HOW TO GET STARTED......

Many people don't realise they are already an artist, and are naturally creative. This may show up at work by being inventive, it may show up at home by doodling while talking on the telephone, but if most people start noticing, it will become apparent that they have creative abilities.
The first thing to do if you want to become an artist, is to decide what your media will be. It could be drawing, painting, blowing glass, photography, weaving, video, etc. Or you may not be sure what you want your media to be and you may want to take a couple of art courses, like, History of Art, or Art Appreciation, which will give you some ideas what you might want to do. You could even go to the library and look at different art books to help you decide. Or you could go to the community college and take some art courses (not as expensive as the university). Some artists are proficient in more than one media, ie; fiber, caligraphy and photography. Many artists work in what is called "mixed media", incorporating several media together. Whatever you decide, you may want to use media you are already familiar with, as you can always add to this. However, if you are reading this blog, you may already know what you want to use as your media.

You also want to decide if you want to be a fine artist or an artisan. The usual difference here is that a fine artist creates painting or sculpture, and an artisan creates functional ornate work. I have simplified the issue for you quite a bit; as it is not often that easy to define what is what. For example, furniture and fashion are considered art, and you might see them in a museum. Whereas, you might see fine art in glass cases, at your local Taco Bell (which I recently saw in Scottsdale, Az.). So the lines here have now become a little fuzzy to say the least. On a personal level, I consider it all art.

There are several steps to becoming an artist and I have listed them below.
1. Decide on your medium you want to use
2. Decide why you want to become an artist
3. decide what you would like to do with your art
4. Decide what kind of art you want to do.

Now that you have decided what kind of media you want to work with, you will want to decide why you want to become an artist. What is it about being an artist that attracts you?
Is it the actual working with the materials? Is it a means to express yourself? Is it healing to
work with your hands? Do you want this to be a way to make money? Do you want the fame of
being an artist?

The answer to this question will decide for you which path you will follow. If you just want the experience, enjoy the process, and want to spend some quality time with yourself, than this would be a different path, than selling your work. If on the other hand you decide to sell your work, and be a professional artist, than you would go in a more product oriented direction.

The wonderful thing about just enjoying the process of making art, is that it is without boundaries and you can start anywhere, and paint anything, and not worry about judgement or censorship or sales. But you do have to think about where you start to put all this artwork.
If on the other hand you plan to make this be a way to support yourself, than you must think about the end product and who will purchase it, who is your target audience, where you want to sell it, etc. The difference here is that doing art for arts sake is for yourself; doing art "to eat", is
doing art for others. Once in while these two fall together, and an artist can reap rewards from both directions, but it is rare. There is an old adage, "The starving artist". This refers to the idea that money corrupts art, and it is important for artists not to change their work in order to sell it. The internal desire to create is easily disrupted, and dominated by the external desire to make money.

A good example of this is a study by Dr. Harlow, a psychologist, who worked with monkeys. He noticed that monkeys naturally loved to solve puzzles, and often would play with them when in their cages. So he set up a study to see if he could get them to solve them faster, if he rewarded them with raisins. And low and behold, it worked; the monkeys were working the puzzles twice as fast, as they had been without getting raisins. So Dr. Harlow, considered this experiment a great success and went off to write and publish his paper about his success. He left the puzzles for the monkeys to play with all they wanted. But the monkeys never touched the
puzzles again. Why? Because their internal motivation was change to external reward. He could only get them to play with the puzzles if he rewarded them.

You know this experience yourself. Probably when you were a little kid you wanted to be like mom or dad and so you begged them to let you vacuum or wash the car. Your parents were so impressed with your desire to be so responsible that they decided to give you an allowance for doing this. Suddenly, your desire to do this is no longer fun, and becomes a chore.
You will only vacuum or wash the car for money. This is what I mean; your internal motivation has changed. And this happens to creativity. You may love doing something as a hobby, but as soon as you start getting paid for it, it becomes work, and often is no longer fun. So this is a personal issue to really think about, and decide which direction you choose to take.