Alright so I realized I'm not the exception to the rule,

>>2873988
Back then most art schools actually taught people how to draw and paint. If you go further back in time, there was the opportunity to start an apprenticeship as a painter.

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>>2873992
Damn, that's a shame.

I've seen a lot of amazing artists draw and it seems like they have a solution for every single problem in the image, but when they talk about it, they seem pretty manchild-ish (for lack of a better word).

>put that there or it doesn't work
>just sorta wing it
>etc.

Is effortlessness something that is attainable through hard work, or is it just posturing?
A lot of these guys seem to have no idea what they're doing, but they consistently do amazing work after amazing work.

Can high level art even be taught? Everything seems so intuitive, yet difficult to explain.

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>>2874009
wrong image

They learned by drawing and painting from nature, and going to galleries/museums to study the masters. When they got good enough they could befriend well known artists and once they were in the artist circles they could get some tips or informal mentoring from the other artists.

>>2873988
>>2873992
>How did self-taught artists get good before the internet?
>art schools taught people how to draw and paint
Kek. Way to not answer the question.

>>2874009
It's not something you can explain with words, at least not with common ones.

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>>2874012
>They learned by drawing and painting from nature, and going to galleries/museums to study the masters. When they got good enough they could befriend well known artists and once they were in the artist circles they could get some tips or informal mentoring from the other artists.

I'm very glad you posted this, because it makes a lot of sense to me.

What I've noticed in the self-taught group is that they only draw what they want. When they get bored, they move onto another subject matter that catches their eye, and they keep doing this until they have a large vocabulary of things they know how to draw at a high level. They use the fundamentals to draw these things, but they don't seem to think in terms of fundamental. It's more like "that looks bad i should fix it."

My concern is that I don't see how certain subject matters help anyone improve at anything. I enjoy drawing and painting non-figurative things like animals, crystals, and flowers. But it seems like people only want drawings of very specific subject matters like women, fanart, anime, fantasy, or sci-fi.

I just can't see how a painting of something like pic related could help anyone improve.
If I'm wrong about any of this let me know, I'm still trying to figure this stuff out.

>>2873988
most of the guys that I know that are good and from before the internet have like a room in their house to store all their books tons of ref books design books learning etc.

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>>2874042
Painting flowers is probably a good exercise for matching and mixing colors, playing with subtle color variation, and artsy mark making. They are also easy paintings to sell. Look up flowers painted by Richard Schmid.

Reading Schmid's book, buying his palette, and doing the color chart exercise, then using those charts to match colors and do a bunch of still life paintings of flowers... seems like a good way to improve. I plan to do this, and I will probably paint mostly flowers and fruits and veggies to sell to rich old ladies that live around my mom.

I just want to do it to improve my color sense. I'm primarily interested in digital fantasy shit. When I see "animals, crystals, and flowers" I start wondering what architecture or space ships could look like if based off of hybrid of crystalline structures and the structures of flowers/plants, and what the inhabitants would look like.

>>2873988
there was no internet to spend all your time procrastinating in.

>>2873988
they didn't have the internet to fucking waste their time. and it's not like the internet is the only art resource there is.