I'd recommend Tim Urban's (of waitbutwhy fame) new book, What's Our Problem. It's a deep dive on a lot of these things in the last decade and how we ended up where we are now.
There are a few of those discussions going on in artist's circles these days. I imagine they'll get sued for doing this, but it'll probably take a very famous artist or a hell of a class action suit to make it happen.
I'd say a whole lot has changed in drawing styles. There just happened to be a fairly accessible style of drawing that these sort of books teach which has stuck around well. It can be a nice intro to art and at least starts you thinking about how to construct your drawings. But yeah, once you move past that it's fairly impressive how much things have changed/evolved in drawing.
There are a lot of decent books out there and obviously a million good online resources, but I think if you're looking for a starting point, I'd suggest you look for classes at a local community college or atelier. Avoid anything that looks too "artsy". Self expression is great but find somebody who will teach you how to draw. An atelier would be an ideal option as they tend to have very good technical instruction and you can avoid forming bad habits early on.
It's very doable to do it yourself, but having somebody there to show you when you're screwing up is immensely valuable. Once you've got the basics and know how to learn then you can take more time to study on your own.
Oh, I never imagined you'd have a hn profile. When I started learning your "Don’t go to art school" post was also quite an inspiration to learn diligently. I had spent one year in art school which was the most useless I ever had and disgusted me of art for quite a few years (and made me switch permanently to math/CS).
I have been looking but coming up short. If anyone knows such schools or artists in Austin, Texas that they'd recommend feel free to reply in a comment.
Good luck! Art is a hell of a fun pursuit and I hope you have a good time with it. The long periods of boredom and frustration lead to those moments of bliss as you make things you're proud of and you start to understand what you're doing.
I've found you can often mute those screens if you press one of the buttons beside the screen. Apparently it's different depending on the machine, so just mash them all I guess.
I've seen this too. I don't think you can find the option unless you keep swatting at the screen like a crazy person, so irritated at the ad that you're barely paying attention to the slightly dangerous act of fueling your vehicle. I think I've found it on every one I've used. I recall one having a mute that wasn't a proper mute, but instead would unmute itself after about 30 seconds, causing you to have to remute it. I think I screamed.
If you want some waterproof notebooks that aren't quite as impractical as those Expedition ones (they always smeared for me too), you might try Rite in the Rain. Had a great time using those over the years.
I'd somewhat change #1 to "starting and starting often." I see far, far too many art students fall into the trap of wasting hours finishing work when they'd be better off starting more pieces.
I think “finishing often” means precisely that students can’t be spending too long finishing work. They have to stop and move on ASAP so they can finish again. I think there’s importance in finishing vs starting; it’s easy for creatives to get stuck starting a project and never learning how to complete.
Definitely. I think were we to rewrite #1, we could say:
1. Start often and finish often; do not be afraid to abandon something that is not working. Learning what is not working will come from starting and finishing more often over time, along with reflecting on the work you have done. This is where the benefits of #3 come into play. A good community will not only praise your work, they will tell when something isn't working or doesn't work.
How much gets finished is a matter of commitment to working more than a matter of ambition.
The wasted hours are the hours that they are not working on the thing. One hundred hours is only a bit more than four days...and if you use both hands, barely more than two.
