I have several problems with the way art is taught in schools here in Australia. Even in Primary School, I feel that there is fast becoming a habit of laying out set art projects for students to do that can inhibit the development of their own artistic expression, especially if their interest in art persists as they grow older. Why? Because doing art parrot-style off of ‘steps 1-9’ sheets of instructional paper hand outs gets kids into the habit of not having to think artistically for themselves beyond what colors to. This can serious obstruct their ability to express their own artistic expressions and styles as they mature.

By high school the art teachers don’t spend time teaching us literally how to draw. Indeed why I’m here they didn’t spend any time teaching us techniques to use different art materials either. We never had lessons on how to paint in watercolor, or oil, or ways to blend oil pastels to gain different effects. We were only handed boxes of pastels and with no instruction, told to make a poster with an environment with them. I seriously think that it’s not right to expect a student to achieve their full potential in a project where they are not given instruction on how to use their materials correctly.

Not only do they expect us to learn how to use the art materials on our own, but we are neither given exercises to develop our own art styles and to discover and nurture an individual way to draw. Indeed to me it seems like by high school, art teachers expect their students to already have the beginning of a personal art style in which to lean on. Understand then how difficult it may be for a child whose used to being told almost HOW to create their art work to suddenly be expected to come up with their own ideas for a pop art poster. For many it’s over whelming.

Looking back to my own primary school education I think it would have been more productive from my primary school teachers to balance formulated art with encouraging kids to do their own thing. By the time I went to high school, I knew I loved doing art but without projects laid out in front of me, I wasn’t sure how to pursue my interests.

Once I entered year seven, I met a girl who started drawing when she was very young and learned by coping anime shows like sailor moon and cardcaptors. However by the time I’d met her, she was skilled enough to be able to draw her own ideas and characters. I was amazed and inspired by her talent. She learnt,developed and refined her drawing skills very quickly, while I was a much slower learner, struggling with just getting anime images to look right with everything in the right place and right length. I have no shame in admitting that she left me and my feeble skills behind with ease consistently, but she also gave me something to aspire to. She’d had a few years head start on me, so I didn’t mind much that her drawings were a lot better then mine. After all, by drawing together she was teaching me a lot and I felt that my skills (though a lot slower) were developing. More importantly it gave me a way to do art without needing instruction, but working from what I wanted to draw instead.

I still feel like this helped me learn more then my art teachers had taught me by that stage, as in classes I was struggling with not only having to decide what to draw to forfill the requirements of my project, but also HOW to draw it. My art work from my early high school years is a sad mixture of a styles learnt from my friends, and realism because it doesn’t require me to tap into my creativity to draw what’s right in front of me.

It wasn’t until we befriended another girl who has a distinctively sweet and brightly colorful style that I really respected and didn’t totally understand how these two girls had both taught themselves everything about drawing by themselves and still come out with two very different yet unique styles. As well as encourage me it also made me afraid to attempt to develop a style of my own because I didn’t think that anything I could develop on my own would be any good compared to what these girls were doing.

In trying to understand how they’d each developed their own styles I developed the only way I knew how, through observation and this caused some regrettable tension. Why was simple. I thought there was a specific method I could follow in order to come out with my own drawing style. Just like a steps 1-9 handout (uh sad irony). One thing was for sure, I didn’t feel that (left to my own devices) I would be able to draw anything good at all. I wasn’t sure how to explain this at the time.

At an impasse with myself, I instead turned my focus to digital coloring. Something my second friend introduced me too, and focused on developing my coloring skills instead. I started doing work similar to her bright style at first but I soon found I really enjoyed it and wanted to learn more. I explored deeper shading and different techniques and finally into more digital painting rather then block coloring. It was the first time that I felt I was really doing something all my own that I liked and enjoyed and was all from me. And most of all, I was proud of what I was coming out with. I liked what I was doing.

Eventually I had to focus on drawing again, and attended life drawing classes which really helped me learn proportions and the way the human body fits together. At the same time I was learning as much as I could from Loish, the digital artist who I’ve looked up to for a very long time. She was helping me learn the yes’s and noes of digital painting while I tried to figure out how she got the effects she did with her digital art.

Developing my own style, or even knowing how to begin was an extremely difficult process for me and yes, for sure I feel that if I was encouraged to develop in an individual way from primary school that I would have found it a lot easier later on. Even today I don’t consider that I have one style that I continue to develop. I try to draw diversely and constantly draw in different styles. This can both be a blessing and a burden. I still have trouble with defining an individual ‘look’ for my art works, but I feel like this will come in my future as long as I keep working at it. I’m happy with the work I’m making now, having only been making digital art for two years. It certainly doesn’t mean I’m going to stop developing my art, and I look forwards to some much needed refinement in the future.

Another point I want to draw attention to is that there are a lot of artists out there that copy the styles of their favourite cartoon series or other artists because you literally do NOT KNOW HOW to take your pencil and draw something of your own. Or are afraid of going back to drawing crap when you can draw quite well in the style of <insert anime series/other artist here>.

Mainly what I’m trying to literate to the artists out there who find it as difficult like I did is that you can’t be afraid of your own art work and believe me, trying to take something of someone else’s and twist it to suit your own expression is like trying to jam a triangle into a square slot. It can be good as a start just to get you used to drawing full stop, but there’s only so far it can take you when your running off someone else’s steam. My advice is to (without references) start sketching. Yeah the stuff you will come out with WILL look crap when you first start. But if you keep going, you’ll be shocked to first start finding parts of your drawings that you like, then more, then more until before you know it, you’re drawing something that’s come from YOU, that isn’t half bad!

Feeling jealous/envious of other people talent is natural. But remember these artists got to where they did through years of crappy drawings and refining their skills. There’s not how-to or quick road to getting as good as they are, other then putting in the hard yards. I don’t find that school systems are reliable in teaching you to become your own artist. Lessons aren’t designed to teach or place any signifigant focus on this, even though I wish some of them were. The fact is that if your serious about developing your artwork it’s something you’re going to have to work on yourself.

I think most green artists that take the plunge surprise themselves sooner then they think.

I’m not sure what brought this on. I’ve been thinking about where I was three years ago compared to where I am today artistically and wondering if the people on DA have opinions about the way schools teach art tot heir students and if it effects us in developing personal ‘styles’. Agree or disagree, I’d be very interested to hear from some other artists about their schooling experiences and their opinions on the system and if it worked for you guys.


thanks for reading.