Ask HN: How to Become an Artist?

Artists make art, gallerists make artists. My dad is a pretty great artist, he studied under Peter Prendergast, and Mike Knowles (professor emeritus at the Slade). Outside of the local art scene he is completely unknown.

My observations lead me to conclude that the greatest artists and musicians of the world are, like my dad, totally anonymous. Becoming successful in the way you describe requires a dedication to business, PR, sales and marketing. You often need to be a shameless self publicist, or extremely lucky, Van Gough died poor and unknown. Practising the skills required to become popular and "successful" diminishes the time available to practice your art skills. Even though you said you don't care about making money, earning recognition in art means making money. You could refuse to sell your art, but then no galleries would take you on, and no auction houses will mobilise their PR machines to promote you.

To sum up, I would: 1) Go to night school drawing classes. 2) Practice, practice, practice. 3) Find a degree course with a good teacher. Who you learn from is way more important in art than where, or what you learn. 4) Make art

Then, if you want to become a commercial success and be invited to soirees: 1) Study business, sales, the art of persuasion, social skills, etc. 2) Use connections from your art school to promote yourself. 3) ??? 4) Profit.

> A foundational book like Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain is a good jump start if it is important for your ego to see quick feedback

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.

> 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.

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.

Sure, but starting from that end is like saying "I want to be a millionaire CTO who speaks at conferences" while having no tech experience.

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.

It totally is. Without it, you cannot apply shading for example. Or make caricatures. Or literally do anything in drawing that would be considered a normal routine expectation from an artist. I’m speaking about a specific skill here, not emulating Jackson Pollock or doing something crazy in the art world. Talking about strictly the ability to draw well.