Many aspiring artists, who love to draw – and who yearn to improve – become somewhat pessimistic about their progress because they don’t believe they have the innate talent to become good at drawing. This is the biggest myth about drawing. Really, how important is it to have talent?
Talent is an asset, to be sure. But talent alone cannot produce superior work unless it has three essential ingredients:
• The motivation to draw often
• The willingness to seek out and learn new drawing techniques
• And most importantly, having what I term as an “Editorial Eye”
If you have the three assets, listed above, you can become an excellent artist, with or without innate talent. If you have talent, but none of the attributes listed above, your art doesn’t improve.
So the question becomes, what is an “Editorial Eye”? It’s the ability to look at your art dispassionately, to recognize its flaws – as well as its strengths. It’s having the willingness – even the desire – to redraw your work in order to get it right. There’s an old saying for writers: “Writing is re-rewriting.” The same is true for artists, “Drawing is re-drawing”.
I’m here to encourage you to pursue your passion, you art, your dreams. You can do it. You really can. And always remember: You deserve to succeed.
I think that “talent” (n., a special natural ability or aptitude; a capacity for achievement or success) is more of a mindset than a trait (I am not very good at explaining XD). If you have the motivation to draw, then you are more likely to succeed. However, it is quite possible for people to be more artistically inclined than others- I’m trying not to say ‘Born with it’, but I guess that’s what it is- for an example, in the second grade I was good at drawing compared to my age group- other 8-year-olds weren’t as good as me. But I wasn’t at all ‘Good’. To be “good” you have to WORK for it, and sometimes it’s hard. But that work pays off. When people ask me how I got to where I am now, I simply tell them “practice.” Yes, some people have a little head start. But that headstart means nothing if you don’t practice- you could easily catch up to my headstart if you just practiced often. :3
sometimes I get discouraged. I seem to want to draw detail first, it’s hard for me to simplify. I discovered your tutorials tonight on artistsnetworktv.com, and I find them really useful. I’ve also purchased several of your books and intend to focus on them to help me improve. My biggest problem is that when I sit down to draw, I freeze. It’s hard for me to put together a still life, I always think it has to be perfect. When I try to draw fantasy art, I feel like my imagination has vanished. Any suggestions?