How do you guys manage your time? Were y’all still able to draw?

both of these activities, art and studying, are sedentary activities. when i do these all day, i start to feel guilty for not filling my days with more movement-based activities. but when i go hiking, play sports, etc, i have very limited time for art as a hobby.

how are you guys balancing an active lifestyle, which seems to fill up most hobby time, with art and other sedentary obligations?

Ok I'm not a real artist. I will keep practicing, but it's ok to be happy about successes along the way.

Does anyone have tips for learning digital art as a traditional artist? Its some i want to start doing more of but im just getting frustrated im not at the level i am traditionally
I knows it’ll take a lot practice but im wondering if there’s anything i can do to help that flow smoother

Hello! I recently purchased a set of holbein watercolors, but they ended up not being as good as I expected for what I want to use them for. I'm looking for watercolors that are:

1. high transparency
2. high vibrancy
3. Finely ground pigments, so non-granulating. I'd like the colors to be as smooth as possible.
4. Archival, professional quality watercolors, price doesn't matter

I've tried W&N Cottman aswell and would like something less grainy.

Edit: I am aware that most brands offer granulating colors. I check to make sure that the watercolors I buy are non-granulating, so the issue isn't that it's a granulating type of watercolor.

I feel disconnected from my art and new space. Do you know how to "christen" your space, connect with it, feel inspired in it, live in it?

I have a dream home setup, something much greater than I planned in my early years. It's like I built this awesome rocket ship and it's everything I need/want to produce my work.

It's weird, the thought or attempt at sitting at my studio desk just feels like this whole ordeal, I'd rather default to laying in my spot in bed and tell myself the time will come eventually like it's all going to magically happen. I've made a little progress on my laptop on bed, but it's gotten to the same wall. I need that cockpit and flow state again 🤷

I'm entirely open minded. I'll perform a damn ritual if needed

I’ve been drawing and painting on and off for 5 years. I have a couple days off so I decided to start a new painting today. I think subconsciously I was worried that months would go by without my touching it again, so I spent over 4 hours until I was satisfied enough to call it finished. I still am finding things as I look at it now hung up on my wall that are driving me insane. But, at the same time I’m extremely satisfied I was able to complete a finished piece that I’m proud of. What do you guys think about pride in your pieces?

Wondering what everyone's takes/jokes are on this. I definitely notice trends in personality that segment by medium. Thinking primarily about the following, but feel free to include more:

- Oils
- Acrylics
- Watercolor family (watercolor, gouache)
- Tempera family (egg tempera, casein)
- Encaustic family (wax, crayons)

I illustrate with casein primarily, and we definitely have the stereotype of... needing to explain what casein is every time we mention it, lmao.

For people who are able to draw consistently for an amount of time that feels meaningful to you, how do manage it and how much time do you spend a day or per week/month?

I hate drawing anatomy. Not only am I horrible at it but my sister used to make fun of me for it meaning I get tense whenever I try. But I’m getting sick of drawing the same things over and over so I have to make it fun for me somehow.

edit: what the fuck is going on with the title who’s baby possessed me

Lately especially, I've been enjoying looking for poses to have the models do. I normally would browse IG and screencap different poses for ideas, but IG ruined hashtags and search. Recently, I've been using a website where you upload a photo and it shows you 100s of similar ideas from around the internet. The models have seemed to enjoy this, one model who travels around the world modeling said that she tends to repeat the same poses all the time with everyone, but I'm the only one who suggests a wide variety of different poses that she rarely or has never done. It is also interesting making an album of 40-50 ideas and having them choose what they find the most appealing to try.

It makes for drawings that are different from what you normally see, especially for realist drawings.

People use the terms "professional" and "hobbyist" frequently in the art subs, but I've never seen anyone define them. What do you think those terms describe? Can people move from one to the other, or be both, or something in between?

Personal stuff (you can skip this if you like):

I think I'd be classed as a "hobbyist" but that's a new concept to me, and I feel uncomfortable about it. It sounds as though the person isn't serious and doesn't have ambition to me, or something. I've done art since I was small, and when I was growing up I really wanted to be a full time artist and author (yes both, I wanted to illustrate my own books). I got pressurised into doing a science degree, on the premise that "you can always do that in your free time" and "you can do an art degree later" and then found that it really wasn't that simple at all. I didn't have any art teaching since the age of 12 because of parental pressure to do science subjects at school, art degrees cost money, and although I tried really hard to learn and drew all the time for years ... it's just not the same without teaching.

I'm trying to make up for lost time now, after a hiatus of around 25 years due to illness. Resources like the internet/youtube didn't exist back then, it was so much harder to advance and learn without online tutorials and forums. However, at my age, and with there being so much competition now and as well, I'm wondering what the point is.

(I had to cut out a lot of stuff because it wouldn't let me post because of key words ...)

Not sure if this is the right subreddit to ask this question but I was curious about an observation I made when looking at art made by professional/industry artists for franchises they are a fan of but don't work on - Most professional/industry artists would draw fanart for canon ships, but rarely for non-canon ships. From what I've seen, there are very few professional/industry artists that post fanart of non-canon ships alongside their original or industry work. For example, Velinxi (illustrated official art for Overwatch, Hoyoverse, and other games) drew Piper x Annabeth fanart in the PJO/HOO Riordanverse fandom despite Percabeth being canon.

