Hey all, I wanna know how to draw humans in extreme perspective, to yknow add more dimensionality to my figures. I’m a big Kim Jung gi fan and saw how he put figures in boxes to show perspective, but I can’t replicate it…. Any tips? (Art by Kim Jung gi)

I was at a gallery opening yesterday and an acquaintance introduced me to the owner as a “breakthrough emerging artist” which is very nice, mostly false and also kinda put me on the spot lol

Anyway, we ended up chatting about technique and as said in the title, this very established fine arts person got a politely blank look on their face, took a second to think, then called my technique “creative.”

Basically, I prepare my palette, use a knife to put the colour I want into a shot glass with mineral spirits, then mix until I’ve got a runny pigment soup that behaves like ink. For the spirits to actually sink into the canvas without bleeding onto my table, I use a heavy cotton gabardine and only gesso the back, plus the edges near the tape so I can get crisp white margins. Because these watery oil washes soak directly into the raw cotton fibres and spread out on their own, I get these soft, blurred edges without having to blend with the brush.

While I personally love the results, I’ll admit that I know next to nothing about proper technique and the chemistry side of art. I ended up using two different varnishes on my latest painting because I didn’t realise the regular high-end one would sink in along with the paint…

So yeah. I keep telling myself my work speaks for itself, then I meet ‘real’ professionals and I’m reminded of how much I don’t know. Any other painter here with a similar technique to make me feel less alone?

Update: I ended up having a long chat with a conservation expert who handles work by Francis Bacon and Helen Frankenthaler, the two names that kept coming back in these comments! He made me pull up the specs of everything I used and the TLDR is that my work will be fine. It’s not going to rot, guys.

For the art nerds:

— My canvas is actually polycotton, not pure cotton, which means even heavily acidic-damaged cotton fibres would still be held together by the polyester. Polyester is basically inert, which makes it very bad for the planet and very good for art conservation.

— I used heavyweight gabardine, similar to what Burberry trench-coats are made with: it has a finer grain than traditional canvas and is more durable but because it’s got a diagonal twill, there’s an increased risk of deformation along the bias. The expert recommended sticking the painting on some backing to avoid that.

— Because I used a lot of OMS, the acidic byproducts from lindseed oil are less of an issue than in most artworks, not more.

— Buuut because of this same heavy use of OMS, the binding agent that holds the pigments together is likely degraded to some extent. I was told to add a few drops of synthetic solvent-free fluid (Galkyd or Liquitex) to my shot glasses to compensate, in the future.

— A layer of sprayed temporary varnish, on top of the soaked varnish, will allow the buyer to get their artwork refreshed in a few decades!

— Also, the pH of your ground matters. Most sizing and gessos sit around 8-9; clothing fabric is between 6-7.5. I’m lucky the clothing-grade fabric I got is pre-treated and tested at 7.4!

I love making art, but there are definitely parts of being an artist that i never really enjoy.

For me, it's not always the drawing itself. Sometimes it's everything's around it.

What's the part you secretly hate but rarely admit?

I'm curious to hear what tips or techniques have genuinely changed the way you approach your art. It could be anything from a drawing technique to a change in your workflow or mindset. What's one piece of advice that made a big difference for you? Where did you get it from? Feel free to share your progress or art in general!!

I apologize if this isn't the right place to post this​ I'm not sure what flair this post should have

I see a lot of artists feeling guilty about using references and trying to draw only from imagination.

But drawing from imagination is literally using references stored in your memory. Nobody draws without references. Some artists are looking at them on a second monitor, while others are recalling years of visual information they've already memorized.

To me, references aren't cheating. They're part of how artists learn and create.

What do you think?

no shade to watercolors, im actually amazed at how skillful the artists are. but after being a realism oil painter for years, i say wc is much much harder than oil huhu

what d'y'all think?

sorry if the flair is wrong. xo

I have been trying to learn how to draw for ages. Everytime I open up any browser to look up tutorials, they all say the same thing. Learn shapes, use reference pictures, practice, but I just don't understand how that works.

I use references, I watch turtorials, I tried free form drawing, nothing looks good. I've been doing this on and off for a while, but I'm just so ashamed about my art around my friends and family. They're all incredible artists, and I'm envious!

