Click Image To Visit Site I was in the same place you are not too long ago. I enjoyed drawing a lot, but what I really wanted was to feel the satisfaction of being a good artist. I wanted to feel proud to have my friends and family marvel at my drawings.
I dreamed of one day being good enough that people would pay me to do what I love. I wanted to be able to talk with and meet other successful artists around the world. And lastly, the rebel in me wanted to show everyone that ever said anything negative about my art that you can make a wildly successful career as an artist.
Unfortunately, even with all those aspirations, I grew up in a tiny Canadian farming village of just 643 people where the school was naturally very small and there wasn’t even a formal art class! But, I didn’t let that stop me from drawing because I enjoyed it so much. When I was younger I was not the best artist in my class – not even close! I was jealous of the "natural talent" that some other kids seemed to have.
So not only was I born without with this "God-given artistic ability" (which is a myth and I will show you why later), but my school didn’t even offer an art class – talk about discouraging!
Despite the fact that the art world seemed to be against me at every turn, I eventually met a teacher from another town who taught at a different school and was offering evening art classes.
At one point in the class she asked us to draw a face. She wasn’t very impressed with my drawing, but like any good teacher, she pointed me in the right direction and sent me home that night with a book about human proportions.
Almost overnight my drawings went from amateur to pretty amazing after I applied the lessons in the book. I’m not trying to exaggerate here – the difference of the before and after drawings were really that amazing.
That was the day I realized that being a "naturally gifted artist" was nothing more than a myth! It was then that I realized that literally anyone can learn how to draw if they’re given a formula and shown how to apply it properly.
That same art teacher, Mrs. G as we came to call her, was even kind enough to arrange for a trip for her night time art students to travel Europe to examine a lot of the historical art and architecture there.
In the 3 weeks touring Europe I saw many amazing and inspiring things, but the thing that absolutely floored me was seeing the portrait and caricature artists in both Florence, Italy and Paris, France. Being from a small village, I had never seen anything like these street artists. They would have a huge crowd of people watching them draw the faces of their customers. It was totally amazing, and I was hooked! I began to… Read more…
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