Advice to Beginning Students

What we wish we knew from the beginning!

ART SCHOOL ADVICE

COLLEGE IS THE BEST PLACE FOR YOU TO GET YOUR NAME AROUND! Be kind, talk to people in all majors, be friendly, and go to art events! Making connections and learning how to speak with people is one of the most important parts of art! You can be the best artist in the world but if you keep to yourself all the time you won’t seem approachable for possible commissions! Not to mention it's a part of life! Take the public speaking class, it's really helpful!

Talk to your classmates, you’ll see each other for years to come, people are not as scary as they seem.
Talk. During. Critique. Your input is more valuable than you think, and being able to understand other artists' work will help you understand your own.

Don’t procrastinate. Like period. You have an illustration to get done? Do it right when you have the time! You'll thank yourself when you don't have to stay up till 4 am to finish your work like all your friends. It's like a reward when you forget you already did that and find it to already be done!
DO NOT, and I mean, DOOOO NOT put off any sort of animation project, sleep deprivation actually removes the quality of your work, and though procrastination seems like a good option, it can and will make your miserable.

Take your mental health seriously, it will affect the success rate of your work, find the times you need to rest and pace yourself.
Sleeping is quite important. Making sure to put mental and physical health in the first place
Don’t forget to live a little and experience as much as you can, your work is unmeasurably valuable, but so is your work as a human being.
Don’t be afraid to be a freaking weirdo, there are different types of nuts in this world, and every human aligns with some kind of nuts.
Don’t overwork yourself. Build time management skills, try not to leave anything for last minute as the work would probably be lower in quality and stress you out a lot. Rest a lot.
Touch Grass.

Finding reference pictures and using tools wisely will increase the effectiveness of creation.
Draw. A lot. Do a lot of small doodles. Start your own projects. Get clients if you can. Don’t draw only for class.
Don't buy expensive new art supplies, buy used ones from other students who have taken the course.

Start really thinking about what kind of job you would want to get with your degree early (if you haven’t already)
Get involved in galleries, talks, whatever you can to put yourself out there. It is so much better to do something then regret that you didn’t.

Comparing myself makes me feel much more comfortable, and the only result is winning more and less than yesterday.
Don’t try to compare yourself to the artists you are surrounded around, everyone develops differently and with different styles, just try to learn from others.
Try to convince yourself to be interested in learning even when it seems tasking, it will give you long term joy and satisfaction to continually challenge yourself. Nice things and experiences take work.
Always take others' opinions on what you should do with a grain of salt.
If you're losing motivation to make art, draw a picture of a friend's pet and see how happy it makes them :)

Take your art history classes (the first 2) sooner rather than later! So then you won’t have to work on your capstone and 2 upper level ARTH classes at the same time. It will also make it so you can sign up for those extra classes you wanna take for fun, like printmaking, woodworking, and pottery on the wheel.
If you can, get a kitchen suite. Even if you can stand the food here, you’ll get tired of it.
You can't just draw all the time cuz all your other classes take up a lot of time.

Visit the creek, it's one of the most inspiring spots within walking distance of campus.
Park your car overnight on the far end of campus where it takes everyone 10 minutes to walk to.
The dorms are terrible cuz every in there is lazy and they think their moms are still picking up after them.

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