Understanding Art For Beginners

Art is something that is actually very simple yet gets complicated. Art is whatever you want it to be and that is why it gets so confusing.

Understanding what art is can be made easier through experimentation of different mediums (mediums are art supplies you use to produce e.g different types of paint, pencils, pens etc.) with enough practice you'll figure out which mediums you like to use and eventually you'll discover your own art style. 

Everyone's art style is different a bit like handwriting it's unique to you, it may be similar to others but it won't have the exact same mistakes. Why art can be whatever you want is because we don't all have the same preferences but we can find commonalities between peoples styles; this would be things like Portraiture, Landscapes, Realism, Abstract, Expressionism etc. Now it's okay if some of these words make no sense to you, it's just a way of describing what type of style you produce. Within the type of style you produce it's upto you which medium(s) you use - Yes you can use more than one this is called Mixed Media art, figuring out an order comes from trial and error. 

People use different methods and techniques to create, each medium can be used several ways for example acrylic paint can be used as it is, watered down or done in a fluid art manner which there's different ways of achieving cool results; Pour/scoop it, tilt it/shake it/spin it. This is why everyone's art style is unique to them because we all like different methods and we all get along with different products which all behave and look slightly different between brands - some brands are more inspiring for one person where as the same brand might not be for another person, it's important to experiment with several brands of the same product to figure out what works best for you. When you find a good art supply you know its good because you're super inspired and excited to use it. 

There's more than one way to go about producing art. Some people like to draw in pen rather than in pencil or no drawing at all just painting the picture from a reference image, some prefer to create digitally. When using a reference image or making digital art make sure it has no copyright attached to the image(s) used to help create otherwise you can get in trouble, to avoid this issue there's some royalty free/commercial use free stock images available which don't have copyright, this basically means you can sell the art inspired by the image; or you can take your own pictures and turn that into art which you can sell as you would have the rights to do so.   

There are no set rules to how you should create art only guidelines, there's facts about art such as the fundamentals which is stuff like proportion or colour theory which is knowledge you can consume to progress with your skill but it is not a rule it's more something to think about when creating. We all are at different levels with the fundamentals, this is why we all have different "mistakes" - art is subjective so there are no mistakes only happy accidents and a learning curve comes from these "mistakes" which ultimately makes you progress. 

In short art is not confusing, it is the expression of your soul which is bound to vary from person to person. It's the nitty gritty details of art styles and fundamentals, the different methods and processes that get confusing. Art is a journey to self discovery and I believe everyone is capable of producing art no matter your experience or skill level. 

Till next time, 

Stevie x