Cool Things that studying art can do for you

EVERYBODY should learn art.


Everybody.

Art is beautiful, and even if you have no real art skills, you should try to paint or draw. First of all, doing art is incredibly therapeutic for anybody. Second of all, doing art is much like any other skill in life- as you practice it, you get better at it. While some people may appear to have an innate talent for it, I assure you that hard work trumps any talent (if such a thing even exists...) Painting can also help you see the world differently, and I don't mean in a figurative or metaphorical sense (although that is true too). Artists literally see the world differently.

Let's say you wanted to draw a tree. You'd probably get a pen, and draw a long rectangular shape for a trunk, and then some fluffy squiggles around the top to form the leaves. Note- You've never seen a tree like this before because they don't exist. You're brain has extrapolated on what it remembers and assumes all trees look like, and then taken over your observation to help you draw the tree you see. This is the exact reason portrait painting and drawing is so difficult for artists to master- our brains have a lot of preconceived notions about what the face looks like. When a trained (practiced) artist sees trees, or anything else, they have trained their eyes to see literally what is there, and not what they assume to be there, and when an artist looks at the color of something, they see the literal color, and not what you assume the color to be (grass is often quite red and brown, and shadows are mostly purple!) While these don't seem like particularly important details, I do really believe that this heightened sense of sight really changes your quality of life.

Then, of course there is the ability to share your art with others. What a magical experience this can be- to share something from your head with others through the medium of art, a true story-telling vehicle. This, in itself, is one of the most rewarding things I've found in life thus far.

So give it a shot- grab a marker, pencil, or brush, and just begin to draw- you'll be taking your first steps into a larger world of enjoyment, and before you know it, you'll be so lost in it, you'll never want to be found!