can anyone learn art?

Short answer is yes.

When we think of the art of picture making, it is most often a picture that represents something. It can be something from the “real world” like a landscape or a portrait or from our imagination like a dragon or a mermaid.

We begin with representational art in our studio. (You can also learn many nonrepresentational, non- figurative totally abstract techniques here, if that’s where your interest lies.)

So WHAT’S STOPPING YOU?

Usually it’s fear. Fear of lots of things. Sadly, it’s common for human beings to fear things they’ve never even tried! Sad because life is too short to miss out on things that can enrich our lives. Here are our main 3 reasons people didn’t begin art lessons years ago:

(A) I worry that I might “ not be good enough”.
(B) Fear of “failure”.
(C) Other people might not like what I’ve done.

Today I’d like to talk about the first one:

FEAR OF NOT BRING GOOD ENOUGH.

(A) The biggest myth about artists is that you need to have “talent.” That’s plain silly and a little bit insulting to practicing artists. Art is a combination of mind-set and skills. Seeing skills. Learned skills. Acquired skills. That’s not to say that this is easier for some than others. There are many variables that predispose people to learn. We are all different but we can ALL learn if we are interested; and

(B) What you produce in your first class is not what you are, it’s WHERE you are.

If you already knew how to speak Japanese, why would you attend a Japanese Language class? If you could play the piano, why would you begin piano lessons? Art is no different.

Everyone starts out as an amateur, even Rembrandt and Michelangelo! They say it takes 10,000 hours to become expert at anything. Can you see that?

Art is like life: it is not about the destination, thank goodness....it’s about the journey.

What an exciting, challenging, wonderful, interesting, disappointing, thrilling, ridiculous, happy, silly, enjoyable journey it is! The only constant is change.

​You are “good enough” if you have interest and persistence.  
​~Suzi