How long should I be practicing each day?
The amount that you practice is determined by what your goals are. If you want to become a professional, you should be drawing constantly to achieve your goals, 8+ hours a day if possible or as many hours as you can manage. If you just want to improve your drawing ability and you don’t have the pressure of trying to make a career out of it the timeline changes a bit and you don’t need to practice so long and rigorously each day. If you set up time to practice a modest amount of 1-3 hours a day and you focus on the right things, then you will make slow and steady progress. Make sure not to set unrealistic goals for your current situation. The biggest thing is consistency. If you can come back every day and practice that will be the best thing you can do.
What kinds of things should I be focused on?
What you focus on is once again determined by your goals. Do you want to be a portrait artist? Figurative artist? Character Designer? An environment concept artist or gallery landscape painter? An Illustrator? Do you want to do it all? Each area has it’s own area of focus. The Learning Paths on our site should help give some guidance. The fundamentals are the most important thing to have a strong grasp of, and when we say fundamentals we mean a thorough understanding of shape, value, edge and color. This extends into fields like perspective, anatomy, composition and many other specific areas of study. If you’re just getting started, then you won’t go wrong studying the types of things that are laid out in Fundamentals Phase I and II (Check the course previews here) of the online program which entails drawings basic shapes, understanding tone, freehand perspective and contour grids. This type of understanding and training helps you to break down the visual world that you see into its structures. Understanding these forms and structures will be the building blocks off of which you will accrue your knowledge. Drawing starts with gesture and structure. As you understand the construction of an object deeper through study, it allows you to embellish it. As Jeff says, good drawing is “Part what you see, part what you know and part what you wish you saw”. The more you learn about a subject, the more you will be able to manipulate it to enhance its visual aesthetics. One of the best things to be focused on when you are practicing is copying other people’s drawings to learn and absorb the way that they are thinking about things. Books you may want to look into as it related to drawing are Fun with a Pencil, Figure Drawing for All its Worth, Drawing the Head and Hands, Michael Hampton’s Figure Drawing Design and Invention, How to Draw the Marvel Way. Videos are probably one of the best ways to learn, and there are many resources out there such as our own online program and many others as well as much free content on YouTube and other platforms.
How long does it take to get good at art?
The process of “getting good” at art is not linear. Most often you will learn things and acquire knowledge in a somewhat haphazard way, though online programs and book resources will help to give you a structure with which to learn from and make this process more linear and faster. Many of the artworks that you see from students at our school (Student Artwork page) are from students that spent 2-3 years studying with us. Your rate of progression is determined by how much you draw and how often you seek out critique from artists that you respect and admire. Some images that you’ll see on that page are from people that took much longer to get there. If one can study full time and have their work be critiqued by professionals often then the timeline of developing your skills to a proficient level is much shorter. Many of us do not have the opportunity to study full time. To bring your skills to a high level while balancing a job, kids, relationship, bills or family can be very difficult, but it can be done. Expect your journey to be longer if you have more responsibilities that you are handling.
Should I follow a schedule for my artistic learning?
Following a schedule for your artistic learning can be very beneficial to help you stay on track and develop faster through correct planning. We can think of developing an art schedule similar to how you might make one for working out. The goal for this schedule might be to decrease your average mile time:
Monday – Cardio, 5K Run, timed.
Wednesday – Sprint Training
Friday – Leg press, squats and core.
Sunday – Yoga, Stretching and jump rope.
Of course, a schedule for working out would be dependent on what you are trying to do. If you’re trying to become a championship discus thrower, then your schedule would differ quite a bit. We can take the same understanding and make an art training schedule. Maybe, you start by creating a schedule with a focus on improving your figure drawing. Imagine that you set up this schedule for yourself to follow for 5 Weeks:
Monday – Watts Online – Figure Drawing Fundamentals, Watching Lessons and Copying Demos.
Wednesday – Figure Drawing Fundamentals, Working from photo reference using concepts learned the previous day.
Friday – Life Drawing Session
Saturday – Watts Online – Fundamentals Phase I
Sunday – Sketch booking – Studying Leg Anatomy from Bridgman.