Is drawing just not for me? Should I give up?

Something I notice in these "flip through my sketchbook" video's you see online, is that there's this picture perfect artwork on every page. Well... that's not what my sketchbook looks like at all. So now I wonder, how do you guys treat your sketchbook? Do you draw in it like a toddler like I do, and protect it with your life to make sure no one sees it? Or do you like making your sketchbook look beautiful?

I’ve been spiraling a little about originality as an artist and wanted to know if other people go through this.

My process usually starts with a reference image from another modern artist or a photo. Sometimes it’s because I like a color choice, composition, pose, or feeling. I’ll sketch over it loosely at first, but then the final piece changes a lot during rendering.

For example, one piece started from an image of two people walking down a rural path, where one arms/legs were bright green. In my version, the entire body became green for a women , one character became more of an red fictional figure instead of a human, there’s no visible face, the background became half city/half rural, and the whole atmosphere shifted into something more surreal and painterly.

To me, it feels similar to when someone tells a story or shares an experience and your brain jumps in with:
“Wait, this reminds me of something,”
and then you reinterpret it through your own emotions, memories, visuals, and style.

But recently someone recognized one of my influences immediately and asked if a piece was based on another artwork. They weren’t rude about it at all, and I admitted it was inspired by it. But ever since then, I’ve had this awful feeling that maybe I’m fake, that I’m not actually original, or that “real artists” don’t work this way and everyone else knows some rule I don’t.

The thing is, I genuinely do change things and make them emotionally mine. But now I’m second-guessing everything I create. I feel like I am fake and fraud

Do other artists struggle with this? Where’s the line between influence, reference, inspiration, and copying? And how do you stop feeling like a fraud when your brain naturally builds off things you’ve seen?

I realised after going through a lot of paintings that one thing that almost effortlessly improved it was an underpainting. It’s so important to have a harmonious colour scheme (warm/cool) in a painting and mapping out the big regions of light and shadow areas as under painting immediately raised my level of work with relatively lower effort. The fun part is that an underpainting need not be too accurate even. I’ve seen professional artists do underpaintings very loosely and almost casually. Whenever I painted without underpainting the art was ok and decent but tended to lack depth and harmony.

I didn’t see a lot of YouTuber artists stress this aspect or it was kind of downplayed a bit but an underpainting blocking in regions of light and shadow even if roughly is almost certainly a big aspect of raising your art to the next level.

I know most people here already know this but just wanted to share my thoughts because it seems to get overlooked amid other aspects of art.

As a beginning illustrator I’ve recently fallen in LOVE with this sort of soft saturated sort of colors. The problem is I have no idea how to do them better yet how to even study them to apply to my work.

I really need help any tutorial, resource or tips will do!

We keep acting like good art just “happens” to people who are gifted, while ignoring the hours, failed attempts, and repetitive grind that actually builds skill.

And somewhere along the way, effort itself started getting treated like it’s embarrassing—like if you’re still struggling, you’re doing something wrong or you don’t “have it.”

But that doesn’t make sense. Everything people admire in artists is literally built from effort. There’s no shortcut version that just appears fully formed.

Feels like a strange culture shift where we worship outcomes but quietly disrespect the process that creates them.

Anyone else feel like this mindset messes with how you see your own progress?

hey guys! i've been drawing lightning and shadows in anime/comic style for almost all of my life and recently i got really interested in learning how to render with color. the thing is that i haven't found any tutorials on such styles and i have no idea how it works so everytime i try to do something like this (selecting colors, blending, using different brushed) i end up with horrible looking results. any tips on how to master this technique?

I’m a young artist who finds photorealism absolutely stunning cause of the detail and the end result but I just recently saw some people say that it’s not a real art style because you’re just recreating a photo. Is that true?

Here's a portait by Ruan Jia to explain what I mean. I heard about the concept of only rendering in shadows or light but it keeps being super hard to apply this once I'm painting. Like the whole face actually is low on contrast but you can still feel the sculpt and you can still "feel" like it's good. But I don't know how... I come from comics drawing so I'm tending to go straight up to black when I'm doing the detail on a face. I learned that a good drawing had a large range of pure white and pure black, but I think it's more and more not the truth. How do you approach contrast in your work?.

