Your dream of becoming a famous artist may not be as impossible as you think: the so-called child prodigy painter Sir John Everett Millais was one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite movement and won a silver medal in the Society of Arts at the age of nine. Likewise Pablo Picasso, one of the founders of the Cubism movement is considered a child genius. Even today, young artists like Akiane Kramarik are considered child prodigies. If you are skilled in the arts, perhaps your name is destined to be remembered for all time. Are you ready to learn how? Read on!
Step
Part 1 of 2: Building Your Skills
Step 1. Practice
Getting inspired is a wonderful thing, of course, but without the technical skills to make your vision a reality, you won't reach great heights. Whatever your medium of choice, be an expert on everything.
- Spend an hour or so each day dedicating yourself to just practicing your technique.
- Focus mainly on the areas where your main weakness is, but build on your strengths as well.
- Take advantage of the community and resources you can find. Art supplies manufacturers and art shops often offer free books, tutorials, videos and websites full of tips, painting techniques and much more.
- Some shops even hold training seminars, where you can not only acquire new skills, but meet other artists.
Step 2. Do the things you love
Choose a subject that has meaning to you and you want to draw well.
- Start by drawing nature, photos of your own, photos that are not copyrighted, or that you can use with permission. Draw or paint the same photo over and over again with different approaches-using paint, pencil, abstract, realism styles; whatever moves you.
- Start with easy subjects, such as a rubber ball or rectangle, work your way up to more difficult and complex subjects, such as roses, clear glass marbles or shiny metal bowls. And try to draw the details right: the curvature of the flower petals, the clarity of the glass, or the excellent reflection, even Escher will be blown away! Each drawing will improve your skills in general.
- Practice drawing using a count of time. Choose your subject, set a minute or two on the timer, and start drawing. Then stop when the timer goes off, even if your painting isn't finished.
- Set the time again on the timer and repeat. Make 10 pictures in three minutes for each. You'll gain a lot more skill this way than taking half an hour to draw the same thing in detail.
Step 3. Use a variety of art supplies
Start with pencils, then move on to charcoal, colored pencils, pastels, paints, whatever appeals to you. Never be afraid to try new equipment or techniques.
- If you want to try expensive new media, head over to the Bali Artemedia or Artland store sites and email them for samples. Many art supply providers make small products for example or the manufacturer will send a brush or small piece of expensive paper or canvas to try before you decide to buy.
- This will give you a chance to try it out first and see if you like it. Try more than one brand - sample products usually don't come in the same color as the actual product and you can find out which brand you should buy by experimenting with them first.
Step 4. Ask for criticism from friends and family
Make it clear that you want an honest opinion, not just a subtle one like "I love you, so everything you do is great." If they think your work is good, you're doing the right thing! If they don't think so, you're still doing the right thing: if some people think your technique is good, but something's still lacking in your subject, it's an opportunity to reflect on yourself and learn something.
Don't confuse professional criticism with personal criticism, especially if the critic is someone who doesn't care if you become an artist
Step 5. Ask for opinions outside your circle of friends
Ask for criticism from people who are better at drawing than you. Make friends online with real artists whose work you admire. Give them praise and ask smart questions about their technique. You'll soon find that many artists enjoy teaching beginners and love to share what they've learned.
After learning more, reach out to the beginners. You will learn more and more each time you explain and demonstrate what you already know. A teacher taking lessons from his students is a very common thing
Step 6. Learn to take compliments wisely
When your friends and family members love everything you draw and think they're good, or your mom sticks your childhood doodles on the fridge from when you were 2 years old (and believes you'll be a Picasso one day), act relax and take it as a support.
- The better you are at your art, the easier it will be for people to compliment you and call yourself talented.
- Sometimes a compliment can be a critique, and that's a very valuable thing! If an artist whose work you admire gives you a compliment like "I love the colors in this painting," it means that not only were they kind enough to give you a compliment, but they also took the time to understand and appreciate the way you drew.
