Should I take college art classes or learn online?

Advice for beginner artists.

I get this question a lot so I posed the query last week in hopes to get you all thinking on your own and now I am going to give my answer. This may take awhile so you may want to pack a lunch or put on a pot of coffee.

Let me just start by saying that it is really an unfair comparison, it is like the old apples and oranges thing. But let’s compare anyway.

So first, let’s look at cost.

 

Online, you could probably spend anywhere from $1000 maybe even up to $5000. With that amount of money and a little digging around on the internet, finding a few systems or mentors that work for you, and applying yourself, you should be able to get all the schooling you need to become a genuine artist and get started as a pro. Compare that to a state college where you could spend from $25,000 to $35,000 and that’s if they even have an illustration program and if you are close enough to go to that school. Compare that to an bonafide (bow-nuh-fide) Art School that can cost well over $100,000.

What Kind of Artist Are You?

Maybe a better question here would be, What kind of student are you? This makes a lot of
difference. Are you super motivated? Do you love to draw? Do you love to paint? Are you a
self-starter and can you push yourself. This will make a lot of difference. If you are self
motivated, like most of us are NOT, then you will most likely do better any way. If so, you
could become a professional artist/illustrator and do well without any college or formal
education. When people really want to learn something, they usually figure out a way to do it. Libraries, stores, teachers/mentors, internet etc. That is probably fewer than 3% of us, but if you really made up your mind to be one of those 3%, I believe you could. I believe you CAN. I KNOW YOU CAN. I also know you probably won’t. (just sayin)

Another type of artist is the one that was never encouraged to be an artist, in fact they
may have been discouraged by their parents and teachers. “You’ll starve!” They probably didn’t spend enough time and effort doing art, therefor they may be late getting into the game. But they finally decide that that is what they want to do and they do it.

Third type, people like me who went to college and took art or majored in art because they knew (or thought) they weren’t smart or good at anything else. I just wanted a degree because everyone told me I needed one to get by in this life. I went into art because I had doodled so much in high school and always thought art was easy. Boy was I wrong.

Back then I couldn’t spend more than a few hours working on art. I burned out fast, it wasn’t fun to do ALL day, but that was something I got used to when I went full time.

Most people at a university art program are supported or helped, by parents and peers, they have the time to dedicate themselves to their art. Many need not worry about money, and no one is asking them what they are going to do with their life. You can hide out in school and all the grown ups are so proud.

The Hoops are a Good thing. 

At a formal school, you are given hoops to jump through. They make you do things and do them on time. You are given assignments, with deadlines. If it weren’t for the last minute, nothing would ever get done. This is probably the biggest reason for learning at a university. The assignments and the deadlines, as well as the looming threat of a bad grade or expulsion. After all, I’m paying all that money, or worse, my parents are paying all that money, I better show up and do what I committed to do.

Jump through your own hoops

You should be working on getting to the point where you can give yourself an assignment, and a deadline and meet that deadline and love doing the assignment. Every one wants to work for themselves but nobody wants to boss them-self around. I got some advice for you, Boss yourself around! In a good way. When you get to that point, you can do a lot better using online resources to get a good art education. Or any education for that matter.

Classmates are a good thing

Class mates? Yup, one of the biggest advantages of going to a formal school, is that you have class mates, peers, colleagues, contemporaries. You can learn a lot from your class mates. Over a 4-5 year period meeting with these like-minded friends you will learn a lot. Plus you make friends live long friends in the industry.

 

art demo’s in person & teaching aids. Good thing.

Another advantage of the formal school, is seeing up close, the traditional painting, and
drawing. Seeing demos up close and in person. Digital painting is easy to teach online. But
there is something to be said for being there and learning from a live person, in person.
Having that teacher there looking over your shoulder, and drawing on your drawings or over them on on fodder. One on one time too. I remember Robert Barrett, the dean of the Illustration department at BYU, getting out some big thick book and showing me some examples of rim lighting and other stuff by great artists when I would ask him for a little advice. He had more books than Belle’s friend Beast.

The Dreaded Class Critique: Good.

What about those awful class critiques. Having the whole class try to find flaws in your work. “Is he deformed or is that just bad drawing?” And critiquing the work of other’s, that is valuable in learning what works and what doesn’t, and why.

Foundation Courses, Who Needs ’em?

In college you are forced to take foundation classes like color theory, and art history. Foundation classes are great BUT most of us, especially online learners want to skip the “boring stuff” and get right into the good stuff. “Don’t teach me to see and draw and paint basic shapes, teach me to paint like a pro, NOW!” Line upon line my friend.
So I’m saying that foundation classes are a good thing. College or other.

Location

Online learning wins in the Location department, in most cases. Some people live next door to a good school and others want to be far away from mom and dad and “go to school”. However,most people can’t just commute to a university. We, at Folio Academy for example, have a lot of students from other countries.

Online art lessons for College students

We also have a lot of college students that just love our digital painting courses like painting in Photoshop, because while they may have taken a Photoshop course, in college, didn’t really learn how to “Paint” in Photoshop or use photo shop to illustrate. So a lot of college students are learning on line in their spare time.

Four Types of Art “Instructors/Teachers”

First of all, There are those that CAN’T. Can’t paint, Can’t draw and Can’t teach. I haven’t seen very many of those online, but there are a lot in the universities. The internet will not applaud mediocrity. So the cream rises to the top of search engines as people like it or they don’t and online there is no tenure.

There are those that can’t paint and draw, but they CAN teach and they CAN motivate and
inspire. They expose you to good stuff and enlighten you with what they do know even if their artwork isn’t the best.

There are those that CAN paint and draw, but they CAN’T teach. They’ve got their degree, you’ve gotta give’m that. For some reason, having a doctorate in art is supposed to make you an awesome teacher. Not so. These instructors are often awesome artists but have no people skills. Or they don’t care, or they might be prima donas or maybe they are just tenured or burnt out. I hope I don’t offend anyone but I will name a few names here. Just Joking, I hope I do offend. No, I mean I won’t name any names.

And then there are the ones that CAN do and CAN teach. I have seen a lot of them, in
Universities and online. They are the ones you want to learn from. So do your homework,
whether you are learning online or at university. Just because you are spending thousands of dollars doesn’t mean that you will always have this type of teacher.

In Fine

I would be afraid of going the university rout, even though you can get financing and loans,
I would try not to get into debt, banking on the dream that I will someday be a rich artist
and easily pay back all the student loans.

That’s my two cents. How did you know that I wouldn’t really answer the question. I just pointed out a bunch of stuff. You decide, I am proud of you either way. Remember, the main question to answer here is, What Kind of Artist Are You? Or better yet, decide what type of artist you WANT to be, and become that.