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By  Danny Staten
Taking Your Art to a New Level
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Talent vs Work
One word that in my mind does more harm to an artist than good is the word talent. Too often we credit successful artists work entirely to talent, and believe
that we don't produce pieces like theirs because we don't have the same level of talent. Sure talent is important, but it is not nearly as important as we often
think it is. I feel that many of us never reach our artistic potential because we just believe we don't have the talent to get there.
Lets consider a different art as an example. Music works nicely. Pure genius like Mozart is truly once a millennium if that, yet the amount of amazing music produced
by musicians is incredible. How many master pianists reach their level of skill without hours and hours of practice? Most concert pianists practice at least 40 hours a week
before a performance. A master pianist reaches that level only after years of practicing the basics. Uncounted hours of doing scales and other rudimentary, and not necesarily
musically appealing drills are put in. A quick disclaimer, I am not good at music because I have devoted my efforts to other interests so if I sound ignorant, please forgive me.
Why would art be any different? Leonardo DaVinci always taught that his art was 5% inspiration and 95% perspiration. If one of the recognized great masters put work before talent, so whould we. The great artists literally
live in their sketch book. Everywhere they go they are sketching quick studies of all they see. The great artists live in a constant state of awe at the world. This is because
they spend every waking second observing how things behave and look. The great artists grow to understand at least a basic level of many sciences because they are what determines
how things behave and look. In honesty with myself, I am nowhere nearly as committed to art as I should be.
Now I am sure that many of you are interested in art as a hobby and don't want it to dominate your whole life. I fall somewhat into this category, though I tend to find myself
getting more and more pulled into it as I grow. Having art as a hobby is wonderful. Do it and enjoy it. Just don't get down on yourself when you see work that you feel puts yours to shame, as I do on a regular basis.
Art: Fun Work
Okay so you have had enough of me rambling about the importance of work over talent. Now I am going to ramble about what should be put into every piece if you truly want it to be a masterpiece.
A recent class about illustration design has really helped me wake up to what I feel are critical points for any piece.
Using photographs for reference is not cheating. I used to think that my favorite artists like John Howe, Allan Lee and Brothers Hildebrandt did everything from their head. They don't
because they know that nobody can possibly capture all the details as well than they can with reference. Collect tons of photos to help you draw more accurately, and then use them. Don't eyeball something that you can measure. I cannot say that enough.
In this tutorial you will see sketches where I did that, and then had to work hard later on to fix it. Learn from the mistakes of others and take the time to measure angles and distances between everything. I cannot say that enough.
Spend the time your piece deserves. In my recent class, our teacher was an incredible freelance painter who was teaching part time at my university. Repeatedly, she would bring in a painting she was working on and we would all gawk. Our jaws would be
on the floor and we would all be thinking, "man she is so gifted." Then she would talk about how much time she had spent on the piece. Then we would all think, "wow that is a lot of time." The next thing that would always happen is that she would say
something to the effect of it only being about half way done. Our reaction was always, "WHAT! How could this possibly be improved?!" Of course a few weeks later when we would see the final piece, we would be amazed at how much it was improved. She would spend on average
80-100 hours on a project. One of the biggest differentiators between professional art and ammateur art is the amount of time they spend on it.
Do not neglect the drawing you will paint from. Another thing that repeatedly amazed me was having the opportunity to see the drawings my teacher would paint on top of. They were not necesarily finished graphite masterpieces, but they were very good.
The more you work out before you get into the complications of painting, whether digital or traditional, the better you will be able to paint from there. The level of perfection you take your canvas too will determine how much easier the final painting is to produce.
My teacher would spend about 20-30 hours just doing sketches, compositions, and studies of different elements for her final painting. On the piece this tutorial is about, I spent over a week getting sketches finished at a total of about 20 hours. Even so, there were errors in my sketches
that I wish I had caught. The point is, get the drawing right early.
Master a medium. There are different opinions on this, but I believe that it is best to first master a medium before diversifying to other types. This doesn't necesarily mean you have to limit yourself to a rigid style. If you try too early to master multiple mediums at once, you will find that
you cannot advance quickly in any of them. Most professional artists work fairly exclusively in one medium. That is because they can then focus on that one medium and get master it. I personally love working in Painter, and will probably focus on that for many years to come.
Enoy it
Whatever you do, don't destroy your enjoyment of art. I personally love seeing my art improve. I am very far from what I would like to be capable of
but that doesn't worry me. Art is all about the journey not the destination. Never settle for where you are. Unlike climbing a mountain, you can always
climb higher in art. My teacher would always say, "you don't know how to paint until you have painted for 10 years or finished 100 paintings." Remember that it takes time to improve. Always learn, and enjoy learning. Art is such an amazing experience so enjoy it! Let better artists inspire you, and do what you can to help any who ask.
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