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Matt Mattia

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Hi! My name is Matt. It's the first time here, I hope I can become a part of the community :) I would like to apologize for my English which, I know, it is not perfect. I hope it will be enough to communicate and to share thoughts! I would like to intruce a bit my self in order to let me know and to submit my questions.. I have 30 yo. I have never taken any art school or art classes, except for somo daily workshop. I have always drawn and painted during my free time. During the last 2 years art is becoming an "obsession": freedom creativity expression.. unfortunately I clearly see that I have to lean a lot. So, here is my first question: Do you think an artist HAVE to attend a school in order to learn his job? I'm seriously thinking to quit my job an try this way but... I'm really confuse. Another question: I love to paint colorful landscape and black and white figures. It is like I can't imagine figure in color. An artist who lives around my area said me that I will always be an uncomplete artist becuase I don't use color. So.. do uncomplete artist exist? I mean.. I'm a bit confuse. Do you have to learn to do something I dont like to (painting figures with colors)? Thank you!

Sylvia Evans

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Hello Matt. Nice to meet you, virtually. I think it depends on what you want to acheive with your art work! No I don't think you have to attend school or specific courses. But if there is something that interests you then why not. All the artists I know think they are "incomplete" that is the frustration of being an artist. "Can do better" But if you want figures in black and white or sky blue pink . then do them in black and white. ( or sky blue pink) your painting, your call. Look around you, go to galleries pick up brushes and pencils and just go for it. And ask away on here someone useually comes up with an answer.:).
Moi 17

Linda Wilson

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It is your choice. You paint how you want, not how others want you too. There is no right or wrong. However, it is always useful to try things outside your comfort zone. You can learn a lot from this. there is so much variation in human skin tones on just one person. If you go to an art college, then you can be sure of experimenting and doing things that you are not comfortable with, but you would be encouraged to be original. (At least that is what happens in British art institutions) Again your career choices are your own. But it is a big step to purposefully cut off your source of income for so long, in the hope that you will one day make it as an artist. Few artists, survive, by painting alone. Most teach in order to survive. If you have a cult following and you sell a lot of your paintings, then it would sound like a good bet. There is nothing to stop you from going to part time classes - you can even take a part time degree. If you go to classes then at least you will get a profession opinion on your work. But you will get feedback if you post on this site too. What is your full name, so we can look out for your work in the gallery? By the way your English is quite understandable.

Matt Mattia

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Hi! Nice to meet you too guys, and thanks for your answers :) taking a part time degree would be great, also for my financies. Unfortunately around my area there are not art schools. I would keep on trying, altought sometimes I would like to say: "ehi, this is what I do, what I'm confortable with, what I love the most" instead of saying "everything is wonderful and I would like to how to do anything".. I think art school would give me discipline in learning .. SOmetimes I think like I am trying to do casual things without knowing exactly where I am going or what my style is :P
With Sarah, Phil, Ellen, Rose the dentist, and the granddaughter whose name I forget.

Robert Jones, Napa

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Hallo and welcome. You don't have to attend an art school - it helps if you want a professional career, because of the contacts you will make there. I am not convinced that it will make anyone a better artist, but it might broaden one's horizons - in other words, encourage one to try things (like painting in colour) that one wouldn't otherwise do. It would also help you to learn about the market place - to find a way of selling your art once you have produced it. If a professional career is not your primary ambition, however - art school may not interest you. Do you need to work in a particular way to be a - what was it... "complete artist"? I don't know what a complete artist is, to be quite honest. Is a conceptual artist a complete artist, a computer artist, an artist in one or two media who never ventures beyond them? Once you ask that question you find there's no real answer to it. Don't worry about that - it doesn't really mean very much, if anything. However, I would encourage you to work in colour - I just wouldn't say that you were not a complete artist if you chose not to. It would broaden your experience, and add to your vision even if you reverted to black and white work having tried it. Beware of dogmatism and dogmatists in art: you don't have to conform to anyone else's opinion of what you should be doing.

Keith Orange

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You can improve by painting and drawing regularly. I've found that attending one day courses, or two hour life classes once a week helps a lot. You could consider joining a distance learning (correspondence course) where you receive instructions on a range of painting projects, and you get written comments on your progress. This is a course that I did about 15 years ago, although I admit the price, at £1200 is rather high. https://www.oca.ac.uk/courses/-/painting-1-practice-of-painting/

Edited
by keora

Matt Mattia

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Hi keora! Thanks for your suggestion. I will check some online classe and the website you gave me. I recently signed up on newmasteracademy, which seems it offers some good courses. They Don't focus just on techniques but also in theory as well as art phylophy and phycology. I was also considering to take a course at artmentors.. well lets see what happens ;) I would love to partecipate to a Vilppu course which will be hold in wien in june - close to me. RobertJones, thanks for you answer. Funny.. I come from digital illustration which, you are making think now, seems use the word "artist" in order to describe a different idea compared to, for example, a classical painter. That being said I thought that art school could give me the notions I dont know like aestethic, psicology, how people think about an image.. maybe understanding better how to express what I want to "share" with a painting.. does it make sense? Again, my English is not so good :P I will surely consider to paint in color to broaden my horizons :) Thanks to everyone!