Art Classes VS Self Taught

[RagtimeMoz]

So which camp do you fall under, did you learn to draw from art classes in school/college or did you teach yourself everything you know?
Maybe it's a mixture of the both where you learnt from books or YouTube videos.

For me I'd say I started off teaching myself but during highschool I learnt a lot from art classes. After school I moved to an animation diploma and learned lots to improve my art. Makes me wonder how my art would've been different if I was a more self taught artist.

[Sinicalcomics]

im basically self taught, using youtube videos and those terrible christopher hart books in middle school (still love them lmao), i plan to go to art school because i think it would be a fun experience and a chance to improve my art since whenever im surrounded by other artists my skill tends to improve more

i sometimes post my art on instagram if you would like to see my art https://www.instagram.com/cocowboyy/

do you have a link to your art?

[IndigoShirtProd]

I lie in both, because I was an art kid in middle and high school so I took the art classes that they offered. And I think I took an art class at my community rec center when I was much younger. Since I've gotten out of high school, I haven't taken any classes, mainly because my major in college was not art based. I haven't done much learning from books, but for my purposes I do and did watch plenty of youtube videos, so I guess I'm mainly self taught.

[Mallory]

I'm self-taught, my parents always told me "school was for "real" subjects" (bless their hearts), so I only ever took science and/or math at school. I did have an opportunity to take one studio class in university (where I studied the "real" subject biology) and that was fun, but I think I'm too undisciplined as an artist to enjoy art school, haha.

Everything else is just cobbled together from drawing (mainly) and a couple books and videos.

[Aleksei]

Self-taught.
Never knew what I was doing though, because I didn't have where to learn it. I didn't have the internet on those times, and the learning books where out of my reach, or too deep to learn something practical for a newbie as myself. School was of no help, either.
I didn't studied nothing around drawing because that don't pay where I live. It didn't matter much, because without contacts I can't find a job on whatever I studied anyway, so I just kept learning my way on drawings as a hobby on my own time. Pandemic hit, and I found myself with a lot of time to research youtube, domestika, books, so I went for a webcomic. I needed the practice. And here I am. One year of comic online. And still without job, ha!

[MeltingCORE]

I got a degree in illustration before I moved onto art history/Egyptology. So, I was taught at a university level and let me tell you: It was hard work but worth it. However, I don't think that makes me better than self-taught artists. We're all artists no matter how we learned. What matters is getting your fundamentals down and you don't need college for that! If anything, self-taught artists, my guys, you're so lucky you didn't have to go through the nerve wracking... critique days. (Definitely not for the faint of heart! Even the coolest artist in our class hated them and he was legit like, concept artist level good.)

Also, another thing I could talk about is how overly harsh some professors can be (but that's a wholly different subject).

[NickRowler]

I guess a mix of both plus learning from working a job.

I think having both is important. I feel like just because you are no longer in school, that doesn't mean you stop learning.

I also find it a bit odd that some people who claim they are self taught actually learned from books, videos, online tutorials, etc. I don't know if that counts as "self taught". Versus something like Outsider Art which is people just doing whatever and not caring about fundamentals or realism.

[euphisa]

I learnt from art classes. In secondary school, I took up art as a subject. The teachers would force me to draw relentlessly, on and off art classes (I'd show you if I could, but I'm not allowed to till somewhere next month maybe). It was honestly very tough, because I like to procrastinate a lot. So it felt more like I was self taught, with occasional advice or feedback given to me.

I've graduated from secondary school, and am planning to move on to polytechnic where hopefully I'll get into animation course, and be taught everything I need to know about animating. I had taught myself to make a basic 2D animation, but that's all, and having a teacher would help a ton.

[TheGentleArtist]

Both.
I practiced drawing and taught myself a few things while also following some tips online; learned even more in art class in highschool and college. So now I apply both in my art.

[vapidink]

Self-taught, but I took an art class as a junior in high school. I was decent at drawing though, so the teacher just let me do my own thing because it was a beginner's class. Then she requested I take AP studio art so I did that, and it was more of doing my own thing, but also I had like a dozen prompts to draw. That was all traditional art though, but I'm more of a digital artist now, so I kinda learned more from youtube and reading a lot of comics, lol.

