One of the most daunting aspects of pursing a creative or artistic career for many aspiring artists is not knowing how to learn the craft. So, we asked some very talented artists and creatives to talk to us about how they learned their crafts and we hope their stories will help you in your journey.

Danilo Ottaviani

Practicing is the key. In acting you need 3 fundamental elements: a script, a scene partner and an audience. Listening is everything and it’s a key factor in an acting performance which is mostly made of reactions to something that happened before. There are no shortcuts in this business and learning how to act is a slow process that improves with work experience and the amount of time that you dedicate to the craft. Read more>>

Michael Afsa

I’ve learned mostly through experimentation and practice, plus some of my formal education and work experience. In college I studied graphic design, which is very different than the sculpture work I do now, but I do apply many of the principles and ideas from that education. That’s been an important foundation. Being skillful with tools and techniques, though, is something I learned by continually creating and trying new things. Read more>>

Anahys Ramos

Since I was little I always liked fashion, learning about style, showing my Outfits and since social networks began I knew that it was the way to show my style to the world. what I would have done to speed up the process is to have had a little less fear and gone through more. The skills needed were creativity, filling myself with knowledge, more learning and getting inspiration from my favorite bloggers. Read more>>

Moonzy On The Moon

Ultimately, I’d say that my creative abilities continued to expand with time and experimentation. Art is a spiritual process for me so the more I came to knowing myself, the more I understood and exercised my capabilities within the craft. Inner, echoing to the outer. There’s nothing I’d change about the journey; timing has been divine and I’m excited for the future because I know there’s so much more to go! Honestly, even the mistakes along the journey have been nudges into alignment. Read more>>

T-Chronic

I learned the art of Hip-Hop emceeing by absorbing the knowledge of the culture, constantly practicing to develop my flow, and thoroughly taking notes from the artists that have always inspired me such as Eminem, KRS-One, Wax and many more. When it comes to my initial learning process when I first stepped into the music world, compared to my where I’m at now, my natural strategies of creating remain very similar. Read more>>

Stephanie Leilani

I’ve always had a calling for creative outlets. Whether it’s cooking a meal, writing in a journal, photography, or painting, my soul finds joy in it’s ability to express itself. One day I happened across a video of someone pouring a cup of paint, and I thought, “Oh, I want to try that!” So I went to my local craft store and picked up paint. As I tend to do (or not do), I didn’t do any research – I thought to myself, “Thin paint out, combine colors in cup, flip cup, Voila!” Read more>>

Caitlin Turnage

I decided to pursue writing at the early age of about five years old when I realized that I wanted to play pretend every single day of my life and would actively chase whatever would help me do that. I started writing novels (Very bad, very embarrassing, very necessary tomes) at the age of ten after a spark of inspiration hit me while watching West Side Story. This was to be my first lesson–the best way to become a writer is to never stop writing. Read more>>

Melissa K. McGowan

Practice, practice, practice! I purchased my first camera 10 years ago as a hobby and decided, 2 years ago, to put all of my energy into creating my business. I’ve poured myself into learning the ins and outs of running a photography business by reading different books and watching a lot of YouTube videos. There is plenty of free and essential information that is so accessible to us now, so it was easy for me to find amazing online resources to learn anything I wanted to. I don’t believe there was anything that could have helped me speed up my learning process. Read more>>

Alicia Mitchell

I first like to think of my Craft as a LEARNING GIFT!! Like it was given to me, as a part of my destiny. Like every little, small or in sequential thing I did over the years finally made sense. Coming to full fruition. Once, I seen what my gift was. I was intrigued to find out more on how I could not only learn from it but expand on it. By practicing self-love/care and meditation. Cultivating ME time to process inner thoughts as well as my emotions. Read more>>

Chanece Rucker

When your depressed and looking for a way out. The light at the end of the tunnel was Art for me. It’s has brought me from the darkest places. I self taught my self Abstract and Fluid painting. I learned pretty quick and took it from there. The saying “give an inch and took a mile” I took 10 miles lol. Any open door I walked into it ready to take whatever I could from it. The most important skill is have fun and don’t over think. Read more>>

Gifti Moiwa

I learned Content Creation and Modeling by mainly doing things from my heart, studying/researching, but most importantly lots of Practicing. Knowing what I know now, I would have sped up the learning process by just doing instead of waiting to “perfect” everything and instead just starting and learning as I go. I’ve learned that just getting started is better than focusing too much on head knowledge. Read more>>

Castle Warren

I began learning to produce music at approximately the age of sixteen. Having grown a strong fondness for deejaying, my passion for creating music was honed by the sound of the late age of SoundCloud culture. I have been educated by the internet and its inhabitants, by watching countless, back-to-back, YouTube tutorials, and scanning Reddit posts, Discord servers, asking as many questions as I could in every comment section I could find. Read more>>

