The lament of half the creative world is this – they want to be an artist, and yet, they can’t draw to save their lives. I was in (am in) this group! I am going to LEARN TO DRAW and BE AN ARTIST. Let’s grow a pair and LET’S DO THIS!
Everyone Can Be an Artist – Right?
We’ve been telling our oldest daughter since she was two (twelve years!) that she draws so well! We tell her, you can be an artist if you want to, later in life! You’ll have the most wonderful life!
Well, nobody told me that as a kid. I scribbled. I doodled. I messed up many homework, test, and scratch paper with utter nonsense because I CANNOT DRAW.
My uncle was an artist. James Rawlinson from western Pennsylvania. Many times when we went over to their house, he was drawing, oil painting, watercolor painting, sculpting, or just gazing out the window for inspiration about what to create next. He made his entire living from art. He did portraits of people at fairs. He taught art at the Ringling School of Art in Sarasota. He had a master’s degree in ART.
Hindsight
When I think back at the opportunity I had to be mentored by this guy and grow up as an artist myself, I want to throw up! I could HAVE DONE THAT!
Now I’m older. I’ve written books. I’ve shot 500 videos for a YouTube channel. I’ve created dozens of websites – some creative – and have made tons of money with these creative endeavors.
I WANT TO BE AN ARTIST!
I’ve made less than $100 on my ART. I can’t draw with pencil. I can’t draw/paint with paint. I can’t draw with charcoal. I can’t draw with a pen. I can’t draw with markers. I can’t sculpt. I can’t airbrush. I can’t digital paint.
I made ArtDayJob.com a few months ago. I decided, I don’t care WHAT my ABILITY is. I’m going to become an artist who supports myself with MY ART.
As I said, I can’t draw. That’s a self-imposed limit. But for now, it’s pretty damn true. I just can’t seem to draw anything well. I have practiced a bit over the past couple of years though and I can say I’ve improved about 600% – easily. Maybe 2,000%. It’s hard to qualify going from zero to something. But, I’m almost able to draw something now. People can tell what it was I was drawing at least. Most times.
Sometimes.
I need to LEARN TO DRAW SOMETHING WELL.
How To Learn To Draw Something Well?

- Copy all or any of the masters. Copy anyone. Copy something you see online that looks cool and you wish you could draw. Try to draw it. The other day I saw an ad for a motorcycle race. The graphic was simple, and yet cool. It didn’t really make sense, but I thought – I could almost do that. I’ll put it above. I’ll try to do it when my daughter gives me access to the iPad. Then I’ll put it here beside the original. YOU JUDGE! lol. eeks.
- Learn directly from a master! Find a mentor. Listen to everything they say. In fact, you don’t even have to introduce yourself, just start stalking someone and follow everything they put out. I’m about read to do this with Picasso. I saw 2 videos yesterday that got me REALLY excited about his work.
- YouTube Tutorials. Anyone can sit down for a couple of hours each day and watch art tutorials around topics you want to learn about. Have your sketch paper or iPad beside you as you watch on a desktop or laptop computer if you have that luxury of two devices. I thin more than anything, PRACTICE, is what’s going to help you get better at drawing. I have learned a LOT from videos, but still not finding the time to practice drawing and painting as much as I want to.
First Things First – What Do You WANT to Draw?
Even before you start copying the masters and what they’re doing you have to figure out what it is that YOU WANT to do with art. Do you want to make micro-stickers for 4 year olds to stick all over the house? Do you want to make tiny, colorful clay animals for the rest of your life? What art do you LIKE? What art can you make a DAY JOB out of? There’s a million things you could do, aren’t there?
For me, I only like a few styles of art. I have really become excited about some form of cubism. I don’t want to copy picasso, but I like the odd shapes, simplicity, solid colors, surreal, and bizarre nature of cubist art. I even love the really simple ones that are just nice colors in a nice pattern. That could really brighten a room – right?
I’m also drawn to the really noir stuff as well. Who’s that guy, uh, he’s like the noirmaster for bizarre paintings. English guy. OK, I’ll go find some of the 400 paintings of his I screenshotted a month ago from a YouTube video.

OK, one more because that Francis Bacon painting wasn’t twisted enough for this PG rated blog.

OK, so the above are not going to see buyers from ANY hotel, business, or organization that wants to keep doing business with any aspect of humanity. These are things that weird people keep in their homes to scare visitors. People who keep tarantulas as pets or someone in a rock band that wants to look even weirder to others.
Still, I tried something the other day on the iPad just to see if I had anything weird in me, because I DO like it.

So what else do I want to draw that might sell someday?
I tried this one as a study of line and color.

What Kind of Cubist Art Sells?
Cubist art is quite popular. I’ve been looking at a couple of artists on social media. One is on eBay. He has created his own style of Cubist art that is simple, has nice colors sometimes, and gets a point across every now and then. He adds more emotion to his paintings sometimes, and I have come to like a fraction of what he paints. Here are a couple of his paintings that I like.

OK, well I looked at 720 of his paintings and found one that I don’t like that much, but it’s ok and gives me ideas. He has over 2,000 paintings for sale on eBay today (10 Sept 2024) and has sold more than 13,000 items at eBay. Not sure if all were paintings, but this guy is a case study himself. If he is actually SELLING this art, I’d fall down in a coma. Most of it is just nonsense IMO.
I will need to do an entire article about this guy so you can see that ANYONE CAN BECOME AN ARTIST AND SUCCEED. He is the PERFECT example.
There’s an artist on Instagram, Color by Feliks, whose wife makes the videos for him, and he does the painting. He is quite good at a number of different styles of art, but the style that I like best from him is his cubist artwork. It’s super-simple, but the colors are very well-chosen.
They live in Puerto Rico and are able to ship out paintings to the states and worldwide. He doesn’t seem to do digital art, but no matter, he is quite good at traditional methods. Here are 2 of his paintings that I like. He sells them for over $1,000. Usually $1,800 or more.

[Top image of red-headed girl is © Mali Lovic]