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.

Joseph Hamilton Jr.

I learned by surrendering myself to God. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Putting Him first in all areas of my life. Being a Gospel Recording Artist starts with that. I had to unlearn EVERYTHING I learned as Romans 12:2(KJV) states ‘And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, Read more>>

Conan Zhao

My current career as an oil painter started from producing very humble-looking pencil drawings. Back in high school, I made a transition from doing cartoonish Dragon Ball doodles to making an earnest effort at copying photographs, of animals, of celebrities. It was not so different from what we see in dozens of reels everyday on Instagram. I didn’t really know what artistic concept is, but doing lots and lots of photorealistic drawings did give me a technical advantage. Read more>>

Brannon Nelson

The way I learned the craft can be broken into two stages; the first being observation and the second being real time trial and error. I found in my experience that taking the time to master the fundamentals instead of poorly imitating the advanced concepts and practices would have expedited my learning process and ability to grasp and properly execute the more advanced concepts. Read more>>

Alyse Doty

Music is something I could truly devote my entire life to learning and hardly scratch the surface, which is one of the things I love about it so much. Although I did not attend school for music, I feel that I’ve been a student since I began playing over twelve years ago. Read more>>

Johanna Ali

How did you learn to do what you do? I am a self-taught sewist. That means that I didn’t attend a traditional fashion school to learn how to sew. Once I saw that I had an interest in learning how to sew, I watched as many YouTube videos and read as many sewing blogs as I possibly could. Read more>>

Hayley Sawyer

Learning to press and preserve flowers is a lot of fun, but also extremely challenging and time consuming. I’ve been practicing for over 15 years now, and it’s forever been a revolving door of perfecting the process since every flower is different. Read more>>

Andrew Fisher

As a photographer, there’s a lot to learn! I personally don’t think I will ever be done learning. Everything from technique, camera settings/equipment, and even editing software are tools you’ll need to learn. Not to mention the business side of your art. Starting out, there’s a great deal of juggling involved to learn these skills. What kind of photographer do you want to be? Who will your clients be? What is your budget? What are your prices? Read more>>

L.A. Beadles

I think it’s always a risk to jump head first into a passion project, but a lot of work and some late nights go a long way. A year ago, when I launched Unsinkable: The Titanic Podcast, I had absolutely no knowledge of recording and editing software or the logistics of the podcasting world. Read more>>

Anupama Trigunayat

I was always fascinated by colors and their combination .I am indeed a self taught artist painting for last three decades .My experimentation with colors and different mediums became a passion and resulted in a birth of a craft of creativity and an artist. Read more>>

Markel Dantzler

I first learned to use a camera when I was very young and ever since I’ve been honing my skills. I think the most important skill wasn’t a technical skill however, but the skill of creative problem solving. If I could go back and apply my current knowledge, Read more>>

Raddix

I grew up listening to rock and roll, an era of music defined by a new wave of live performances the world had never seen before. Artists like Elvis Presley, Led Zeppelin, Queen, the Rolling Stones all influenced the way I write music and perform Live. I wanted to bring back the near forgotten art of “performing” and create a moment the listener will remember for life. Read more>>

Cameron Pinkney

I taught myself how to do makeup for the most part, obviously I would look at youtube and check out some tips and tricks to see if I could use them. Eventually, I found makeup artists that appealed to the looks that I go for and learn somethings out of their workshops. Read more>>

Alex Christian

You know, I actually don’t have a background in acting. I never went to school for it, and the only acting experience I had were for school mandated theatre classes, or my 5th grade class singing “This Land is Your Land” during Thanksgiving. I took some acting classes in 2 month blocks (commercial, film/on camera technique, and improv) for about 6 months, left my 7 year career in Finance, and threw myself into the deep end. Read more>>

Ethan Carr

Since a very young age, I’ve been interested in many different forms of modern art. I was always fascinated by how movies were made and what the process of writing songs looked like to different artists. As I grew older and started going more in depth with my interests, I found that music was a very strong passion of mine. Read more>>

Michaela Frank

I spent years watching YouTube videos of all the big makeup gurus. Literally watching everything in detail. From the way the would hold their brushes, how the applied powders, shadows, cream products to really understand how different products react to different techniques. I would watch women with different skin colors, undertones, textures, skin types, face shapes constantly because I definitely learned the hard way that everyone’s face is not the same. Read more>>

Erinn Bates

Erinn: I loved reading all kinds of books when I was a kid. Shel Silverstein’s Where The Sidewalk Ends was one that taught me to appreciate rhyme and storytelling. When I started piano lessons, I would make up my own poems and try to put music to them. Lyrics were always so interesting to me and I would study them. Read more>>

Wendy Faz

I am self-taught. With the love and support of my husband, a used camera, and a book from Half Priced Books, I set out to teach myself as much as I could learn. When I started, I was still teaching high school French and felt a determination to use my own teacher skills to create a curriculum and hold myself accountable in the same way I would any student in my classes. I photographed everything I could, at times requesting the model assistance of friends and strangers alike. Read more>>

Felisha Jackson

I’ve always loved taking pictures whether in front of the camera or behind, but eventually behind the camera won me over. I’m pretty much self taught with the exception of browsing endless videos on youtube. Once I knew that photography was definitely something I wanted to become more familiar with, I worked to get my hands on a good camera, then I began learning it, and how the settings worked to get the results I wanted. Read more>>

