[Mindsiphon]

There are lots of people here who have or are currently attending school for art.
I feel as if I am a minority as I have never attended school for art. I did attend for a few weeks but I had to leave because I couldn't afford it and had to work many hours in order to pay rent, bills etc etc..

I'm curious as to how many of you are self taught. Also what are some of the challenges you've faced because of it.

It seems the only profession for a self taught artist is freelance work.

[[Shizo]]

Nah you can get a full time job, but you have to be either REALLY good or have connections (hmm, college = connections)
I saw a chart on gamasutra or someplace that said 20% (?) are self-taught.

[iByrn]

Had at least 4 art classes in high school but I'm in school for computer science now. So yeah, I'm pretty much self-taught. (resulting in the very, very little I know about art right now)

[zak]

been painting since beginning of feb this year and im 100% self taught. i hated artclasses in skool.

the hardest thing was to start. theres sooooo much its overwhelming. i started with anime and manga, cos it seemed less demanding and concentrated on sketching which i needed a good foundation in anyway.

[Vesuvius]

I've never been in an art school (I'm 21, going to 'regular' college), but I have attended courses at the MFA (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) and taken classes throughout high school and during some summers earlier. The most improvement I've ever made has been independently, over the last few years while I've lurked at (and occassionally posted at) sijun. reading tutorials, learning what to look for in my own work, reading Andrew Loomis's 'Figure Drawing for All it's Worth' (granted I've only gone through the first few chapters) and looking on other forums have allowed me to better analyze my work and improve. My anatomy, poses, and ability to implement perspective (and understand it's importance in all works) vastly improved. Art courses CAN be very useful, but by no means are they necessary for commercial success (I've seen a number of pieces of commercial art that are horrible in perspective, layout, and proportion- and these were not just stylistically wrong- so with connections or good impressions you can get in the door at a number of places). Taking even a few courses however can be vitally important to improvement. Some topics are harder to understand or find resources on (color theory for example), and some issues- even if you technically know what is wrong- are very difficult to improve on without detailed critique (which although at times available online, is not something you can rely on receiving).

-my 2 pennies.

[edible snowman]

even though i'm not even out of highschool, i'd guess that the most important part of artschool is the atmostphere. if you're intelligent, it seems like you should be able to grasp the concepts you need to become a successful artist, especially with the wealth of information available on the internet. but having an atmosphere that really pushes you to practice and draw more will make you much better and more motivated. i think.

[Asurfael]

I'm selftaught. I haven't been in art classes since I was 13 (back then it was a part of the mandatory education). But you can most certainly see it too

[radical travis]

skool or no skool, learning comes down to when you are ready to make the effort and apply yourself. There's no reason someone who never attended a college class couldn't become the most skilled, knowledgeable artist in the world.

college in it's sensible form though, isn't anything other then a place to get information. unfortunately all the politics of wealth, class, and other crap do get muddled with it today, to the point where oftentimes that interferes with the educational value of it. it serves too much middle and upper class kids who's basically only accomplishment is having not ever been arrested, and basically babysits them into a nice American job. classes can get pretty kooky with that as a backdrop.

and while kids still use college as a place to have an open-mind and explore, I'd be reluctant to say you will meet the most interesting people there

[Rat]

Well, I've taken about six months of actual art classes over the past three years of middle school, in which all we really focused on were "crafty" sorts of things, so what extremely little I do know is self-taught.

Next year when I get to high school, though, I'm taking art over...well not much else I might want to do.

[Lunatique]

I'm self-taught. And yes, it is a challenge because you have to be extra motivated and disciplined since there are no fellow students and instructors to inspire, correct, or help you. I think I learn better on my own, since I enjoy being resourceful and hunt down knowledge for things I don't know about.

[DeepFish]

I am self taught as well. I did take two art classes in my current college though, but one of them was an intro, which i don't even count as an "art technique" class. Everything else was from books and studying closely what other did and how they did it, I have a huge binder of sketch printouts of different artists from web, to study their methods.
However I am transferring to an art school this September (School Of Visual Arts, New York NY) cant wait... I still think that you can learn all the skills by yourself, but it is so tough...

[Awetopsy]

I never went to school for Art. My family didnt really ever believe I would make it as an artist... so I ended up never persuing it... but it ended up that I got a good job with the company Im with now, drawing pictures.

But I certainly do get treated differently as I am the youngest and junior member, experience-wise. Sometimes it really feels as though people look down on me because I didnt go to school for my artwork. but it doesnt always feel like that. all the artists here are between 24 and 35 so we're all pretty close.

But I definately am treated like the "junior member"... even tho Ive been here longer than half the people in the company.

[ July 30, 2002: Message edited by: Awetopsy ]

[nova]

i'm self taught.. in my second year at art college but most of what i know i taught myself. i taught myself during the last 2 years of high school at an independent study in visual communications class and at home with help from friends and art club.. that ended up being my art 'education'. i made the decision to go to art school, though.. a couple reasons i'm going is

[1] i want to go to school, have a sociallife, keep my brain alive.. etc

[2] i figure there'll come a time when the difference between me and someone else getting hired will be my degree

[3] i have the money, the time and the situation to go to school

[4] i like learning stuff

there's bad stuff of course that comes from being self taught.. i didn't progress as much as i could've because it was hard to get a lot of feedback.. and i felt like i was learning alone a lot of the time, that can suck. unless you have direction, it can be difficult to know what to study next. but i think teaching myself got me an internship in the games industry anyway.. i had something to show that proved i was interested at least

i think you can teach yourself enough to get a job somewhere, but it's tough, takes time and tons of dedication and direction. depends on your situation too i guess. still though, there's only so much you can learn yourself without going to school.. school is awesome for having a crowd of students and teachers to get feedback from and encourage you.