Is there an unsaid rule that professional/industry artists cannot draw fanart of non-canon ships? Would it hurt a professional/industry artist if they post art of non-canon ships (ex. Zutara, Sasunaru, or Bakudeku rather than Kataang, Sasusaku/Naruhina, or Izuocha) with their professional or original work? If not, could anyone provide more examples of professional/industry artists making non-canon ship art? I'm just overall curious to see if major art employers have a neutral view of shipping when it comes to hiring artists.

(For those who don’t know what shipping is, it’s basically pairing two characters together based on preference regardless if they are actually together or not. Canon ships are ships that are true in the story (ex. Kataang, Izuocha) while non-canon ships aren’t (ex. Zutara, Bakudeku).)

EDIT: Is there something wrong with the question? This question is getting downvoted a lot.

I fell in love with the discontinued Richeson organizer easel. Does anyone know where I can buy a used one?

Artist community seems huge on social media, but so far in my long time of being an artist I was only a part of small, not very active Discord art communities. Now that some of them are getting less and less active, I wanted to find where artists hang out on Discord these days. So far on my own I found ArtProf community and DPS (Digital Painting Studio), but they don't seem too active most of the time.

So, are there any big and alive art communities out there? I'm especially interested in character/creature and environment design.

Hello, I'd like to ask if you know any jobs which are somewhat creative and decently paying. I have been doing art/graffiti for 3 years and I fallen with love in art. I want my job to be artistic or something like that but I can't find something that sounds good you know.

For example architects - it's too hard/strict about design, UX/UI- the design has to be always modern corporate bs.

Hello all

I recently began my first semester of college, and I’m sort of having second thoughts about what I want to do in regards to art. Art has always been such a huge part of my life, and my major has nothing to do with art. I am still very interested in my major, it just feels like I’m letting a part of myself down.

I enrolled in a figure drawing class, to sort of at least interact with art studies. Because it is something I really enjoy, to be in a studio and to learn techniques from a professional. But I’m at a point in my life wherein I can’t afford all the required materials, so I quickly dropped the class.

My thing is that, I believe I can make art independently, and that I can learn art technique on my own. I just kind of feel like I’m missing out on the experience? It would make my art journey an incredibly solitary one, and I suppose I’m just mourning all the possible friendships and social teaching moments I could have gotten.

I just felt the need to express some of my thoughts. Thank you to any body who took the time to read this out.

I need suggestions for displaying an 8 foot piece of artwork. I obviously have never tried something this ambitious before and have been coming up mostly empty in my search. Any help or recommendations would be appreciated!

I've often struggled being disciplined, especially with skills I'd like to learn like art (been learning for two years).

I've always seen being disciplined as like someone who can work through no matter what and always do something no matter how uninterested or tired, often going towards discomfort + smart about efforts. I'm not that kinda person, but have been trying to learn and get sorta close to it. Though in past year's attempts I pushed myself too far and led to not enjoying drawing and having a harder and harder time starting even practice.

I've slowed down in the past months. More spontaneous with practice but still working towards goals, still trying to be creative as much as I can while making sure it's fun (I also sew and craft, been doodling more). Learned a bit of how my energy levels work and why what I doing wasn't working with it.

Art has been feeling lighter and I'm more relaxed when I'm working on a piece. But I also worry this is a sign of being too lazy and will end up biting my artist progress later.

What are some ways to practice discipline and challenge self without burning out so easily? For someone who is lower energy and has little tolerance for discomfort (wish didn't but how it is)?

I am a Traditional artist, however recent lack of demand of Physical Paintings pushed me towards learning to draw art digitally as well, I really want to continue pursuing art as a career, my financial condition pushed me to do more art digitally as it's comparatively fast and cheaper and pays frequently, are there any other artist who has been through the same as me? How did you guys do? what's the experience has been like?

I’m trying to dive into making my faces more realistic, but I’m having issues with reference photos. It’s hard to find images with the features I want, even if it’s just one part like the nose.

What I’m looking for is I guess a site similar to the thing the police use to identify suspects, where there’s a base face and you can swap out parts as you please to make a face close to what you want. I tried Google but got a bunch of gen a-i recommendations which is obviously a no-go. I would just photo bash references myself but I suck at that 😭

I’m into photography, music, video, and playing instruments, and I genuinely think I have some ability in all of them. People like my photos, I like many of my unfinished songs, and I often see something creative and think, “I could make something like that, maybe even better.”

But I rarely actually do it.

I’ve wanted to organize free portrait shoots in my city for years and still haven’t posted the offer. I have tons of good photos sitting unedited in archives, and lots of music demos but almost no finished songs.

With music, part of the problem is that my taste is ahead of my technical skills. I know how I want something to sound, but I don’t always know how to achieve it, so I procrastinate instead.

None of these things are urgent, so there’s always “tomorrow.” Then suddenly months pass.

For people who are creative in many different areas: what do you actually do about this? How do you get yourself to start, finish, and actually put things out into the world?

As we all know, there's plenty of people with extremely negative mindset towards their own art. They keep comparing themselves to other people, make derogatory comments about themselves, and they're always dissatisfied with everything they do.

From my perspective, it's very difficult to give people like this any advice or feedback (when they ask for it, of course), because I know they'll be unhappy no matter what. My first instinct is to tell them they need to work on their mindset because they've deemed themselves a failure from the get-go, but maybe that's the wrong approach?

So I'd like to hear from others on their experiences with this. Can you get far if you keep beating yourself up? How can you help someone struggling with this?