I think I want to do art

DirtyDirtyVagrant

For whatever field I might wind up in, I want my day job to be artistic in some way. I love to draw, and I want to learn how to paint, and there's so many things I want to depict and see but I don't have the technical abilities to create them. I have no knowledge of the industries, of any relevant coursework, of the difference between an art school that is worth the money and one that isn't. Or, for that matter, whether art school itself is really necessary or if elective art classes on another major are good enough. If I do go to college for art, what's a good place to go that's relatively inexpensive, but where I'm not gonna get shafted on the learning? ($1800-$5000/term)

What should I learn? What mediums? what styles? Is an art career even really a choice or is it the kind of thing you have to 'land?' Should I just dive in and soak up as much as I can and then figure out what I have to offer from there? Are these jobs that you can just apply for? Like, "Hey Valve? Need some concept art? I'm just the guy to deliver."?

What about equipment? What constitutes a good scanner? Where can I learn all there is to know about paper, and the different software suites, tools, and techniques artists use?

(I wasn't sure if this belonged in the A/C questions thread or not, but it's more along the lines of career advice, so I think it fits here)

Edit: I think that what I'm looking for would be in the realm of illustration, concept art, and so on along those lines.

Ponge

Before you start thinking about going to art school you should really post some stuff in A/C to get some feedback. Art school isn't for everybody and only a very small percentage of people graduate and go into any sort of art-related career.

If you enjoy drawing, then keep on drawing. Take some life-drawing classes and painting classes at a night school.

Any modern scanner will scan with a high enough DPI resolution to post images online. Don't make the typical beginner mistake of doing some sketches in pencil, import into photoshop and add terrible colouring. There's a series of books by a guy called Andrew Loomis that were written like 50 years ago and they're still recomended by almost everybody for learning how to draw. They're all available for download at various websites if you do a google search.

Scosglen

Yes, "Concept Artist" is an actual job title that you actually apply for with a resume and all that.

If you want to do more Illustrative type work, particularly Concept Art (which is technically really a subset of Illustration), then you are going to need a rock solid set of foundation skills in representational art and to be able to paint and draw very well. The first step anyone on that path needs to take is mastery of observation, a subject for which there is a vast sum of information available on and off the internet, and I'm not going to touch on in this post.

Where are you living, or where do you want to go to school? If the answer is "in the United States" then frankly I cannot in good conscience recommend that anybody actually attend a private art college unless:

A. You or your parents are rich and can afford $30,000 in tuition fees alone per year. (The smaller schools aren't much cheaper)

B. You are confident that you can land a huge sum of merit and/or need based scholarship and grant money to subsidize most of your schooling fees.

C. You know you don't have the discipline and work ethic required to be self-taught and the idea of paying student loans until you're 50 doesn't keep you up at night.

If that doesn't sound like your cup of tea, then I would start looking into art programs at State Colleges and Universities in your region, or even Atelier style schools, which do not grant degrees (worthless in this field anyway), but are more sanely priced and offer the kind of traditional technical academic knowledge that is hard to find even in some big schools.

Regardless of where you go to school or what program you're in, you will have to teach yourself far above and beyond what is offered up to you through assignments and class work. The sooner you get into the habit of being proactive with your learning, the better.

Suffice it to say there is a lot to be written about schools so I'll try to cut myself short before I write a huge diatribe. Something you should keep in mind in regards to school is that you will probably never be asked by potential employer what school you went to and what degree you have. An art degree is a not a certificate of competency. Your portfolio and work experience are your real credentials.

Probably the most important thing I can say to you is that the internet is a vast resource and that you should to start posting your work up for critique. Like, right now. The A/C is a good a place as any for that.

Angel_of_Bacon

Yeah, not to be a downer, but if you're not 100% balls-out positive that you can't live without doing art as a career, you may consider doing art as a hobby and preparing for a different career. I heard somewhere that something like 2% of art school graduates actually have jobs doing art as a career, and frankly I was surprised the number was so high.