Step 7. Develop a strong style for yourself
Do this by learning to paint and draw on your favorite subject in all the ways any of your favorite painters do. The more you learn the technique and understand your artistic passion, the more your style will emerge.
- Having your own style is a combination of learning to draw and paint well using your favorite medium while paying constant attention to your favorite subject.
- You will become an expert, a "personal brand" at an intermediate level. Mastery in the subject and medium will come naturally later, at a point when you can work on it easily without having to think about how, but always give consistent results.
Step 8. Be a productive person
In order for your work to enter the gallery, you must have a portfolio of at most a dozen of your best works that have something in common, whether it's a subject, style, general size or skill level.
Make sure that your work is available in as many formats as possible, so that there are no limits for gallery owners or art advocates who are interested in viewing your work
Part 2 of 2: Marketing Yourself
Step 1. Publish your work
The best way to become a famous artist is to make yourself known! The Internet offers many opportunities for people to see you and promote your artistically valuable work, and in today's information-filled 21st century, it's important to use all the tools you can to build your name and reputation.
- Blog daily about your work, and include illustrations showing your work process and galleries to showcase and/or sell your finished work.
- Visit a gallery in your area, and get to know the owner. When you're old enough, visit openings as often as possible, not to promote your own work-there will be plenty of opportunities for that later-but to become a recognized artist in the community.
- Create a Facebook account for your work, and invite people to visit it and "like" your page. Reach out to other artists via Facebook. Visiting galleries will help put you in the community, and Facebook can reach beyond your home environment.
- Tweet regularly about art on Twitter. Your own art, historic art, pop art or any art. The more you know about art, the more you will be recognized as someone who deserves attention. At the same time, follow the accounts of artists and galleries, and respond to their tweets. This will encourage more people-including gallery owners-to follow your account.
- Create a Flickr account and post scans or photos of your artwork. Flickr is an active community, and while you won't get much constructive criticism on Flickr, you can build your name on, and perhaps make friends online with some very talented artists.
Step 2. Join a fine arts society and enter the competition
Start with student-level competitions and small arts competitions in your area.
- Teach in workshops. This will not only help you become more recognized as an artist, but also as an expert in your field.
- Build your skills until you can enter national and international competitions in the media of your choice.
- Take part in a jury art show. Entering a painting at a jury art event is an accomplishment in itself to include on your resume. If there are too many events to list, shorten the list so that it shows only the most important events.
Step 3. Look for a reliable agent
Find out about a number of art agencies and contact their other clients. See if they are happy with the agent, or feel dissatisfied or even feel like they have been duped. Agents are in charge of marketing yourself and your work, as well as representing you in contract negotiations. Make sure they have lots of connections and treat your contract well.
You may also need to work with a reputable attorney who specializes in the arts. While an agent may know little about the laws of the art world, their job is to promote. The lawyer's only job is to know the applicable law
Step 4. Paint what concerns you
If you don't care about the subject, it will show in your work. Many artists fall somewhat in love with their subject, be it a bowl of fruit or a model painting.
- If you like to express anger and gloomy emotions, study gloomy painters. If you like abstract and splash painting, study it and make it that way – every type of painting has its own technique and can't just be made just because someone threw paint on a canvas and called it art.
- If you like wildlife and the outdoors, buy small portable art supplies and paint "en plein air" (outdoors) in your favorite location.
- Whatever your passion is, find a way to capture it and put it on the canvas.
Step 5. Continue to develop as an artist
Becoming a true artist is like a long process of achievement. Once you've reached the level of fame you want to achieve, with lots of money and recognition, you're bound to keep looking for something more than that.
- Constantly learning and innovating, even after you are famous will not only keep you at the top. Focus on the future instead of just boasting about your past best years.
