Art

Five Tips for Teaching Yourself Art

January 9, 2019 By Annette1 15 Comments

I would love for you to welcome my neice to my blog today! WOOT WOOT! 🙂 Nicole writes over at Inkwyrm about book reviews and writing. I think she does a fantastic job at both. Anyways, she’s looking at selling some of her art work (as a gal’s gotta make a living right?) and I thought, how nice it would be if I could support her efforts! To that end…. Here’s Nicole.

Hello everyone! My name is Nicole K., and Annette asked me to be a guest blogger for today’s post to talk a bit about what I do, so here I am!

I am an artist and writer in Alberta, Canada, and I’ve been doing art all my life. Starting around eight, I began to take my art more seriously. Ever since then I’ve been doing it steadily. I currently do a range of art styles, with my background mostly being pencil and leaning toward realism. My usual is style based off of anime and manga, mostly using ink and alcohol-based markers, with a few other mediums thrown in.

Aside from a stint of lessons when in elementary school (a short stint), and the public school art classes, I am an entirely self-taught artist. Every art skill I have because I sought out the information myself, whether it be through people I knew who were better artists than me, looking up tips online, or through stubborn experimentation.

Today I want to talk about that, and give five tips on teaching yourself art.

Tip #1: The internet is your best friend

You can find just about anything on the internet, and art tips and skills are no exception. Using the powers of google and YouTube have saved me MANY times as I’ve struggled through a piece, from looking for references to looking for ways to keep watercolour paper from wrinkling. Not sure about how to use an art supply? Look it up. Want to know how to do a different type of texture? Look it up.

The internet is your best friend, and there’s no shame in using it.

Tip #2: IT’S OK TO COPY

Speaking of the internet, references are one of the BEST things you could ever use. I’ve heard from people time and again ‘I’m not an artist, I can only copy’, but I say NO to that. Where copying someone’s art and calling it your own is one of the worst things an artist can do, it’s perfectly fine to copy a piece for practice. During my high school years, where I developed most of my current style, all my time was spent copying other people’s work. It’s how I learned proportion, expressions, body language, linework, and SO MANY other things that I apply to every piece I do now.

Don’t know what something looks like? Find a reference online and draw it. Then draw it again from a different reference. The more you copy, the more you understand what you’re drawing, and the better you can do when trying to draw it from memory.

Tip #3: Mistakes are OK

Make mistakes. If you’re not making mistakes, it means you aren’t learning. Mess up, see what went wrong, and use that knowledge for future improvement. Try new things, and don’t be afraid of messing it up. That’s what sketchbooks and scrap papers are for.

Tip #4: Learn to take advice

Understanding that there is always something that can be improved upon is a huge part of learning. You don’t have to follow every piece of advice you get, and you don’t have to listen to every criticism you get. Be willing to listen if somebody points out an issue with your art. Having a critical eye for your own work can be hard when it’s a picture you’re really proud of. Remember that most people who give honest advice aren’t out to get you, they just want to give you a hand and help you improve.

Again, you don’t have to follow all advice you get, and some advice won’t be good, but hear them out anyway. You never know what you might learn.

Tip #5: NEVER tell yourself that you will never be good enough or have no ability.

A couple years ago, I taught an art class at a kid’s summer camp that my church held, and this was the first thing I told my students.

There are few things I hate hearing more than “I’ll never be that good”, or “I’ll never be able to do it”, or “my art sucks and I hate it.”

Guess what? ALL ARTISTS HAVE FELT THAT WAY BEFORE.

Your favourite artist? They’ve felt that. The most successful artists? They’ve felt that.

ALL OF THEM HAVE FELT LIKE THEY CAN’T DO IT.

But you know what they did? They refused to give up. They looked at their art, and instead of saying “I’ll never be able to do it”, they said “I can’t do it yet, but someday I will”.

DON’T. GIVE. UP.

Getting down on your art does nothing. We all have good days and bad days for art, but what matters is getting past the bad days and pushing onward, moving forward even when it’s hard. If you have to, leave a piece for a while and come back with fresh eyes. Relax. Art is supposed to be fun, so have fun with it and stay positive. We’re all in this together.

In Closing

If you are trying to teach yourself art I hope these five tips gave you ideas or a hand up. If you like what you’ve read and seen here, you can find me on my instagram where I post most of my art (@inkwyrm), my facebook page Inkwyrm Art, or check out my own blog Inkwyrm, where I post book reviews and talk about writing.

Thanks Annette for having me as a guest! I hope you all have a wonderful day!

Me adding this information. My neice is selling Commission pieces of art. She’s not selling stuff she’s already done (it’s too dear to her heart) BUT if you have something you’d like her to do (like dragons! or your favourite game character or whatever).. give her a shout via her facebook account or her Instagram (above) and she’ll be happy to work with you.

