Tip: How to Improve Your Art
Written by Heather Musante

How to Improve Your Art
Many people will tell you the only way to improve is practice, practice, practice.  This is only partially true.  You also need to have a process of analyzing what you’ve done, to know how to improve your art and where to focus your efforts.

0) Do NOT throw away any of your art. — Art you don’t like is a valuable learning tool.   And can potentially get fixed later on once you’ve learned more skills.
1) Look at the art you don’t like differently. — Take a picture of it and look at it on your phone, lean it up on the other side of the room, mat it.  All of these will make you notice something different than while you were working on it diligently up close.
2) Make a detailed list of what you don’t like — be explicit.  Don’t just write “I don’t like it”, instead write “The expression on the face seems lifeless”, or “it feels flat rather than 3 dimensional”, or “the subject doesn’t stand out from the background enough”.  All of these are easily solvable.
3) Make a list of ways to solve what you don’t like. — ask people around you if they have suggestions for the issue in question, ask one of the artists at The Local Artisan Collective, Google art similar to yours to see what they did differently, watch YouTube videos, get art books from the library.
4) Try out those changes. — Did it help? Did it not? Analyze the impact and learn from it.
5) Repeat.

Some simple solutions to common problems are:
– “feels flat” — add more color and shade variation to every object; possibly add more contrast (brighter brights and darker darks)
– “lifeless face” — add white to the eyes for the reflection of light
– “boring” — add action/movement, add a wider range of values, add expression, add more detail
– “doesn’t pop” — add more contrast (brighter brights and darker darks)

That’s it!  Have fun!

Find Heather’s original paintings, prints, mugs, stickers and more in the store.  You can also find some of her beautiful paintings online here.