- As your style grows and changes, the old paintings you have created will become more and more valuable. Art collectors will be interested in all the historical parts of your work. Even the drawings you drew as a child can be treasured: what your mother put in the fridge holds the seeds of your current success, so don't throw away your past works.
Tips
- As you learn to enjoy and appreciate the art created by your favorite painter, you will understand that what you create can provide equal enjoyment to every buyer of your work. You will find hidden treasures in the world, even a circular pattern on an abstract painting on canvas that expresses anger, pleasure or love will help a person to understand, experience and express his feelings.
- Enjoy art. The longer you learn to paint and draw, the more accurate your observations of the world will be. If you seek beauty, you will find it in the worst, strangest, and most unexpected places: the sparkle of light on broken glass on a concrete pavement, the arch of leaves on the grass, or the smile on the face of an ugly old woman who suddenly becomes beautiful because of the eyes of a trained artist.
- Realize that learning to paint and draw will make you change and develop as a person. You actually use various parts of the brain that many people usually ignore and like muscles, brain functions develop and change permanently. You may have a high intuition and be more creative in other activities. You may become more expressive in other ways or become very visually focused. The way you recognize colors and shades of color will affect how you dress and that way, you will look better in the eyes of others. Most of these changes are positive.
- Make sure you want to be famous. Being famous isn't always fun, so decide how famous you want to be in the long run. A successful local artist can have a fairly decent middle-class income without having to become world famous, and that's still a good job. Being the best artist in your school or in your fan club is also fame; fame is just a token of appreciation from people you don't know who like your work. How much fame makes you happy is a life choice.
- The more you learn to love beauty and find enjoyment in art, the better you will become a painter, and in this way your life will be deeper and richer in all aspects. Awareness of the good things in life: the taste of wine, the feeling of good food in your stomach, the blissful tiredness of shuffling through wet fields for fifteen minutes and finally catching the twilight mist and pouring it into the canvas-travel is a bliss by itself.
- Consider maintaining your privacy if your fame has extended beyond your comfort zone. Your fans are interested in your paintings and some of the highlights of your life. You should be able to talk a bit about why you love painting and why you decided to paint your subject. Mentioning the whereabouts of your family, pets and perhaps your place of birth will suffice as a biography, you don't have to tell what your breakfast is or your favorite brand of shoes. An artist's fame doesn't necessarily refer to the jetset lifestyle of the "rich and famous"-many famous artists are actually quite secretive and it's their paintings and recorded interviews that people see. They may socialize more with relatives, fellow artists and people who have similar hobbies.
- Think of your job as a real, valuable job that has been studied for a long time like medicine or law. It's not just an innate talent that suddenly finds itself in the lucky few: even artists who seem to learn fast or learn from a young age versus those who start a little late or learn slowly have worked hard before you knew them. Children have a physical advantage in learning anything. If they study art while their brains are still physically developing, they can learn faster than adults. Adults learn with the same effort.
Warning
- Believe in yourself. You can also change your identity in the world of your friends from who you were before, to become who you are as an artist. Some people will be angry about this and not accept yourself in pursuing your artistic goals. They will call you silly or just for fun, they will insult your work and say that your work is not real art, call you fake, lazy, and try to tell you to go back to being the person you were before.
- Personal change can be scary. When strong feelings or uncertainty take over your feelings, you can use painting as a way to deal with your fears and get through them.
- Romantic relationships can become unstable if your partner is always jealous of the time, attention and emotion you dedicate to your art work. This may or may not be a resolved conflict. Try to be patient with your partner, but if that doesn't work, find someone more suitable, who feels good about you as an artist.
- The worst consequence of fame is the ruin of your life if you decide to live the clichéd lifestyle of spoiled celebrities who consume drugs or alcohol.
- Never give money to an agent in advance. If they don't succeed in promoting your work, they don't deserve the money. If they ask for it, it is a sign that they cannot be trusted. Do a background check, and if an agent seems too great, and talks about you like you're a Picasso, chances are he's not really an agent. So stay away.