The pricing is $50 for an original and custom 5×7 piece, of any character you like. This includes drawings of yourself or loved ones. Larger pictures and more characters are available at a higher price.

365 Days of Drawing

December 12, 2018 By Annette1 6 Comments

I have got to tell you about this fantastic review book I received in the mail this week. 365 Days of Drawing. I LOVE idea books like this. BUT not only is this an idea book, but it also teaches as well. How much better could it get eh!?

From the back cover

Get lost in your creativity with 365 Days of Drawing, a thoughtful and inspiring art journal designed to help you carve out moments of self-expression. Lorna shows you that drawing does not have to be scary – it can be done with any materials, in any color, in any style and can be done anywhere.

Each activity has been given a loose category: imagination, tutorial, relaxation, color theory, and observational, so that you can practice a broad range of drawing skills. Each ‘theme’ is designed to expand your creative skills and spark the artist within. With helpful prompts and pages that encourage you to try new materials to draw with, 365 Days of Drawing is guaranteed to stir your imagination and put a little creativity into every single day.

What you Get:

A fantastic resource to help you take moments every day to stir your imagination and draw something new, or learn how to express your creativity even better. Some of the ideas are simple. Design your own mugs, draw the perfect circle etc.

Yet others teach: make a colour wheel, create colour blends, fill a grid with colour using matching colours, discern what colours match a mood, or figure out mood with shading.

And still others take time to work through, allowing you the freedom to learn new techniques or practice a skill. Blend tones, change a sploch into an art form, or learn to create a 3D object.

My Thoughts

I really, really like this book. If you are at all creative, this book will be a boon to your spirit, nudging you along, giving you great ideas to work with drawing a flock of birds, doodling your way through triangles, learning to use a gird to expand a picture, look deeply into an object and pull out all the colours you can see, draw a picture by looking into the negative space, or even draw an animal as fast as you can. So many ideas, you are bound to find a few that appeal, or add a spark to your day.

365 Days of Drawing: sketch and paint your ways through the creative year
Lorna Scobie, illustrator
352 pages, any age from elementary up
art, creativity, drawing,
Reviewed for Raincoast.

Art Books For Christmas

December 5, 2018 By Annette1 4 Comments

Hey all! You know how I’ve been doing art books on my blog since FOREVER? Well Christmas is coming and I thought it would be fun to do a post showcasing my favourite art books. I’ll divide them into categories to make it easy for you. Most of them will be books I’ve gotten as a review (Cause they were memorable or useful or I just loved them to bits and pieces). Some will be books I’ve picked up over the years and put on my shelf. I’ll link them to Amazon and my review (if it was indeed a review) so you can catch a glimpse before running out to get it.

Colouring Books!

It’s good to just sit and colour sometimes. To let you mind wander as you listen to the world around you and don’t have anything better that you can do. Just colour and let everything else fade away. 🙂

Fantastic Collections. Art Therapy Colouring book. Fantastic planets.

Artist books

Seeing what those who have gone on before have done can be a source of inspiration and learning.

Draw Paint Print. Beatrice Potter. Pop Art. Art Up Close. Girl Who Drew Butterflies.

Draw & Be Happy

November 28, 2018 By Annette1 4 Comments

Do you like to draw? I know that I like to doodle and doodling often makes me feel happy inside, but not always. Do you ever wonder why that is? Well Draw & Be Happy has given me some answers. Sometimes, my doodling doesn’t have an imagination behind it. Draw & be happy will help you to rediscover your imagination.

From the Back Cover:

Draw & Be Happy, if it sounds easy, that’s because it is. Yes, drawing really make you happy!

Inspired by art therapy practice, the drawing exercises in this book are thought provoking, meditative, and always fun. Each new page offers a simple strategy to help you find contentment and fulfillment through creativity. With activities that are perfect for any skill level (no previous art experience reequired!). Draw & Be Happy will help boost your confidence, reduce stress, and teach you to express yourself in meaningful and joyful new ways.

What do you Get:

160 pages that are bright and vibrant, with all kinds of helps to make you a joyful and dare I say it… a happy drawer! 🙂 How you ask? Well let me walk you through this easy to read, and fascinating book.

Have you ever considered changing your perspective when you draw? Bringing the background to the fore and vice versa. How about making a flip book of your years growing up? Or drawing a map from your place to your favourite grocer’s or coffee shop.

Eight chapters run you through warming up to finding your confidence.

Warming up
Find Calm
Get Happy
Build Self-Awareness
Energizing
For Positivity
To Relax
Find Confidence

Every two page spread gives you a new vision, a new way to approach your drawing. Perhaps you want to take a moment to draw your future, or sketch out some fun placemats for your favourite dining room, or let a dance flow across the page. Who knows where your muse might take you if you just have a touch of inspiration to guide you.