A lot of learning can be done in that time! Maybe after a 5 week cycle, you change focus to head drawing, then after that to quicksketch. After several cycles of fundamental drawing, maybe you transition into painting through one of the portrait or still life phases.
A schedule for your art training isn’t for everyone, but for those really serious about trying to improve it may be helpful. Even if you don’t follow a regimented schedule, giving yourself time frames to practice the fundamentals and improve certain areas can be very helpful.
Is drawing for “x” amount of time enough?
The more you draw and seek critique from artists you respect, the faster you’ll increase your abilities. There is no time amount that you can put on your studying that is “enough”. It’s about how much you can reasonably handle with CONSISTENCY. Someone who draws for 30 minutes a day consistently for 1 month would most likely make a lot more progress than someone that draws for 8 hours a day 1 day a week. Just because you’re busy doesn’t mean you can’t improve!
I want to change careers, how can I get an art job?
This is something that you should consider very carefully. It may be helpful to seek out advice from a professional artist with the type of job you would want to understand what the experience is like working in a professional artistic field. It is very important to know that if you make art your livelihood, then it can change your enjoyment of it. An artistic career is extremely rewarding, but it does not come without sacrifice of the pleasure that drawing can bring when it is done purely for the joy of it. This video may help you! “How to Train to be a successful working artist”
Will learning to draw in this style help me draw in other styles?
At Watts Atelier we focus on teaching people the main four fundamental categories: Head, Figure, Landscape and Still Life. If you attain a high level of proficiency in these areas with the ability to draw accurately what you see (and design it to look even better!) then this will greatly enhance your ability to look at anyone’s style and break it down. At a certain point, you’ll probably want to specialize your skill sets which may mean developing your own style by breaking down other people’s styles and work that you like. What we specialize in is teaching people the fundamental building blocks of how the visual world works to give them the tools to understand what they are seeing from the standpoint of shape, value, edge, color, technique, procedure, design, composition etc.
I want to draw from my imagination, will Watts help?
Imagination drawing comes from your ability to recall the information that you have studied by copying and committing to memory. We can call this collection of things you have studied your “Visual Library”. In your mind, you can file though this library to pull out the needed information when it is called for. If you have studied and memorized a lot, then your visual library will be very strong. However, the ability to recall information out of your visual library is a skill in itself, and must be practiced a lot in combination with studying from other artists and reference. Imaginative drawing also is made possible by changing the way you think, and understanding complex objects (such as the human figure) as simple shapes that you can manipulate and draw in perspective. Just like becoming a master painter, becoming a master of invention requires specific practice. Similar to the answer above this one, if you become very proficient at breaking down what you see by studying the key areas and focusing on key concepts, your memorization can become much stronger. The ability to recall things from memory is done best by continuous repetition, meaning copying, interpreting and studying the correct material over and over again until it can be replicated adequately.
Will studying art academically make me lose my creativity?
Watts is not a school that is primarily focused on creativity. Our main concern is to help you learn how to draw and paint extremely well from a technical level. The process of getting good at drawing and painting can be broken down into learnable concepts. Those concepts are not always feelings, emotions, or ambiguous “do what you feel” ideas, but rather simple straightforward techniques and methodologies that you can practice to actively increase your understanding of a particular subject. The concepts that you learn should be able to be studied directly and should be repeatable from a procedural standpoint. Studying will not hamper your creativity, but enhance it by giving you more tools with which to express yourself. What we strive to do at Watts Atelier is help you become as good at drawing as possible from a technical standpoint, it is up to you to decide what you do with that information!
How can I attend the in person school?
If you want to attend the in person school take a look at our forums or Discord page! Create an account on our site and you can post about looking for a roommate in both of those channels. If you contact us at [email protected] then we can also provide further details on the process that a lot of students take when moving to Encinitas to attend the in person school.
Can I get as good with the online school as the in person school?
We have seen many students get just as good with the online school as the in person school. It is all about how much time and effort you are putting into your training. You get out of it what you put into it. Some things are easier online, and some are easier in person. Even if you are at the in person school, if you don’t take advantage of the opportunity and put in the work then you will not improve. In the wise words of Jeff’s teacher, Glen Orbik “Learning this stuff is like hiring a gym trainer, he can show you how to use the machines but to get the really big muscles you have to lift the weights yourself.”