Improving Your Art Skills the Smart Way

I'm 47-years-old.

I'm past the halfway mark of my life. And there's still a TON of stories I want to tell!

Therefore,  I'm constantly looking for ways to improve my drawing skills quickly YET thoroughly.

After much reading combined with trial and error, I realized that I could neither focus solely on skills improvement nor solely on project creation without something suffering. It's essential that I do both simultaneously.

My revelation was confirmed when I saw this video by Jazza that breaks down how to improve one's art skills into three main areas—Innate Practice, Inspired Practice and Developmental Practice. I was thrilled when I realized I was almost already doing this method!

Here's the approach:

Innate Practice—practice that is inherent in what you’re doing. Though you may not be sitting down with the intention of improving oneself, you’re working at a level that’s comfortable for your abilities and over time, doing this in repetition, inevitably approves your abilities. This usually involves projects. Less about the intensity and more about the volume, repetition.

Inspired Practice—it’s the most fun, feels the most impactful. The heart of improvement comes from rapid bursts of learning from observation and enthusiasm. Burns bright and briefly so it’s hard to maintain over a long period. Although it may be the easiest way to motivate and push oneself, it’s the most difficult to start and maintain.

Developmental Practice—the easiest one to assign exercises to. Intentionally acquired skills and developmental progress. This is often the most frustrating and boring of the three types of practices. It’s constructive, mechanical but shows the improvement.

The ultimate form of practice is to combine all three of these methods.

For me it's:

Innate Practice—A Universe of Trouble web series. I'm painting, drawing and learning how to use about 8 different programs.

Inspired Practice—OK, I admit, I'm not actually doing this at this time. I discovered that with my fundamentals skills being weak, this type of practice was simply taking away from the time I could use to build my fundamentals.

Developmental Practice—Watts Atelier instruction and Proko human anatomy studies.

That's it, folks! As someone who's been following this plan, I can strongly recommend it. Check out Jazza's videos and see how they can help you improve your skills, too.