Art background?

[dargrin]

Ok, out of everyone that paints minis, who here has an art background? ie went to an art school, has a job as an artist, etc etc.

 

I mean some of these works that I have been seeing lately are really awesome. Makes me think that maybe I should have paid more attention in art class rather then messing around.

 

Sometimes people have just have a gift of painting an with that I am envious...

[Star Drifter]

I did three years in high school, but not anything formal beyond that.

 

I've still kept my skills active in other ways, though.

[Anastrianna]

Well...I don't have an art background or an art job per say but I do work in a corp. merchandising dept. were I work closely with vendors in China at designing product concepts and/or making items better visually, ie. colors, patterns, textures. Does that count?

[FuzzyIzmit]

I had art all four years in high school and minored in art in university...plus I am building my portfolio as a free lance biomedical illustrator.

[Vil-hatarn]

I would be doing art all through high school, but orchestra won out, and I only get one elective a year. So, no art courses until college for me.

[Kheprera]

Nothing formal. Everything I've done is self-trained, although I did finally get some feedback from Talin during ReaperCon.

 

I'm a desktop publisher and do a lot of work with graphics, and at work they consider me the graphics guru. Now, if they would just get me a decent graphic program like the Photoshop I see laying around unused, or even Paint Shop Pro, I'd be happy.

 

Art does run in the family, though. My real grandfather (mother's side), grandmother (also mother's side), and aunt (mom's sister) were/are all artists. My grandmother even had a painting that Dali wanted to purchase, but she refused to sell any of her artwork. My great-grandfather (mother's side) was an inventor, and I have at least one uncle (father's side) and one great-uncle (mother's side) who are both carpenters/cabinetmakers (although both are in their 80's now).

 

I was also once a professional photographer with four years of photography and photo journalism in high school, and another ten years in the industry after high school. I left the profession because I could only make decent money shooting weddings which I found highly stressful and a pain in the butt. I personally despise portrait photography but love artistic creativity in working with closeup and nature photography.

[Flit]

I took one year of Art Class in high school and one semester of "Art Studo" in college. I don't think that really counts as an art background. I was always making stuff and doing crafty type things while I was growing up though.

[Qwyksilver]

I never had much formal art training beyond elementary and junior high art class.

 

I drew and muddled with clay all the time growing up. In college I worked for the theatre department building and designing sets and did some lighting. I took a figure sculpting class as an elective and hated the professor (he would not excuse me from a class so I could go home for my nephews 1st birthday party). I never cared for art classes in high school because the teacher had a tendency to force her own style on people, which I would not tolerate. I was an illustrator for the HS Literary Magazine. I've always been a dabbler with drawing. I prefer pencil and B&W ink.

 

Oddly enough, the one facet of art I ALWAYS hated as a child was painting. I never enjoyed it. It was something that didn't interest me. Other than making models, I hated working with wood too.

 

I only started enjoying painting, when I started doing it on minis back in Dec 2002.

[Hendercrazy]

Beyond high school... everything has been self taught for the most part. Working with fellow artists and getting published now and then has been a nice learning experience too.

 

Keeping an open mind, using references as much as possible, working with others and trying new things can really make a difference.

[styates]

My mother is an artist, so I've been exposed to a lot of art throughout my life, but I've never had any formal training myself. Of course, I don't paint much yet either!

[deep_sashelas]

Zero formal trained background. Consistently failed or barely passed art in school as it was never taught well. The only thing I remember was getting pointed to some 'still life' of fruits and vases and told to draw it. No clue where to even start.

 

Family practically prided themselves on being crummy at art. Lead to believe that I couldn't draw or doing anything 'art-y' either. Still not very good at 2D stuff.

 

Only got an inkling that art comes in many variations (ie. not boring academic)when exposed to fantasy art. Though I couldn't hope to ever draw any to amazing quality. Computers and Photoshop tutorials opened my eyes to actually creating passable web graphics and nice textures.

 

Always been pretty good with my hands though. Loved origami, and clay and sticky tac. So when I learned fantasy dragons came in 3D, decided to be brave enough to try painting miniatures. Fun. And all self-taught from that interest. Borrowed books, read 'net articles, etc.

[EricJ]

Like most people here it seems, I don't have much formal training with paints, other than a high school class, however my artistic background sounds a lot like Aryanun. I own my own graphic design/desktop publishing business, and have done a bunch of work in photography as well.

 

Honestly, I think photography, in both B/W and color, have contributed a ton to my painting. Obviously not pure painting techniques of applying pigment, but rather in composition. Use of both color and tone to achieve the desired "feel" to a piece. How to best use accents to achieve a desired effect and focus the eye of the viewer where you want it. I pretty much thank photography for teaching me all of that.

 

-Eric

[Maceswinger]

I never had training but always had delusions of grandeur about someday working in the comic industry.

 

In school everyone said I should work in comics. My mother said the same thing. But they had no idea about how bad my art is compared to the comics I so love to read and collect.

So I tried training myself with the help of books, internet etc. Even though I made a slight improvment a few years ago, I stopped doing it when my son was born. I recently got back to it and I still suck and my "style" also sucks.

 

I used to be one of those artist who drew something and liked it, then looked at it again 5 minutes later and hated it.

 

I have pretty much given up ever getting into doing art for comics. But my creativity is still there. And I love to thinking up heroes and villians and there amazing tales. So I have now looked into the process of writing comics....

[Digital [email protected]]

As you could tell from my work, I not only have no art training since grade school, but I lack basic understanding of color and light. I have recently picked up photography and hope that will help develope the skills Eric & Aryanun talked about.

 

It is sad, but every year in grade school I make a ceramic duck paperclip holder and the one I made in second grade is better than the one I made in sixth I have no ability to draw and little vision, but I really enjoy painting miniatures.

[Erion]

I've taken two art classes in my life.

 

My degree is is English Lit and IT. You should read my user manuals. Sheer Poetry.