My Thoughts:

This is a neat little book. 160 pages of creative fun. Ideas I hadn’t thought of! It reminds me in a way of those 642 drawing books that I’ve reviewed in the past. Giving you all sorts of ideas that might spur on your interest, but giving you some depth to go with those thoughts. So as you consider making a linear drawing of your day, think about what made you happy or sad, causing you into dig deeper into your short term memory. Remembering the good, considering the not so good, and before you know it, you’ll be looking into your days more creatively. In the end, make drawing your therapy, and find yourself happy!

Draw & Be Happy: Art Exercises to Bring You Joy.
Tim A. Shaw
Illustrator: Cachetejack
Chronicle Books
160 pages, trade paperback
Art, Drawing, creativity

Reviewed for: Raincoast Books.

Where to find. Amazon.

Ellie Claire Art Journals

November 21, 2018 By Annette1 2 Comments

Last Friday I received three art journals in the mail from Ellie Claire; These journals offer an interactive way to get creative with your quiet time as you learn some lettering skills. They are gorgeous books with many features that I know you will love. These books are The Illustrated Word; Illuminate Your Story Journal and Faith & Lettering Journal

Illuminate Your Story Journal

is a beautiful hardcover book. Within the pages you will find beautifully coloured letters and some animals, knots and flowers. These letters are done up in different styles such at Ottonian, Celtic Half Unical, Gothic as well as others. Each letter of the alphabet is done in a step by step fashion to help YOU learn how to make these ornate letters as well. This would be such a great book to have along when you are studying illumination, monks (and their lettering), lettering in art class etc.

This hardcover book has a loop on the cover that I THINK is for holding your pen. It also sports an elastic band to hold your journal shut (or keeping the right pages held together). A light blue ribbon will hold your spot.

Faith & Lettering Journal

is a book that teaches you how to letter on a bigger scale. Using full verses, you are shown complete finished pictures to inspire you, as well as a two-page spread of six columns with a bible verse lettered out in one column, to be traced out in the next and then four columns to practice. Pro-tips are scattered throughout the pages. Some pages are fully lined, others with a matrix of dots and yet others with small graph paper. All the fully illustrated pages are beautifully done and in a variety of styles and fonts to inspire you. The goal: taking the time to meditate upon God’s word as you draw and illustrate the words.

This journal also sports a loop on the binding that looks like a pen/pencil holder. Reinforced binding holds it in place.

The Illustrated Word

is a bit different from the others. I look at this one and think.. art class anyone? Hidden within the pages of this lovely tome you will find art from the past, such as images of a “Natural Parchment Esther Scroll”. You will not only find images of the scroll, but a larger line drawn version that you can colour in. This is an colouring with a journal aspect to it. What I mean by that is you will find some of the art illustrations with a bible verse incorporated followed by a couple of journal pages with cut outs on them. Then another line drawing of a picture/painting/scroll drawing. The cut-outs will be either related to the bible verse drawing, or a full colour image of the line drawing without the bible verse. I hope that was clear! 🙂 It would be much easier to show you so see the images below. 🙂

My Thoughts:

These books are out of the ordinary for colouring and lettering books. I’ve reviewed a fair number of books like these over the years, and they almost always come as trade paperbacks with or without pull out pages to display your work. These are hardcover books sized to fit alongside your bible, or into a larger sized purse. They have many little details that cause them to be a treasure, from the pen loops, to the ribbon to hold your place, the wonderful paper they are printed on, lie flat quality, and the fine detail in the art work. They would make a lovely gift to anyone who likes to letter as they meditate upon God’s Word.

The art work in The Illustrated Word colouring journal doesn’t suit my taste. I love that the works are cited making them an excellent add-on to studying art of the Renaissance. Even though this one is not for me, this doesn’t detract from how lovely the book is and how it would definitely please another person, and be an aid to them in taking time with God’s word. I can totally see someone also bringing it along to church to take sermon notes or listening as a page is coloured in (cause busy fingers can help a listening mind).

Illuminate my story… I like this book, I do. Even though I don’t see myself as good enough to attempt to emulate her style, it’s nice to try you know? It’s small, fits nicely into my purse, has a loop to hold it shut so it doesn’t gather up all the other helpful stuff in my purse, and the lovely keepsake pocket in the back means if I doodle or practice elsewhere I can keep it as inspiration.

Faith & Lettering Journal by Krystal Whitten is just a pretty book. Like WOW.. so pretty and inspiring. She has some very good skills. I really liked the practice pages, divided into easy columns so if I totally mess up one practice session I can just move on to the next. Definitely worth getting. Gives you excellent practice time and teaches you how to make different letters.

Faith & Lettering
Illuminate Your Story
The Illustrated Word

Ellie Claire

Where to find.