[VibrantFox]

self taught for the most part. i took the usual art classes in middle and high school and like the one graphic design course in college before i essentially dropped out but everything else i've learned has come from practice and studiying the crap out of other folks art styles and looking at a million youtube tutorials, speedpaints and whatever other free resources the internet had to offer at a given time

i will say i can give a pretty good amount of credit to my understanding of like hella basics of color theory to my graphic design class and the little bit of practice i got doing "contest style" work (as i can best think to describe it) which made further explanations on online tutorials a lot easier to grasp and then just kinda goin wild via hands on practice

i think the biggest thing tho is the fact that al my k-12 art classes were all traditional (since tbh i couldn't have seen them spending hundreds if not thousands for the equipment necessary back then) and i do digital now but in theory a good bit of it does cross over so it's not like anything went to waste

[GingerLoge]

Both. I've started as self-taught and created a lot of comics inspired by my favorite anime and manga back in middle and high school, then while at university I also took some art classes to finally learn the basics. the classes were focused on comic making and concept art. I usually look online or in books for anything else.
I'm not taking any classes right now, so I guess I'm self teaching myself again.

[Lensing]

Everyone is self taught.
The art class is just a medium like a book, an online teacher, youtube or sending your
work to a mentor and getting critique from them.
It´s like learning an instrument, going to the gym, learning languages. You can do that
with a trainer, teacher, youtube, a book. You have to do the work and teach/train yourself

[DualDragons]

Self taught, my college area lies in mechanical engineering

[river121693]

a mix of both. I went to a fine arts school, but it was conceptual-art focused. I took a few technical classes, but mostly taught myself the techniques.
Conceptual arts sometimes get bad reps, but it taught me a lot about creating meaningful art with intentionality, which has been very important in my comic work too. Both are important.

[darthmongoose]

I studied art up to A-level in school, but the syllabus at my school and sixth form (UK early 00s) were so focused on how to become a modern fine artist (ie. how to document your process and develop pieces for exhibition focused on the meaning and novelty of the work and the exploration that went into it over the actual quality of the piece) rather than grounding in the basic principles of art like anatomy, perspective, value, composition etc. I largely consider myself self-taught.

I read a lot of books, practiced, made webcomics and got feedback from peers and industry professionals through uni even though what I was studying in Uni was English Literature and Japanese. When I finished university, I found myself more in demand as an illustrator than a Japanese-speaker, so I just kept going, then saved up and went back to Uni to do an MA in Games Design. There was an artistic component to that degree, but the only tuition was in 3D modelling since I was already a professional-level illustrator (that's how I got onto an MA unrelated to my BA).

Honestly only a minority of pro Illustrators I know have relevent academic qualifications. Most of them just took their hobby very seriously and got really good at it. Art school does sound good for exploration and also for making contacts and learning how to market yourself and manage projects though, those are definitely some things I missed out on and see in friends who did go.

[irresponsiblepics]

Do both. Any learning is good.
You will find some art teachers limit you. Put you in a box. But you can get access to life drawing and whatnot it's a benefit.
Learning yourself will help you keep your own identity and free to experiment.
I'm in the art should be free expression camp rather than do it this way as the other way is wrong approach.

[LCT_m_a_d]

I was self-taught mostly through trying to draw characters from coloring books & then eventually trying portraits of people. Roughly 6 years. Since I hadn't taken art classes or drawing tutorials prior to college, I went to University for Art. I was used to trial by fire without drawing tutorials (no internet or art books) or classes it felt very easy for me to absorb any structural learning whether it was art history or design fundamentals. I did a similar approach with programming except I only did 1 semester of computing in college.

I always forget, self-taught for many people I talk to makes an exemption for self-teaching through how-to-draw tutorials or drawing tips books. So, I'm not sure how effective my progression would have been if I had indulged in a tutorial or 2 before going to college as opposed to just guessing and using my imagination.

@Lensing It's amusing how we have the same sentiments with exact opposite conclusions. I find creators, who are self-taught, through the means of youtube vids or drawing books, are formally taught by the authors of their tutorials. It's more less a different formality. Though I definitely could see your point had I not gone from extremes.

[Shanny8]

Mostly self taught...I studied a lot of comics when I was younger then started studying muscle magazines for anatomy as I got older; I then started buying anatomy books, reading articles about the comic production process(when I began to take backgrounds seriously), and got insight from comic professionals that I was introduced to.

The only class that I could say I felt like I gained anything from was a life drawing class session where we did quick charcoal drawings of a model...I felt like I learned to try to draw the body in a more natural pose/state. I also gained a lot from my graphics/design classes- it opened my eyes to design, which I try to use a lot in the creation of my books.

[UrMom]

If you think about it we're not really self-taught since people who are get their info from other artists (Either online or via books.) trying to teach, so we're still technically learning from someone who is educating. It's just not in the classical sense.

That being said I'm basically self-taught/self-educated. I've taken a class or two as a kid but I either dropped them or totally flunked. Lmao! Everything I've learned is stuff I've picked up from observing the works of artists I like, looking into the occasional traditional art friendly tutorial, watching a lot of videos on film creation/studies/analysis, reading books on art studies, doing a lot of nude studies and reading a lot of comics.