You’re as Good an Artist as the Artist Friends you Hang Out With.
January 24, 2013 in ART
ART – You’re as Good an Artist as the Artist Friends you Hang Out With.
Simpsons Quote:
Bart: I’m going to keep the Mary Worth phone right here. Her stern but sensible face will remind me never to do anything so stupid again.
(it rings and Bart answers it)
Milhouse: Hey Bart, you want to go play with that X-ray machine in the abandoned hospital?
Bart: Sure!
I don’t know who’s a worse influence, Bart on Milhouse, or Milhouse on Bart.
Jim Rohn once said:
“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”
This isn’t an absolute statement, but the point is that you’re influenced either positively or negatively by the people you hang around most.
For artists this includes the artists or lack of artists you hang around with. They influence your art and development.
In this week’s post I’m going to put forth the proposition that the better the artists you hang around with, the better your art will be.
You can either watch the video or read along below it. Either way, you’ll get the same information.
Make sure to check the final bit of the post to see what I sent off to my newsletter this week when you’re done. You don’t want to miss out:
My Friends
I tend to hang out with friends that are better artist than me. I think you want to do something similar.
Try to find a group of artists out there somehow, by creating a drawing group or something, and try to hang out with artists that are WAY better than you. The kind of artists that, when you look at their art, they make you feel bad.
The kind you think you SHOULDN’T be hanging around. Because that’s exactly the reason you should.
When you hang around friends that are better than you at drawing, they pull you up to their level. The fact that you’re around people who know more than you and are doing stuff that you aren’t will help you.
When you do this correctly, and aren’t allowing the fact that they’re better make you feel sorry for yourself. When you reverse those thoughts and you observe what you friends do, see what they’re doing that you’re not, ask them, trade notes, watch them draw, emulate…what they do will rub off on you. You WILL become better.
Fixing Your Drawing Flaws
For example, if you’re having trouble and you have a lot of flaws in your art, it will be easier for you to see it. It will be easier for you to see what you’re doing wrong.
You’re hanging around people doing such great work that it’s highlighting your flaws. Step one is to see what you’re doing wrong.
DON’T let that bring you down though. You need that to elevate you. Now that you know what you’re doing wrong, you can do something about it.
For example, it would be a great idea to, study what they’re doing and how they solve the problem. See how they’re doing it.
But you also can take that opportunity to go to your drawing books (because we artists have a lot) and you sit down and study that thing. Since you’ve compared your stuff and seen what you need to work on, now you know exactly what you need to study.
By doing this, self study of the academics and seeing how you friends APPLY the academics, you can’t help but improve.
Pushing You to the Next Level
Surround yourself with better artists. Surround yourself with better art. Learn from them. Don’t let that get you down. Use it to drive you.
Don’t be the big fish in the small pond where you’re the best. There’s a danger that if you’re in that situation, you’ll cease trying.
I’ve got friends who are better than me who hang out with guys who are better than they are. That elevates them.
I hang out with them because it elevates my work.
Find those groups. Look for those groups.
I’m not saying you should abandon the friends you’ve already got. That’s just being a jerk. But find those people who will push you and take your stuff to the next level.
Doing This Already?
If you already do this, let me know. Leave a comment. Tell me who the people are that you hang out with and what they do for you. How do they help you become a better artist?
Simpsons Star Wars Mash Up
In today newsletter I sent a Simpsons Star Wars mash up drawing. If you want to get a copy of this drawing, opt in before next Thursday and I’ll send it out especially to you.
ART – Draw Fu Cover Art
Here’s the line art for the cover of my ART OF DRAW FU drawing book based on the info I wrote on TheDrawingWebsite.com.
I had a lot of fun drawing it. I hope you like it.
I’m currently working on putting the book together. I’m hoping to have the book done by next month. We’ll see how it goes.
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Hey Luis, do you know of any drawing groups you’d recommend? I usually go to Dr, Sketchy once a month but I’d like to be more active with other artists for this post’s reasons.
Unfortunately, I don’t know any drawing groups.
Where are you located?
I hang out with my coworkers once a week for lunch and sometimes talk about art. We mostly talk about comics and movie though (podcast coming soon). But our REAL drawing happens at our figure drawing workshop at the studio. THAT’S where we go out of our way to “trade notes.”
If you go to Dr. Sketchy, you might want to start a conversation with the best artist there and pick his brain. If he has any kind of good social skills he’ll probably talk your ear off about drawing. If he’s no good to talk to, find the second best.
You can also take a break for a pose or two and go look over other artist’s shoulders.
If you can’t find a group though, take the initiative and create one.
Marcelo Vignali once told me a story about working at a studio with Steve Silver. Steve would always take his sketchbook, during lunch, and draw people all crazy and funny. Marcelo decided to follow suit. Suddenly it was all about who could draw the craziest people. Other co-worker saw how much fun it was and then started it too. Suddenly they had a drawing group.
It eventually broke up after lay offs and studio changes, but Marcelo kept it up. He was “a group of one,” he said. Sometimes people join him, sometimes they don’t.
Bobby Chiu did something similar. He used to post his field sketches online, then someone asked if they could join him. He said yes, so they met and drew. Other people asked to join. They designated a place to meet and next thing they knew, they had a huge group, all drawing, out in the wild. They posted their field sketches on a blog.
I think they still occasionally meet up:
http://bobbychiusubwaysketchgroup.blogspot.com/
You may want to give something like that a try.
When I first started out, I used to schedule drawing meet ups with friends at the L.A. Zoo. I wonder what would have happened if we had thought to post our stuff online at the time.
Does this help?
If not, I’ll see if I can’t think of something else.
Wow there’s a lot of good stuff here, thanks for the long response. I live in North Hollywood, close to the airport. I know a few people out here I could probably convince to go on zoo trips with me.
I’m also going to the 24 hour Dr. Sketchy Marathon tomorrow so when I need a break I’ll observe some of the different processes.
Thanks again for taking the time to give me a lengthy response!