Learn art from home. A few tips to get you started!

The art industry has always been, and probably always will be, very in demand. Not only because everyone enjoys and good work of art, but because businesses depend on creative marketing images to capture buyer attention. Advertising is arguably the biggest business in the US, if not the world, so the need for cutting edge and clever artistic images is always expanding.

The average starting salary for graphic artists alone starts around $15/hr and can skyrocket from there. About 63% of traditional and digital artists are self employed and many of them earn even more than salaried artists. Just knowing these figures is enough to make some want to run out and enroll in the closest art school. However, there is a sort of catch-22 situation here. The better art schools out there (as in the ones you want to enroll in if you plan on making decent money), require you to already have a bit of skill in visual art.

So what do you do if you weren't a child prodigy who knew they wanted to go into this industry from the age of 5? Well there is still time and hope to learn art at home! The first thing I did was jump online and search for free art lessons. These lessons range from basic shape drawing and lighting, to figure and detail drawing, painting, and much more. Any medium you decide you want to work with has some free lessons out there.

Most people, including myself, start off not really knowing what their own style is. So you start off by drawing everything from forest and urban scenes to apples on the counter. I tried cartoon, comic, classical, realistic, and even art nuevo styles before I settled on my chosen genre of fantasy art.

To help get you started, here is a short list of my favorite free drawing lessons:

Idrawgirls.com

Art Factory

Drawing tutorials

I could make this article last for days by giving you tips and pointers for getting started but here are the two simplest, yet most important:

1. Start with the basics. No matter how trivial or boring they may be, they are essential for creating a solid foundation that you can later manipulate over and over.

2. Don't be afraid to try! Try anything, learn whatever you can. Any style that interests you should be looked into. If you later decide it's not for you, that's totally fine. But you will never grow if you don't try.

Many times, people learn enough from their at-home studies to begin their career as an artist. This is not the path I chose, but can be done. The benefits are a cheaper price and the luxury of learning on your own time. Of course the drawbacks are no degree to present and spending a bit more time building up your reputation.