How to get better at art and find inspiration!

Hey everyone!!
Art improvement and inspiration is always the question I get asked most, so I am really going to go into detail! 
If I help just one person I will be a bundle of joy! 

Jemaica, how do I know you have any knowledge of this subject??

Behold, my 5 year improvement meme! 



I think I improved quite a bit in 5 years!

How can an artist improve?

The number 1 way to get good at art is to PRACTICE A LOT!
Imagine that there are 10,000 bad drawings stuck in your hand before you can get to the really really good ones. You can either give up and never get the drawings out of your hand, or you can get them all out ASAP and reach those good ones that are probably stuck like, back in your shoulder and you need to get them free!

The more you challenge yourself will help you grow too. I love drawing cute faces, and to challenge myself I will put that cute face on a new body pose, or with a new light source so I can get some challenge in without wanting to rip my hair out!

Sakimichan said that she used to practice for 17 HOURS a day!! you can see it has paid off in her skill! 

"But Jemaica, I want to improve but I dont have any free time!!" 
Friend, you gotta MAKE TIME! Wake up an hour earlier, take less hours at your job and only eat cheap ass food, wear the same pants every day, have no friends, if you really want to be an artist you can make it happen! (take it from me, I quit my extra job hours to create more art and be a starving artist. disclaimer that I am a college student taking care of just one cat and if you have kids or 50 cats, this will be a lot harder!)


Should I go to art school?

I think NO! nope! nuh-uh!
You can pay 20,000/year to make art in a dusty classroom with some teacher who does not even know what a tablet is, or you can pay no dollars a year to make the same art at home, and get help from other artists online. I am in art school but I am completely self taught, and I can honestly say I have learned nothing from my art professors ;o; (but I got a free ride and decided to do college for the fun parts of it, and a detour to becoming an adult!)
Of course if you are going to a fancy digital art school like digipen, that can be an awesome choice depending on what you want to do! But if you just want to do your own thing and make art, it is not needed in my personal experience.

How do you teach yourself new things? 

Here is 100% what I do when I am ready to improve on my art!
I take art from my reference folders, and maybe I love something specific about it and I want that to be in my art. I stare at that picture and STUDY IT and try to draw it the best I can!! I try to figure out what the artist was doing so I can apply it to my own work. For example this could be the way the hair flows, the colors of the eye, the shape of the body, etc! And by mashing up these different arts and studies, I slowly create my own style!



Jemaica, I don't know what to draw, I have no inspiration!!

This is where your REFERENCE FOLDERS come in!


every day you look at new art, from people you follow on deviantart, or on pinterest, or wherever you find art. And when you see art you love, save that in a folder on your computer.


When I am feeling uninspired or I need a reference and I am not sure how to draw something, I go dig through my folders for a while until I feel inspired by all the beautiful art I have saved or I find a good reference. I currently have like, ten thousand pictures in these folders or something, its crazy! This way I can always get an idea for something to draw. Maybe I pass by a picture of an orange..and then a picture of a unicorn...and then a picture of a waterfall. And I think, I could create a magic surfing orange juice unicorn!! BAM INSPIRATION!



I hope this helped and if you have any other questions for me, ask below and I will respond or make another journal about it! Thanks for reading and good luck!