by Therese Daniels

Created on: April 24, 2008   Last Updated: July 27, 2009

Fine arts is one of the hardest and most difficult fields of endeavor to financially succeed. It is also one of the most difficult subjects to master in both drawing and painting. It is in some ways a career crap shoot. The long process of learning is very expensive. Only about 1% of all art students succeed in any large measure of success. Five years after high school graduation a young woman is earning a decent living as a court room stenographer. Five years after college an accountant is earning a $100,000 per year. Ten years after graduation a doctor or attorney is earning over $200,000 a year. Forty years after a fine artist has graduated art school, chances are he is still trying to earning a living. Carl Jung said it best. "Artists are victims of their own creative fire." That is why they sacrifice a quality life and diet in trade for a tube of paint for a loaf of bread. Nevertheless, if the desire to want to learn to draw exists, there are many opportunities to do so.

There are many drawing techniques and styles. There are just as many methods of teaching or learning how to draw. One isn't a better than the other. It is what is most compatible with the person studying. Some artists study under many teachers. Others choose only one. Some learn from the many how to draw books available on the market. Some never take classes and draw very well. If it works for the art student, any method is valid.

Many years ago, I exclaimed out loud to myself at the end of a life drawing work shop, I needed to return to school, because all I was doing in my drawing was repeating they same mistakes. The wise owner of the life drawing work shop heard me and gave me some very good advice. He advised me against returning to school because, he said, it would take too long. He suggested I find an artist whose work was so much like I wanted to do and ask that artist if I could study under him. He added I would learn more in six months under conditions like that than I would in four years of school. That was the best advice I ever got as an art student. I eventually found such an artist. With this man's teaching I learned to draw very well.

Drawing begins with basic drawing. That is learning to draw shapes like cubes, cones, spheres, and pyramids. These are the basic shapes in everything in life an artist will ever draw. Basic drawing teaches the student to become sensitive to shape, light, shade and cast shadow.The lightest light and the darkest dark

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