you can look back and see if there's a common thread to what vibes with you. Is it colors? A feeling that is evoked? A story in the images? etc.
One last thing: I'd sign up to an art-specific site like deviantART which has historically been very friendly to artists of all stripes (versus twitter), and isn't treated as a professional "portfolio" (versus artstation) as much as a cool landing page to see all of your works. At the end of the year if you want to get more serious, then I'd suggest building a personal site - but wouldn't jump in it immediately.
Good luck!
If you want to have the experience of being in a show, search for local "Call for Artists", and you'll find small shows taking in local artist's work. If it is a juried show, it means they'll choose which artwork makes it into the show. Non-juried shows means if you drop it off, it is in. Most shows let you set a price at which you'll sell the displayed works, and take a cut of that sale.
It is really that simple - The galleries and museums put out calls to artists, and artists respond. Different shows will have different preferences for skill level and styles. Over time, you'll figure out which shows are best for your own art. You'll also get to know the people running the shows, and get to know the local community.
What are your favorite galleries? Which shows stick with you, make you see the world differently? Are you more interested in formal work - visually appealing/ materially interesting work? Or are you more interested in conceptual work, art that is more overtly imbued with new ideas? Or all of the above/ something else....
Your studio practice activates by seeing lots of shows and introducing yourself to artists and gallerists who put on shows you resonate with. Art is a language we all share. So even though you are one artist making stuff, you are also part of a larger dialogue. Engaging in this conversation is how you get invited to show.
To become museum art, your stuff needs an interpretation that places it within art history and more precisely at the front of art history. E.g. it can’t be something that’s already done.
So, make artifacts or performances that impart feelings, every day.
Your output will be trash at first, but that’s expected. What matters is that you do your reps, every day.
When the going gets tough, read The War of Art.
If I were a cynic, I'd be wondering if this question, in this forum, is from someone who wants to jump on the NFT bandwagon. Oh wait, I am a cynic!
[0]: https://www.fabrica.land/