Adrienne Smith

I fully believe anyone can learn to create/draw/paint if they have the determination and motivation to put in the work. Talent is a “bad word” in my world, because it has the connotation that drawing is some sort of innate gift given by some being, but that cannot be further from the truth. Drawing is a skill, and it is a skill that is buildable. So once we dump the idea that only “the chosen” can make art, then we are able to really learn and take in information to build our skills. Read more>>

Suzie Collins

Growing up arts and crafts were the activities I was drawn to and encouraged by my parents to continue to explore. I formally started to learn different types and forms of art as a BFA student at the University of Texas in Austin. However, when I graduated our economy was heading into a recession, so I took a full time job working in advertising in 2007, so art took a back seat. Read more>>

Jane Kozhevnikova

Musicians learn their craft the whole life. There is a myth that the key to becoming a musician is having a natural talent for it, but it is all about hard work. I play piano for more than 30 years – and I still learn it. Sometimes have to re-learn something because old habits do not work anymore. Same with writing music: it is an endless journey of learning and discovering (oftentimes, discovering your true self). Read more>>

Jason Mindus

I learned how to dj when I was 12 years old and started doing parties in middle school. I had a radio show in college and started to do events and nightclubs, and then I moved to Los Angeles after college. I have always balanced a full time job with all of my creative pursuits to fund the journey. I am not sure if there is anything I could of done to speed up the learning process because it is immersive and you are around so many talented people that you learn through osmosis and create your own style. Read more>>

Alex Rhodes

Music was always a big thing in my family. My dad taught me to play guitar. His family is full of talented musicians and every family gathering featured multiple guitars and group sing-a-longs. I assumed everyone’s family did what we did. I never really thought of music as something special. I always enjoyed performing in middle school chorus and talent shows. After my freshman year in high school, I wanted to learn guitar. Like most teenage sons, I was attempting rebellion against my dad in whatever ways I could find, but he was patient enough to teach me guitar, and music kept us bonded – even through the difficult times. Read more>>

Ashley Alves

As a child, I was a quirky little creative. I was extremely amused with repurposing discarded trash, and I was obsessed with color – lots of it! Also, I loved to discuss the purpose. What is the purpose? How could I find my purpose? When will I find my purpose? It was a topic of conversation that I never got tired of. Not a day went by that I didn’t overwhelm my stepfather with burning questions regarding purpose and destiny. One day I was a painter, the next I was a sculptor, and around age seven, Read more>>

Niuvis Martin

I started truly evolving my skills at the early age of 7 by taking private oil painting classes. I always made it a point to take art and music electives throughout grade school. I later chose to attend an art college that took my expertise to a whole new level. I feel that I did everything in my power to progress in art and speed the learning process simply by never stopping. Read more>>

Aloysius “Lo” Ballard

Would you believe me if I told you that I’ve always had superpowers? Probably not, but it always felt that way when it came to me being able to learn anything. No matter how much “ability” I had, opening doors to filmmaking and being a working creative wasn’t something that I was able to do. Read more>>

Måfi Wūlf

Well for me I come from a background of creatives my pops being an artist and a well rounded creative use to show me over and over again there was no limit to what you can create as long as you believe you can make it ,so I learned at a young age how to tailor my natural god gift to what art meant to me. That turned out to be in the form of garments and the birth of Mahsyian. Over the years I’ve mainly been self taught learning majority of everything Im capable of from trial and error and curiosity to push my self to new levels , Read more>>

FAT

As with learning how to do anything, practice is the key. Over years I’ve honed my crafts (rap music & digital art) through countless hours of trial and error which has been the backbone of my learning experience. I’ve done two stage shows where I was literally booed off stage for example, but rather than feeling like I wasn’t good enough for my own creativity, I took the criticism in stride and used it to make adjustments and improvements until I could. This also helped me develop one of my strongest mantras “Keep doing you, somebody’s gonna feel it”. Sometimes you just have to keep plugging away until you get it right. Read more>>

Andromeda Jones

I learned to perform stand-up and act by LIVING, but I’m currently being mentored by the amazing Comedian D’Lai, so I can perfect my stand-up. Life is your greatest teacher for both of these professions. Everything you have ever experienced can be used to fuel you both on stage and on set. Both professions require and stem from some place of emotion. It doesn’t matter if the emotions are good, bad or indifferent, they can all be used. As far as speeding up my learning, I don’t think that’s something you can do, nor can you afford to do it. You have to go through the process of life and either suffer or thrive through it. Either you want to survive your experiences or you want to be a victim of life. Read more>>