How Much Artistic
Talent Do You Really
Need To Become A Painter?
Do you need talent to become an artist? In almost no
other human endeavor are so many people so hung up on the
need for talent. There seems to be an almost universal
agreement that artistic painting is only for those rare
individuals that are born with a mysteriously God-like
ability to create art. We lowly mortals, should never even
try to understand art let alone try to create it. Give me a
break.
For most painters, talent refers to how easily and how
quickly someone can acquire the necessary skills and
understanding to make art. There is another facet of
talent, (this is the one that hangs us up), that deals with
creatively choosing what to paint, how to arrange the
elements, what style to use and sometimes experimenting
with completely new ways to represent a subject or
idea.
So much of being successful with art has to do with your
goals and expectations. If your goal, for example, is just
to enjoy the process of learning and improving, then
achieving this is more a matter of attitude and getting
started then it is with having talent.
If your goal is to paint something that is good enough
to hang in your house, give away to friends or to sell at a
local art fair, you need to develop enough technical skills
to not look amateurish. Talent will certainly
help at this level but it is not yet a requirement.
What if your goal is to become a famous artist
recognized the world over for transcending all works of
past art with something new and great. Do you need talent
at this level? Absolutely, you will need a truck load of
talent. What is interesting, however, is that so much of
what a master painter learns on the way to greatness
involves the same set of skills that a talent challenged
amateur is capable of learning. In other words, only at the
very top of the art world is talent an absolute
necessity.
So how do you become a good artist despite a lack of
talent?
1. First and foremost, learn to see like an artist. This
is the process of learning to shut down the normally
dominant side of your brain that wants to identify, name,
organize, filter and basically make sense out of what we
see. This actually gets in the way of processing raw visual
data needed to make art. Artistic vision is extremely
important and yet relatively easy to accomplish.
2. Learn to paint with a child-like attitude. Do
children worry that they will look silly painting? Are they
saying to themselves that they must create a perfect piece
of art? Do they have anxiety from fretting over what others
will think? Of course not. Kids just enjoy the experience
as they learn. As adults we often paralyze our natural
gifts and talents with worry. Relax.
3. Have endurance. Think of becoming an artist as a
lifetime adventure. There is no hurry to get it right.
4. Develop a broad knowledge base. Expose yourself to
lots of techniques, styles, mediums and other artists.
5. Do not try to reinvent the wheel. Before you develop
bad habits learn painting from a gifted instructors. This
does not necessarily have to take place at a university. It
can also be learned from a local artist that teaches weekly
classes or from a top video painting course on dvd. Be sure
to look for a painting course that offers a full systematic
approach to learning all of the technical skills in a
logical progression. Some art lessons are so narrowly
focused that they will leave huge gaps in your
training.
The bottom line is that you really do not have to have
great talent to have great fun and be productive as an
artist. Now that that excuse has been removed, shouldn’t
you get started today?
First Place Rating
of 9.8 out of 10
According to the publisher
of the
Learn And Master Painting course, it is designed to be
the most thorough, logical and easy to understand way to
learn oil, acrylic and water mixable oil painting no matter
your present level of skills or talent. During this course,
the student will create several complete paintings from
start to finish.
Who Will Benefit Most From This Painting
Course?
This dvd lesson set is
geared for rank beginners with no experience or formal
training through accomplished painters that wish to round
out their knowledge base and benefit from the advanced
lessons.
Also, children starting at an age of 8 to 10 years old,
with a little set-up help from an adult, should be able to
learn from the dvd set on their own.
About The Instructor Gayle
Levee (Pronounced Le Vay)
Gayle was born into a family of artists and knew from
the young age of five years old that she wanted to draw.
This award winning artist was formally educated
at....more
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positives, negatives, lesson topics, painting styles and
price please click here Learn & Master
Painting full review
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Painting
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