How do you make art?

[AhabGreybeard]

You may know that already but this is a public conversation for anybody who wants to know “how do you make art?”.

The post by @DrunkenUFOPilot will be very useful and encouraging for anybody who’s inexperienced. I found it useful and interesting.

So, what is it that’s missing that you do want to know?

[Michelist]

@DrunkenUFOPilot

This is way too general a question to write a real answer. As the others have written, watch tutorials and ask more specific questions. Some may say that a question like this should not be answered, but others new to Krita are going to find this question and will read the answers. We might as well say something useful.

So, my answer, as an experienced fine artist, Blender artist/animator and almost-newbie to Krita:

0. If you are already an artist, have an “artist’s eye” and can make great drawings and paintings with pencil, pen, charcoal, oil or acrylic, cool! At the opposite end, if you are a know-nothing total newbie who “can’t draw a stick figure” then, get basic drawing experience with pencil and paper and a book like Betty Edwards’ Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. Be an artist, even if a freshly hatched one with hours not years of experience.
1. If not already done, install Krita. If you have a graphics tablet or other hardware beyond the usual keyboard+mouse, and get it working properly.
2. Watch a few tutorials on Youtube or wherever. It can be fun to just start doodling, but sometimes when I’m totally new to some software I may not be able to make the least scribble or squeak. Some basics of operation will be needed to make the software, Krita or any other, do at least something.
3. Spend some time, perhaps a few hours initially, at least some time say 20 minutes every day just doodling. Make squiggles and loops and dots with each type of brush, choose different colors, try all the blending modes (half will appear to do nothing) and generally “waste some paper”. Make messes. Don’t care about making anything look good. Get a feel for things. Sometimes you will be bored. Sometimes you will be surprised.
4. Now try a practice project. Copy some existing digital work, or try a digital version of one of your own drawings or paintings. Or make up something. Pick something simple, or one character or object out of a more complex work. See how far you can get copying. You may make some original creative tweaks if you like, but the purpose is to gain experience finding the right tools and figuring out how to accomplish making the shapes, gradients, composition and colors that you see. What may seem like the obvious way to paint or draw something, may very well work just fine, but sometimes you are not so lucky! Try different tools, different ways of achieving the same result. At first it may be hard to find more than one way for a lot of things, but keep poking around the menus, fiddle with layers, try tools you know nothing about yet. Sometimes you will make a disaster! There is always ctrl-Z to undo. (Much cheaper than buying more paint, ink, Prismacolors, paper…)
5. Now, having done some doodling around, and having attempted to purposefully achieve some desired effect, follow some tutorials, videos, how-to articles on more elaborate projects.

Of course, if at any time you get a whim or desire to make some specific original artwork, go for it! If due to being only halfway up the learning curve, the result is disappointing, save the file in a folder and come back to in a month or two, and have another go at it.

Use as many layers as you dare, so changes are easier. Unlike painters, we digital artists can easily make a subtle color adjustment to a background without messing up anything in the foreground. Painters sometimes improve their old works, but we can do so much more easily! So keep any works you like even if they come short of what you intended.

Among my favorite magazines are 3D Artist and 3D World. I have a stack from the past several years. There are articles by artists showing how they created fantastic pieces from scratch. You don’t need to be using Maya or Blender or be doing anything 3D to follow the overall process. Much of 3D art is texture painting, background painting, making beautiful shapes, lighting. You will have to paint light effects in 2D art, on each object and every detail of each character, not just drag a “lamp” into the 3D scene and that’s it. Digital 2D artists have it so hard!! But it is so much more fun and satisfying, isn’t it?

Anyway, a combination of every day doodling, observing real life, copying existing works as study, and following how-to and how-i-did-it articles and videos, and a touch of craziness you get you on the road to where you want to be.

@raghukamath
I suggest this beautifully encouraging posting by @DrunkenUFOPilot be placed in what I should now call a more “prominent place” in the Beginner’s Questions section and pinned firmly. In my eyes it is worth it.

Michelist

[RamonaTheCat]

I want to know how to get to where you make art. like where you start the art.

[EyeOdin]

People have answered your question several times already.

[Takiro]

Seriously, if all the tutorials and gudies written and linked here do not help you then I’m afraid nothing will.

[RamonaTheCat]

I’m gonna close this soon. Okay?

[illarstration]

I guess @RamonaTheCat has some understanding of some drawings being “art” and some not. If that’s what this is about, it clearly can’t be solved in just a thread. I’d say it’s best to just keep creating, as art can be different to anyone?

Maybe I got this wrong, but I think the question was not about actual digital painting procedures?

[Takiro]

No, i think they simply still don’t understand that you have to download and install Krita on your device and that this here is just a forum and you can’t draw on the forum.

@RamonaTheCat

I logged in and now my only question is where you can find how to create art like how to find where you can create it.

We had similar posts now and then and it was always people not getting that this is just a website and not the drawing app.

Just look at this entire thread where the user doesn’t understand that they are on the website

How to open canvas

Hello everyone! I was wondering if you all know how to open the canvas for Krita?

[illarstration]

alright then, I didn’t think of that

[Troken]

I think some basic knowledge of how computer applications work would be necessary.

[Michelist]

@RamonaTheCat:
Please excuse the form of my following questions, they are offensive and you might find them rude, but I just want to understand why you keep asking the same questions. I hope your answers will allow us to help you in some way.

1. you say you are still in school. How old are you?

2. what kind of device do you use to write here with us, to talk with us?
   Is it a computer (examples: PC, notebook, laptop, Chromebook, iMac, MacBook, MacMini, PowerBook, or similar), a tablet (examples: Samsung Galaxy Tab, Amazon Fire HD, Lenovo Tab, Apple iPad), a cell phone, a game console (examples: PlayStation, XBox, Wii), a TV with internet access, or something else and what is it?

3. On the one hand, you have written posts in very neat and precise English. (I don’t know of any translation software capable of such texts).
   On the other hand, you have a way of expressing yourself and choosing phrases that sometimes give me the impression that you have big problems with the English language, especially with understanding what is being explained to you here. (One could almost believe there is more than one RamonaTheCat)
   This can have several reasons, maybe it is not your native language, you have a reading and spelling disability or other reasons.
   Please tell us what language you speak, what is your mother tongue?

If English is not your native language, you may find someone here who speaks your language and can explain it to you.

Michelist