A phone call from a mother who wanted to find good drawing lessons for her 11-year-old daughter inspired this post. I thought that I am often asked for helpful links, so it is an excellent idea to have it all in one place. Choosing an art class is important because a lot of art classes do more damage than good to the development of the children. Some remarks from unaware teachers make talented child convinced that he or she is not good enough. 100% of 5-year-olds are confident that they are great artists, and 90% of HS seniors are convinced that they are bad at art. How does it happen? Right. School. People who could not achieve success will spread their “educated opinion” about success, they will comment on the level of talent of a child, and we as a society will get another person with self-doubt and blocked creativity. Choosing a school and class is critical, and sometimes it is a blessing not to go to an art school/class until you find a right mentor. This advice should work for almost everyone, but please feel free to email me, connect with me on FB if you need to clarify the ideas that I put together here. I feel very passionate about proper art education, and I will be glad to help.
Dear Erin,
It is so awesome that you love to draw. I am happy to share these ideas with you, and I hope they will be helpful. I live in New York, and it is a little too far from where you are, but please feel free to send me some of your pictures or post them in the comment area. I will respond with feedback and help. Maybe your mom can join our group “Art Completes You”. It is a closed group, so she needs to send a request. Here is a link.
Let’s start:
To become good at art and have life long friendship with art expression you need these three equally important components:
– understanding who you are;
– having the skill to express it;
– enjoying yourself while doing it. .
Let’s start with understanding who you are as an artist. It requires experiments and maybe some thinking because you are already an artist, but you might not think so. You might need to work with different materials to understand which materials you like the most, or maybe build your drawing skill but whatever you do you need to keep the most important thing intact. That thing is your uniqueness. The way you see things, the way you feel and the way you will express them in art is unique. So any art lessons you take should keep this uniqueness un-disturbed.
Ask yourself these questions to figure out what kind of artist you already are:
What kind of pictures(paintings) I love? What are the colors that I love? Do I like to work slowly? Do I work fast? What kind of stories I like? Who are my heroes? Why?
There are no wrong answers. These questions should help you realize that you have preferences, and they need to be respected and taken into account. In art and life, you have a choice, and you have a right to make your choice.
Whatever rules in art exist or people say they live from another human being making these rules up. So why aren’t you allowed to make up your rules? You are allowed, and it is the way.

The second important thing is about building your skill. To give you an example, if you want to learn to draw people well, you need to put some time into that, Some people are afraid to draw people so they draw cats instead of people. It is not a good decision. Your choice needs to be from you being able to do what you want. Whatever you want to express, you should learn how to express without feeling impossibility. Everything is a skill only. Sometimes we learn fast, sometimes it takes time, but the process of learning is as fun as a final result so never stress out about a picture that does not look the way you want it to look right away. Pay attention to your ability to see and pay attention that you can see more than before. Make it a game. “I saw only these shades/tones yesterday, but there is more!” And do not forget to celebrate these discoveries. You may share with your mom. She seemed to be so interested in helping you.
Some more advice:
1. Drawing from real life is a great start. I would choose the object you are interested. It can be a potato, a book, a spoon. Be patient, be curious, try to play the game “what else do I see”, close one eye and draw. Most of the time (about 70%) you should be looking at the object you chose. When you feel you are tired of the drawing, you can put it aside to come back to it or… (!) turn the object into some funny story. Your potato can be Mr. Potato in a car that flies to the moon.
2. Choose some pictures that you like. They should not be too busy. Draw them upside down. Imagine you are an alien and you have no idea how these things look like. After you finished drawing upside down,
turn your picture to the side and see if you can see better and can improve the drawing. Keep turning. Have Fun!!!. It is a great practice to be able to see only the lines.
3. Look at this line exercise. It is all about the line. Do this anytime you want. You can also turn your lines into different shapes.

4. Check some Youtube Videos if you want to learn specific things.  For example, put in the search “how to draw the eyes”, etc.  Mom should help you with this so you stay on high quality videos only.

The third important thing is enjoying what you do. Allow yourself to enjoy your art. Decide what you consider beautiful. You are the decision maker here. Your rules are the only rules that matter for your art. Every new trend in art started with one artist who broke the rules. You do not need to break the rules for the sake of breaking the rules (although it is fine), but you have the right to doubt and experiment so you find your voice.
Good luck with your art! I hope to meet you one day at Paint Your Breakthrough Intensive. It is the best art program to become an Artist. Click here to see some art from that workshop.
All the best, Elena