- l

[ July 31, 2002: Message edited by: nova ]

[edraket]

Self taught is nice. But on myself I am not going to spend 40 hours or more a week on developing as an artist. Especially if I have a fulltime job.
In the end it still comes down to yourself of course. You can get out of artschool with next to no skills. And you can become a genious artist without ever attending one.
But creating the right environment for developing yourself will help tremendously.

[Awetopsy]

Sijun.com forum is my teacher.

[Enayla]

I'm mostly self-taught =]

I've taken some life-drawing lessons in my far past - when I was much younger... but I wasn't... concentrated enough to really pay any attention, unfortunately =(

[zak]

[movement from discussion] 1 question. doesnt being self taught give you more of an individual style than when going to classes? id suppose in classes youd strive to keep up with the best = copying or developing a similar style?! i dunno, it just occured to me. [/movement from discussion]

[Vesuvius]

depends on how you teach yourself, and if you try to emulate particular influences.

[zak]

hmm well i suppose, but wouldnt you have a broader range of influences if you were self taught?

[mannela]

I'm self taught (still learning though).
I'm studying media including graphics design and I'm hopefully going to work as a graphics designer/illustrator someday.
My studies include some art lessons but I might study it more in the future too as it's very interesting.
Anyway, I think one can learn everything him-/herself if has enough motivation and patience to learn from books and practise and practise and practise.

[edraket]

It depends on the artschool of course. But, as far as I know, usually the focus of an artschool is to bring out your unique style, not to create painting drones.
You have tons of people around you and you spend quite a bit of time studying art history. You are also encouraged to experiment.
I don't think there is any better place to develope your style.
That doesn't mean you can't do it by yourself though.

[DeepFish]

the way i understand it, is that art school will only teach you the basics that you need to know regardless of your style... anatomy, perspective, color, etc. Your style shouldn't be affected by those fundamentals. I mean you can distort any of those to fit into your style, but it's up to you, you'll be distorting it because you want to, not because you dont know any better.
And all those basics can by learned by yourself, its just that artschool makes it easier.
Or at least this is my vision of schools in general. I hope i'm not wrong.

[zak]

i can see myself going to artschool, but only to learn the technical aspect of art (how to use progs and stuff like that) not to actually develp my style, im not saying that it woulkdnt develop, what i mean is that id go there to improve my knowlede mainly

[synj]

i am pretty much self taught. i didn't do anything past highschool education wise, but i learned alot those last couple years in commercial art.

it helped me with camera angles and such, and color theory immensley. also taught me the discipline to try more than one design for something. and wow look at this i came on this forum to intitially cause problems then i settled down and decided to post work instead and now i have a career. man its SEXY.

SEXY i tell you.

[edit]
oh yeah and whoever you are out there that told me i'd never get a job on here i want to give you a swift smile at your nuts because i got hired like 2 weeks after you were a cocksucker and i will find you and break your nipples clean off after freezing them in ice dammit and then freeze my pee too and feed you my peecubes and mount a tube up your butt that is pumping out icy-hot for a few hours and tell you i didn't mean it

[ August 06, 2002: Message edited by: synj ]

[oDD]

I'm self taught too.

I've started to learn about two years ago.
I've been:

1. lurking forums
2. reading tutorials
3. reading loomis books

When I started i wasn't able to draw a standing figure of a human...

From my ponit of view the good points of going to art school are:

1. there are problems that a lerning person isn't aware of. If he/she is lerning alone he/she won't expand in some fields because he/she doesn't even know about their egzistance. Sure , sooner or later you will know almost everything but when there is another person (teacher in art school) You will learn some things in right time. Thats why lurking art forums is so important especially for self taught peopole (especially when you get comments ) So when youre at art school you are lerning faster.

2. Sometimes you just don't got the will to draw/paint. When i started i was drawing like an hour a week. Now (as i got no life) all my time (free time and time i shoud work or learn someting to my non art school) is spended on art. Even now I'm at work and insted of making stuff for my company's web page i'm lurking sijun. Anyway , when you're at art school i think you will draw/study every day as you will have regular lessons and even if youre fed up with it you will have to do it. When youre alone and you have thought like "I don't want to do anything today" it means you wan't draw anything that day. When you at art school and you have the same feeling you will still draw beacause you have to.

I hope i will get some "non self" art education in future...

Anyway i hope this got some sense. And i can't spell right even in polish so sorry for bad spelling.

[edraket]

So how about learning to think creatively? I mean..learning perspective and stuff is all nice but that doesn't make you creative. And an artist should be creative right?
Perspective you can learn from a book. Or on this forum actually. It's just a piece of knowledge. Being a creative thinker is a whole different ballgame. And although I think it can be self taught, there is certainly not a piece of info that you can study to get you there.
I think that is a thing where artschool can help you tremendously to develop.

There is also just general things you need to know to be able to function as a professional. Bussiness skills, communication skills, marketing etc.

[Malachi Maloney]

I'm self taught, but I paint over 50 hours a week, so I'm working on it.


~M~