Does anyone have some art experience to share for young teens?

Question

Is there any budding artists out there with a few helpful hints and tips? Websites to help you draw / paint proffesionally? How to get ideas? Any Projects which turned out great / worked well. Any helpful lessons which you learned the hard way? Thanks

Answer 1

Manga, i got my students, kids, cousins, and friends, into art work writing workshops, and comicbook workshops. I also did mural projects, and field sketchings.

http://www.mangarevolution.com/tutorials...

http://www.howtodrawmanga.com/howtodraw/...

http://www.mangatutorials.com/

http://www.deviantart.com/#

http://polykarbon.com/tutorials/index.ht...

http://www.ratemydrawings.com/tutorials/

These sites are great to see differnces in styles and also come  up with ideas when your brainfried and your mind goes blank.

Answer 2

There are some fantastic online resources out there for budding artists. Some of my favourites:

http://www.drawspace.com

http://www.figuredrawings.com/

http://itchstudios.com/psg/art_tut.htm (fantastic summary of basic art techniques everyone should know)

http://www.simplypainting.com/

http://drawsketch.about.com/od/humananat...

http://uk.youtube.com/profile_videos?use... (great series of video tutorials)

I definitely learned the hard way that you need good teaching resources. I went to art college when I left school, but lost confidence in my drawing ability afterwards and went to study something else. I later dropped that and went back to study art because I still loved it - and discovered the difference between just practicing and being given assignments to do (as at my first college, which I then realised had really sucked!) and being taught HOW to draw by good teachers - the difference was immense and my skills shot up. If you go to an art school, be sure it's one with lectures as well as class time. :)

I'm always concerned when young artists think all they have to do is "practice" - my advice is to study all you can. Take life drawing classes if you can, but also study anatomy (there's an important difference between being able to draw what you see and actually understanding what is going on under the surface of the body), and buy or check out from the library books about drawing techniques or your favourite style/subject and practice from them. In comparison to trial and error drawing, your skills go "whoosh". If you are interested in books, I highly recommend those by Burne Hogarth and Andrew Loomis.

Good luck with your art. :)