Geography Crafts for Kids

November 14, 2018 By Annette1 2 Comments

You know, I’ve had this book sitting on my shelf for a while now and have looked at it off and on. Not quite the same as when I’m looking at a book to tell someone else about it though. Geography Crafts for Kids is filled with 50 different projects and activities to help expand one’s knowledge of geography. I really like this book!

From the cover:

How did early explorers keep from getting hopelessly lost?
Where is the center of the world
What does a cow in Finland sound like?

Want the answer? Check inside, and soon you’ll be doing and creating cool things that will help you experience geography like never before! Map your friend’s face, predict the weather, and find out if you have what it takes to pass your own country’s citizenship quiz. Search for eco-invaders in your backyard, or turn tomorrow’s trash into treasure. You’ll never look at Earth the same way again!

What you Get

Five chapters, templates and 50 different projects.

The five chapters are

Where in the World are you?
Maps, Maps, and Even more Maps
We are different, we are the same
The Earth Shapes you
You Shape the earth

Each chapter contains a number of interesting projects such as making a Mariner’s Cross Staff, a compass, a timezone clock, an antique map & case, a novel map, stamp box, world drum, take a citizenship quiz, read tree rings, make a Pangea pudding puzzle or even a debate book. So many different and exciting options to try. Learn the history or the reason behind each craft.

THIS I liked. Projects in a geography book that you wouldn’t expect. Who would think about putting a project about brick making in a book about geography? But when you stop and think about it, homes all over the world are made from bricks, so it makes sense. Many of the projects are ones that I would not have anticipated.

Lots of different ways to make maps were explored, one I thought was unique was printing off an antique map and printing it off on a t-shirt or pillow case. It’s just a matter of finding some transfer paper. Some were ones I expected like doing a neighbourhood or a trade route map. It’s great to mix the expected with the unexpected isn’t it?

My Thoughts:

I love the variety presented within the pages of this book. To see the options available to help your students learn geography its a great thing. This book would be an excellent addition to any teacher who wants to add hands on elements to teaching geography. I hope to make a cross staff with my lad when we study war by sea. We are taught how to use it as well. I even found a video that talks about this navigational tool. Another excellent book is can be found here.

Geography is such a comprehensive topic, there are many approaches to studying it, and this book is just another helpful addition.

Geography Crafts for Kids
Joe Rhatigan
Heather Smith
Lark Books
Hardcover, 144 pages,
Geography, Art, Crafts, Projects.

Cartoon Thinking

November 7, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

I was going through the art books on my shelf the other day and pulled this one out, I’ve a few different cartoon books and I was wondering if I needed to keep them all. Books I have are the How to Draw Comics, and How to Draw with your Funny Bone books. There is only the one shelf for art type books so I constantly need to revisit to see which ones I’ll keep and which to let go. I think that I will retain Dan Holt’s Cartoon Thinking for a while. With actual lessons and a simple black and white methodology, should I ever teach a cartooning class, this book will be useful.

From the Cover:

Help students learn about social issues, politics, government, moral dilemmas, the human experience, and how tomake new friends. Students develop creativity and critical-thinking skills while studying a humourous topic. They will laugh their way through the class and develop key skills.

You will have nine, two-hour lesson plans that combine the thinking part of cartooning with the art, using motivating instructions, simple handouts, a brief history of cartooning and foreign cartoons, the elements of a cartoon and artistic techniques, and the physical benefits of humour.

What you get:

Nine chapters laid out in a format to help you teach. This book is supposed to come with transparencies (which I don’t have) . I would think you could copy the black and white examples and display those. These nine lessons teach subjects such a perspective, historic cartoons, how to draw, caricatures, lettering, layout, social issues and more. Each lesson is well packed and is meant to last two hours in a class, and is geared to highschool and up.

As you can see, each lesson comes with objectives, items needed, and set out how to teach that particular lesson. This is a class where you do assign homework, and there are tests you can give as well.

I appreciated that each lesson included full pages of the transparencies that are meant to be used. I didn’t actually have the transparencies but generally speaking it would be easy to work around this.

My Thoughts:

One section of this lesson book contains a lesson on how to talk about historical cartoons. I was looking through and starting thinking that this lesson would be great for looking at the cartoons of the wars. To find some of those old cartoons (he gives suggestions for key words to search for) and then talk about this with the lad and give him a challenge of creating a cartoon of his own. Wouldn’t that be a great addition?

There is so much information in this book it’s worth keeping whether it’s methods of teaching are a bit dated or not. So it will stay on my shelves until I either find something better, or work my way through the material with my lad or other students.

Cartoon Thinking
Dan G. Holt
Zephyr Press
Softcover, 9 lessons, 124 pages
Cartoon, Drawing, Education, Art.

Art