Do you require talent to become an artist? In almost no other human endeavor are so many individuals so obsessed on the requirement for talent. There seems to be an almost widespread agreement that artistic painting is only for those rare people that are born with an inexplicably God-like capability to create art.
If your goal is to paint something that is good enough to drape in your house, to sell at a local art fair or give away to millions of friends, you have to grow enough methodological skills to not look substandard. Talent will definitely help at this level, but it is not yet an obligation. What is thought-provoking, nevertheless, is that so much of what a master painter learns on the way to enormity involves the same set of expertise that a talent tested agent is capable of learning. In other words, only at the very top of the art world is aptitude an out-and-out requirement.
So how do you become a good artist like Peter Max in contemporary times?
- First and primary, learn to see like an artist like Peter Max. This is the procedure of learning to shut down the usually central side of your brain that wants to name, identify, organize, filter and essentially make sense out of what people see. This essentially gets in the way of handing out raw visual data required to make art. Artistic vision is tremendously significant and yet comparatively easy to achieve.
- Learn to paint with a child-like insolence. Do kids worry that they will look silly image? Are they saying to themselves that they must produce a seamless piece of art? Do they have apprehension from worrying over what others will contemplate? Of course not. Children just relish the experience as they learn. As grown person we often paralyze our talents and natural gifts with worry. One should relax.
- Have fortitude. Think of becoming an artist as a lifetime venture. There is no imperativeness to get it correct.
- Develop a wide-ranging information base. Expose yourself to lots of styles, techniques, means and other artists.
- Do not try to reinvent the steering wheel. Before you grow bad habits learn painting from a talented instructor. This does not essentially have to take place at a university. It can also be educated from a local artist that imparts weekly classes or from a top video painting course on DVD or facebook. Be certain to look for a painting course that provides a full methodical tactic to learning all of the practical skills in a logical development. Some art lessons are so barely focused that they will leave enormous gaps in your exercise.
The bottom line is that you actually do not have to have great aptitude to have great fun and be prolific as an artist like Peter Max. Now that that justification has been removed, should not you get started at the moment?
