Digital Art Success is Met with Persistence Not Talent!

Every time that someone says that another person is talented, they are missing the whole picture of what is really behind those special abilities. It really is all about having persistence!

With artistic and aesthetic ability, there are very little exceptions if none at all. Let me explain about it through the analogy of getting a job in the computer programming industry.

When people start working on a new job that they have never done before, it becomes rather difficult at first. It is even harder if you have no experience with it. Before you start working as a computer programmer, you need to prove that you know how to do it.

That is what school is for!

But you know what? School is an example of persistence because it gets you to do the same thing over and over again. Eventually, the more you do things in a repetitive fashion, the better you become at it.

When you do land that programming job, it gets even repetitive because you will be doing the same programming needs, for that specific company, over the course of a day. Just think how good you can get at it!

Learning digital art is the same thing. You draw enough of one thing and you become good at that one thing. The only concern is finding a starting point that gets you to the end results that you want!

1. Everyone starts somewhere!

I remembered that when I started drawing in the first place, I didn’t have a lot of support from my family or peers. I had to find motivation in myself. Most likely, you will need to go through your own personal hurdles.

Hence…

You are your worst demon! Forget about your artistic issues and concentrate on your next step. Getting that important motivation to get things done instead of worrying about your ability to draw only wastes time!

That’s what I’m here for! Through my own path, I will show you that you persistence is far more important than talent. For that, you will need time. Whenever you think about learning things quickly through shortcuts, you will fail.

For example, I started digital art drawings seriously through cartoons as I could draw human figures in a simplified manner. Everything I learned about shadowing and depth was from the cartoons I saw on TV.

What a mistake!

I found myself limited in my own abilities to create. Eventually, I had to start from scratch learning the entire human body. Worst of all, I had to even go farther back to basic drawing theory because I didn’t understand how light and shadow works!

Just imagine the time wasted! If I had learned everything correctly from the beginning, I could apply that important knowledge into creating cartoons with better aesthetic sense!

Find the right starting point through realistic drawings and don’t take shortcuts! I will guarantee that you will discover your aesthetic talent through persistence and your own artistic needs and interests.

Age, gender, ethnic origin, it all doesn’t matter. As long as you have the brains combined with motivation, there’s no reason why you can’t do it. After all, persistence and motivation feeds off one another.

You just need to begin at the right starting line to reach the correct finish line!

2. Practice makes perfect!

It is know that this development is called muscle memory. Ever heard of it? Well, it means that the more that you do an activity, the more it becomes second nature for you without you putting much thought into it. An example can be as simple as combing your hair.

To be more specific, there are two kinds of muscle memory: fine and gross. When we look at athletes, they are using gross muscle memory because their entire bodies are tuned specifically for one sport or activity.

If we take the computer programmer example, he or she is developing find muscle memory of his typing skills to type texts of codes.

And it’s the same thing with being an artist because we are developing our fine muscle memory that only concentrates on one part of the body—namely, focusing persistence on those hands!

Sounds simple, doesn’t it?

And it is! As an artist learning to draw realistically, you will get used to a nice set of applicable skills which you can apply and branch out to different styles of art forms and mediums.

Digital art takes a lot of practice, with the right understanding of form, through movement of the hands. Just be glad you’re not putting your whole body into it like a gymnast! Instead, just concentrate on practicing the right motor movements of your hands!

And with the help of a stylus, transfer those movements onto the computer!

3. Practice makes it permanent!

Just as muscle memory is important, so is getting the right procedures down. When I started doing 2d digital art, I found that my digital paintings reflect previously learned techniques.

I found it extremely hard to undo the damage of my previous art techniques. In fact, every stroke of the stylus showed how much my hand moved in that particular style even when I knew it was the wrong way to draw!

It’s just like learning to shoot in basketball: once you shoot a certain way, it’s hard to think about other ways of shooting unless you actively control it. That’s how powerful muscle memory is!

That method literally becomes permanently attached to you!

Of course, no one says that a certain style is wrong. But what you know is suggested from your digital art paintings. That’s why we need to find a method that captures all the knowledge of understanding art. After all, art in general has a timeless sense aesthetic.

Think about it!

Art styles come and go. But the basics of art have never left history! As human beings, we tried to understand the world around us. In art form, that translates to realism. From the very beginning of time, this has always been the case.

In the beginning, Neanderthals tried to capture the very essence of the food they hunt by showing animals with the proper proportions. At the pinnacle of the Renaissance, understanding the body and the world became an aesthetic subject!

Mankind has developed persistence in learning realism!

What about now? Even in this very century, digital art, whether 2d or 3d based, tries to capture that realism through drawings and renderings on the computer.

Basically, realism is timeless!

That means, if practice makes perfect, make sure that perfection of 2d digital art comes from learning realistic 2d digital art! That will be your key to success! Be as persistent as you can because you can never go wrong with learning realism first!

Again, forget talent. Be motivated and be persistent in your learning and you will find that artistic talent that everyone praises!

Return from Digital Art Persistence to Concerns.
Return from Digital Art Persistence to the 2d Digital Art Guide.