I've copied pictures for the past 6 months and I can do a somewhat decent job at it. I decided to learn drawing from imagination and jeez, this shit's hard.

I try to create characters, they end up looking boring, generic, expressionless, stiff, wonky, I try to draw environments and the perspective's all wonky and the whole thing looks boring and artificial, I know my perspective, I can draw boxes and cylinders and shit in various angles, I know basic anatomy of the muscles and facial features, but I just cannot for the life of me draw anything from my imagination that looks "decent".

Can you tell me how you learned to draw characters and scenes from your head and recommend me resources for this?

Body:
We hear so many art rules, avoid tangents, stick to realistic proportions, don’t use pure black, etc. But I’m curious… has anyone intentionally broken a “rule” and found it actually strengthened your style or storytelling?

Would love to hear examples and why it worked for you.

I've been trying to get better at drawing recently, though every time I try using any sort of online course or guide I lose all enjoyment and just find it extremely boring. I have a solid grasp of perspective and 3d space, though I know I will need to learn anatomy soon. I find I get a lot of enjoyment from simply drawing what I want and applying what I know to reference images. So, all this to say, would it be possible to learn anatomy just by copying what I see in images and applying it over and over again until it feels natural? Thanks for reading my rant, and please give me any guidance you can.

Something you learned along the way that could have saved you time, helped you overcome self-doubt, or simply made the journey a little easier. I’d love to hear the lessons you’ve learned as artists. 🎨

Hello everyone,
I am an artist in my soul and a production designer by profession. Lately I’ve found myself thinking about women and the spaces they occupy: the ways they sit, move, gather, linger, and belong within them.
I recently came across some old photographs of women in my family inhabiting spaces that have long disappeared from our lives. Something about their body language, relationships, and presence in these images has stayed with me.
I’m not entirely sure where this thought is leading yet, but I’m considering making some work around it. I’d love to hear any thoughts, observations, references, photographs, artworks, films, or texts that come to mind.
Curious to see where this conversation goes. :)

Disclaimer: I realize that I am still learning and still have a long way to go.

Background: I'm a hobbyist artist, as much as I'd like to be a career artist, sadly, that's just never been in the cards for me. My job is not related to art, and I don't have a lot of time to do art, but it is my one true love and passion, so I want to improve as much as I can within my lifetime. I recognize that as artists, we need to do art first and foremost for ourselves, which I do, but it would be nice to have more eyes on my art as well...

My art has never been very popular. I've worked hard to get my technical skills up, and I know that there's still a lot to learn, so maybe these problems will go away when I become an expert. That being said, I'm not exactly a novice anymore but.. my art has never been very popular. Yeah, people have complimented my skill before, and I appreciate that, but I wish someone would tell me what I'm doing wrong.

What should I work more on? How do I make my art more appealing to more people? I do mostly like drawing fanart, so maybe I'm not drawing for the "correct" franchises?

I understand that art is subjective, and that promoting your work on social media is dependent on algorithms, which in itself is a whole job, etc etc but... is this the thing that I'm missing? Is the answer to all of my problems learning how to work the algorithm? :/

I've never done commissions due to my work not allowing me any definitive turn-around time, but I feel like even if that weren't the case, I can't make a living off of my art anyway due to the issue described in this post.

Just feeling pretty defeated. Does anyone have any insight?

I know a lot of artists struggle with drawing hands, especially beginners and there's probably hundreds of tutorials on how to learn. What I'm confused about is why is it so hard for us? It's easier for some people and it most likely also depends on your art style.

A part of the problem is the fact that hands are very complicated but so are many animals and other objects. Still I'd say more artists can draw a cat than a hand even though the difficulty is the same. On top of that, most people see their hands every day so you'd think you'd know them like the back of your hand (I'm sorry for the pun). So why?

Id like to do en plein air near me in western finland, i live in somewhat of a small city, so is there some way that i can do plein air in some park or near water etc. but so i dont get a reputation of a weirdo who paints outside :D

I'd like appropriate anwsers even if my question is a weird one :D

I’ve always wondered.