Are elective classes good enough? Not unless you get some really solid connections and are really lucky, no. (It's certainly how I got my first art job). The field is competitive enough- and the skills demanded are so difficult to learn properly- that splitting focus is a strategy that will almost certainly lead to your lunch getting eaten by the students that worked harder, spent more time and energy and resources on it. Even most art students that go full-time don't make it, because they think just getting good grades in class and getting a 4-year degree that says "art" on it is good enough. It isn't. Unless you are independently wealthy, becoming a professional artist is going to entail some risk. It's risky any way you slice it, but it's even more risky if you don't go full-in. People that work incredibly hard at it will, eventually, make it.

If you're looking for a college, make sure their program is focused on traditional, representational commercial art skills, and not on post-modern art. Your heavy hitter in the entertainment industry as far as concept art goes currently is Art Center College of Design, and SCAD, RISD, Academy of Art in San Francisco, Ringling, Sheridan (Toronto) and some others following (at least, last I checked.) Unfortunately, these colleges can be ridiculously expensive (I've read Art Center has a $130k price tag for a 4 year degree there). EDIT: I am assuming you are in the US here.

University schools may have some good qualities or teachers here or there, but those seem to be exceptions and not the rule. It might be fine if you just want to take a couple art classes here and there and take a bunch of classes in a bunch of other fields, but you probably won't get the sort of consistent high level training needed to compete professionally. The university art school environment is full of students that half-ass their way through classes and think their degree holds any real weight with employers/gallery managers (they don't), and teachers that themselves didn't get the proper training/half-assed their way through art school, and had to fall back on teaching when they couldn't hack it professionally. Not all of them, mind you, but enough that it's depressing to think about. (I know because I went to a university art program). Given, this is probably going to be a problem with most art schools to some degree (blame the rule change that disqualified artists with 10-20 years of professional experience from teaching in universities, in favor of artists with master's degrees- these two are not at all the same thing).

If you don't care about a degree- and in the art field, a degree is far less relevant than a portfolio with quality work in it- you would likely be better served by an atelier of some sort.
http://www.artrenewal.org/asp/database/atelier_list.asp

An atelier is a small studio environment with a few teachers, focusing purely on traditional art training, and having classes on an ala carte sort of basis. I and Cakemikz from the AC both go to Watts Atelier, and it's proven to be a much better environment for learning traditional skills than I got in college. However, ateliers aren't colleges; no dorms, your fellow students may not be anywhere near your age, there aren't any student activities or sports teams or whatever. If you want that sort of thing, an atelier might just bore the pants off you. Also, since these generally aren't accredited schools, you probably won't be able to get student loans for them. This is also may make it a hard sell with your parents (assuming here that they are likely going to be a significant factor in the financial support of your education, and aren't really up on how the art field works).

Jobs: Yes, you can just apply to them like any other job. But also like any other job, a major factor is having connections. Going to a school with like-minded people or teachers who work/have worked in a relevant field can go a long way towards getting your foot in. One of my teachers got his first job as a result of simply emailing art directors, looking for a critique of his portfolio- not even asking for a job, he just happened to talk to the right guy at the right time. Of course, you still need to have the skill to back you up, but don't downplay the use of networking.

As far as medium/styles/software/paper, these aren't things you should really worry about until you have already acquiring a solid foundation in traditional drawing skill. Lots of art students just love buying all sorts of shit at the art store and blow hundreds, if not thousands of dollars on such things; but they're so wound up and distracted by all their lovely pigments and papers and whatnot that they forget that none of that matters. They'd be better off just drawing with a plain HB pencil on printer paper, taking the actual drawing seriously, because that's what really matters. Somebody that does amazing pencil drawings has a much better chance of getting a job than someone who has all sort of mediums and long lists of programs on their resume, but can only manage mediocre drawings with any one of them, or all of them combined.

As long as we're on the subject, I'd be wary of art programs/teachers that insist on buying lots of expensive supplies that may not be reusable in other classes- it's a complete waste of money for students to lay out tons of money on giant canvases and other such bullshit. (Again, this is experience talking). Don't be afraid to be cheap.


Another huge post on from a few weeks ago that covers some more specific pointers on good books/resources that you may want to look at.

Anyway, good luck with your studies!

Shizumaru

Good posts above As stated, if you want to be halfway decent you really have to fully invest yourself into it. Its just that hard, and it takes a looong time.