Shay Bailey

I’ve been a creative for as far back as I can remember. My love for art as a child fueled my interest in the industry and helped me transition into a creative space professionally once I graduated from college. Read more>>

 Jennifer Printz

Like a lot of others I learned my creative craft through a combination of former education and then figuring things out on my own. I had great professors at both the undergraduate and graduate level and learned a lot from them about drawing and printmaking from them. Early on my education, I was surrounded by upper level students who took their work seriously and I drew a lot of inspiration from them and starting spending lots of time in the studio. Read more>>

Brad Suennen

I started taking piano lessons back when I was in grade school. At thirteen I decided to pick up the guitar and started teaching myself that using a guitar lessons book and learning a bunch of my favorite songs. I was hoping to join a band back home, but nothing ever materialized besides a couple of one off shows with friends and a one week camp at a school over the summer. Read more>>

Brittany Goodson

I have always created art in some way and it began at a young age. I remember carrying around my first drawing book until it fell apart. I am primarily self taught. I did take drawing in high school and college but now I mostly work in acrylic paints and that is something that I have taught myself and continue to learn through experience as much as I can. Read more>>

Cameron Schatz

I certainly did not learn to produce overnight, in fact I am still learning and will always be a student. I’ve learned through the help of mentors, online classes, and friends that also produce music. You can always learn something new. I’m not so sure that there is anything you can do to speed up the process of learning to produce, or learning any skill for that matter. I believe that learning by trial and error, and never giving up is the best learning process one can endure. Read more>>

Andre Neptune

Initially, I learned editing through YouTube tutorials when it came to specific techniques and how-to effects. I also would watch content from more experienced editors at the time and try to emulate their style but twist it in my own way. Knowing what I know now, I felt like I should have spent more time on the fundamentals of using specific software and gained more knowledge on how to navigate the interface before trying to figure out my editing style. In addition, I should have invested more time on getting familiar with more professional and up to date software such as After Effects at an earlier stage in my journey. Read more>>

Britney Walton

I can first say, I didn’t know anything about modeling just from Tyra banks, ANTM tv show. This was something I had on my mind since I was a little girl but never really committed to it later on as I got older just thought I wasn’t built for it or just maybe my imagination as a child just thinking (oh that could never be me). Read more>>

Stacey Semexan

was such a great introduction to baking for someone who had zero experience. I dabbled with the decorating over the next few years before I had the confidence to pursue it as a business. Read more>>

Carter Lofton

Everything that I have learned from singing, up to modeling has come from YouTube. I have a teacher to help train my voice at this moment, but I am still in need for someone in modeling. When it comes down to modeling, I would say it all boils down to knowing your body. Singing is very similar except you must step out of your comfort zone more. Read more>>

 Hezekiah Williams

I actually started out just buying a drone, not knowing I’d need a license to use it for payed work. Once I got that, I started learning from of a combination of YouTube and an older editor I knew. I’ve put in hundreds of hours of online instruction from YouTube to other film classes I’ve found. Read more>>

The Blakk Dahlia

Honestly, it was a learn-as-you-go process. I researched self-publishing books and asked other indie authors along the way. Also, I took advantage of various resources available online to help self-published authors. Distributors like Amazon and Draft2Digital were key in setting up and publishing my books along with advising on important logistics such as formatting for both ebooks and paperbacks. My writing and marketing skills came into play for developing descriptions for books and SEO practices to grab the eyes of book lovers. Read more>>

Efren Rebugio, Jr.

I’ve always drawn as a kid. In college, feeling the pressures from family and society to “get a real job”, I decided to pursue life outside of the arts. I received my Bachelor’s in Sports Medicine. During my short-lived career working for a chiropractor rehabbing patients, I felt my soul slipping away. Read more>>

Aniya Walker

My earliest introduction to doing Art in general is discovering my ability to draw, this was the stepping stone for me to start learning other forms of art and expression. Like makeup, painting, and fashion, which I all love. When I share how I started makeup with people, they usually laugh because I say, “well I didn’t have any eyebrows so I wanted some.” Referring to my thin, sad eyebrows I have had since elementary school. Read more>>

Steve O’Brien

I learned to play bass the old-fashioned way. I put LP’s on the record player, plugged in the bass and practiced until it sounded right. I wish I could have taken lessons and learn to read music to speed up the learning process. Had I taken lessons and played with better musicians, I could have joined more bands in the early days and gotten the experience on stage. Read more>>

Patrick Lee

A lot of what I learned came from watching my grandmother cook when I was younger. Often when she made recipes, I would ask questions, take notes, and just simply observe. I took that thirst for knowledge and started learning from cooking shows, social media, and just generally networking with other chefs and my own creativity. Read more>>

Alex Santiago

How did I learn to do what I do? That’s a question that makes me chuckle all the time, so let’s start… I started by playing a game called GeoCaching. I started to visit many beautiful areas and decided that I needed a camera to photograph all this beautiful places I visit. Once I got the camera (Canon T1i), Read more>>

Greta Coalier

I was fortunate in that I was encouraged to be creative and make art from a very young age. Skills add up over time with repetition and my degree in art gave me a great foundation for methods and an understanding of art history. I won’t ever be finished learning how to make art! It’s a never ending process of trial and error to find what methods work best for the what I am trying to create at any given point. Read more>>