Starting art can be incredibly hard. All artists have experienced the frustration that comes with trying to master a new technique or experimenting with a different medium, but we often forget what it felt like to be a beginner at art in general. Most probably have a romanticized version of their first time drawing or painting in their head; something about how their world shifted on its axis the first time they opened up a sketchbook or how they instantly knew they were meant to create art for the rest of their lives when they first brushed their fingertips across the soft bristles of a paintbrush. When you’re constantly hearing these overdramatic tales from all the artists around you, it’s easy to be discouraged by your anticlimactic first attempt at art or your first artworks, which probably aren’t at the level other artists’ first pieces sound to be. But, in all honesty, stop comparing yourself to exaggerated stories that barely have an inkling of truth to them. No artists are immediately good at art, no matter how they make it sound. Sure, some are born with more talent than others, but talent can only get you so far. The most important part of art is the artistic journey you embark on when you decide to start creating it, and the most important part of that journey is how you improve and grow as an artist. Not only is this important for developing your own unique artistic style and finding the mediums and supplies you prefer, it also gives you this excitement for art whenever you look back at your old works and see your improvement. I’m sure that we’ve all wished at some point that we could just suddenly improve our art without doing any work, but that would be skipping over the most important part of your artistic journey. That being said, here are a few tips to remember when starting art:

Don’t compare yourself to others

This one seems incredibly cliche, but bear with me. As a wise person once said, “Comparison is the thief of joy.” Now, there are times when it’s great to compare yourself to others to get motivation and whatnot, but really, I can only see this approach being effective in some sort of athletic situation. For art, however, the moment we start getting hung up on how good everyone else around us is is the moment we turn art into a competition instead of a community. One reason I’ve always loved art was because it wasn’t competitive, like the sports or math competitions I had participated in in the past. In those settings, you’re always pitted against someone else and only the best can come out on top. On the other hand, art becomes a much more enjoyable experience when we stop comparing ourselves with other artists and simply enjoy their work. You can only compare yourself to yourself, really. Compare your work to what it was a month ago instead of against your peers’ work. When we focus on our own improvement instead of trying to be better than someone else, we can truly grow as artists. I think this is one of the most important things for beginners to keep in mind because when you first start out, you won’t be as good as everyone else, and that’s okay.

Practice makes perfect

I’m really hitting you with some of the most generic, overused advice today, huh? Well, worry not! That’s why I have this little section underneath the general line of advice– to elaborate. I think we’ve all heard this phrase in the context of art, and I’m sure you know what I mean when I say this, but I would like to give this initial advice a bit of a twist. Practice doesn’t make perfect unless you have a goal in mind. What I mean by this is that you can practice all you want. Sketch and paint and color for 24 hours of the day, and you might not improve. If you’re creating art just to create it, you’ll notice that your skill level won’t change. However, once you assign a goal to all this work, you’ll notice a drastic change. Often, we create goals without even realizing them. If you’re sketching from a reference and you’re trying to make it look as realistic as possible, you have a goal! If you’re trying out a new style because your previous one wasn’t dynamic enough or irritating to draw, you have a goal too: create or try to replicate a new style that is more dynamic and enjoyable to draw than your previous one. Really, my point is that idle doodling won’t help you improve, but lently of focused, goal-oriented practice will, and at incredibly fast rates, too. Just one year ago, I could barely even draw a face, let alone do any shading. The extent of my artistic skills were stick figures and sketches that losely resembled anime faces but were much too strange looking to even be sure of that. Now, after hundreds and hundreds of hours of sketching, watching art tutorials, and never being satisfied with anything I drew, I can confidently draw a face with all the proper shading without a reference (and overall have just improved greatly.) This is not to say I still can’t improve– because I definitely can and I’m working towards getting better– but I wanted to show you that you can do it, no matter how scary art can seem. So, don’t waste your time being discouraged and pick up a pencil and a sketchbook and start practicing!.

Don’t instantly try to make money off of your art.

I wasn’t sure if the people who are reading this post would be people who want to make art a career, but I figured I should add this segment just in case because it’s really such an important point. Using your art to make money is amazing and I definitely encourage you to try to pursue that in the future if it’s something of interest to you, but you cannot begin learning art and also try to make money off of it at the same time. First, you need to focus on just your art– techniques, mediums, your unique style, etc.– and later, once you’ve mastered basic techniques and your art skills are more sophisticated, you can start thinking about selling your art. Remember that you don’t need to be making money from you artwork for it to be a valid and beneficial practice for you. The beauty of art is the process we go through to build up our skills and create art, not what comes out of it.

I hope these tips will be able to aid you on your artistic journey. Remember, the hardest part of art is starting it, so once you overcome your initial struggles in hopefully a few months’ time, the most difficult part will already be over! Art is not all smooth sailing with magical bursts of inspiration and well developed skill, but it will be at some point, and that will make all your struggling worth it.