Recent Posts
If you want to learn to sell your art effectively, step outside of the art world for a moment and visit a street market. Forget drinky-poos on opening night and all that arty-farty nonsense. Market traders know how to sell. If you want to know how to negotiate the price …
If you want to learn how to draw faster this article is for you. I’m going to teach you how to draw faster using 14 tips and tricks I’ve learned from 20 years of drawing professionally. Let’s make a start. 1. Sketch Faster by Drawing From Life It’s important to …
Can you make money teaching your art skills? It’s a scary thought and for understandable reasons, but there can be good reasons to try. As an artist and trader of 20 years plus, I’m well placed to present the pros and cons of this approach to selling. Teaching your art …
What’s it like to draw in public? A question many artists ask themselves and if you’ve never done it before you really don’t know what to expect. So how does the public react? In this blog post, I will share my experiences of drawing in public for over 20 years. …
As an artist who occasionally makes hyper-realistic art, I hear the same old angst-ridden question: “What’s the point of hyperrealism? You might as well take a photo”. Is hyperrealism art or a skill? I think I’m well placed to answer that question. Hyperrealism is an art form if the artist …
Are you wiped out just getting out of bed every day? Are you physically and mentally fatigued all the time? Has your creative energy died? It could be the symptoms of burnout, it happened to me. So what is creative burnout? Creative burnout is physical, emotional, and creative fatigue. It’s …
Do you ever wake up and think you don’t quite cut it as an artist and that you aren’t the real deal? This is how to overcome self-doubt for artists and deal with imposter syndrome. Artists overcome self-doubt and imposter syndrome by being open and sharing their experiences with others. …
How do you make flat, lifeless, pencil shading look like a three-dimensional shadow? In this post, I will teach you how to draw realistic shadows in pencil the correct way. When drawing shadows on a flat plane, the depth is created by making the inner shadow area slightly lighter than …
You need to protect and preserve your pencil drawings but there is a lot of poor advice out there and I want to put it right. This is my advice in a nutshell: Use acid-free tracing, wax, or parchment paper dividers between loose pencil drawings. Clamp your drawing pad shut …
If you’ve ever tried selling your art, beyond friends and family, you’ll know how hard it is, well listen up, the online world is even harder. It’s a tough nut to crack, so does selling art online worth it? Yes, it is, but I decided to examine why it’s so …
IMPORTANT UPDATE FEB 2025 Society6 is changing as from March 18th 2025. The original info in this article is now obsolete. Please read this summary: Society6 is shutting down many artist accounts as part of a shift to a more curated marketplace featuring on-trend designs. The move aims to reduce …
When I’m talking to a novice, I’m often asked where I begin and the first thing I tend to say is ‘draw a quick outline’ but that’s not the whole truth. As an artist, you have to plan and compose your art before you can make a start. In that …
Have you ever arrived in an art store and been overwhelmed by the bewildering types of paper? How do you choose the best paper for pencil drawing? You can’t buy each one and test them out. That’s why I decided to demystify the process so you can buy the best …
A contour drawing is, at its core, about using the fewest lines possible for the maximum effect. Yet there are different types of contour drawing, so what do they mean? A contour drawing is a technique that is used to study the shape and volume of an object and calculate …
Society has become an educational treadmill and perceived wisdom dictates that having a degree is the pathway to success, but is that true for everyone? Do artists need a degree in art to be successful? An art degree doesn’t guarantee a job and doesn’t offer much value for money beyond …
Graphite has a major drawback, it reflects light, giving your drawing an unwelcome sheen. It can ruin an otherwise perfectly good drawing. All is not lost however, there are ways to reduce the problem and even stop pencil shine from happening in the first place. Pencil shine can be stopped …
There are a number of reasons why artists change style, sometimes a style just evolves, while at other times it’s a conscious effort to change tack. Artists change their style as they grow, when they try out new things, and experiment with new materials and techniques. They also change their …
At first glance, the importance of the subject matter in art seems self-explanatory, if you paint a cat, it should look like a cat, right? Well yes, but there is more than one way to answer the question. Is the subject matter what the viewer sees or what the artist …
As an artist or designer, you may be wondering if print-on-demand is worth the time investment. After all, there are a lot of printing options out there and it can be tough to know which one is right for you, so is print-on-demand worth it? Print-0n-demand is worth it as …
When it comes to learning how to draw, there are a lot of options out there. That’s why it’s important to do your research before you commit to any one course. Proko is a popular online drawing platform, but are Proko courses worth it? Here’s what you need to know. …
