What inspired you to be an Artist?

[Taelune]

What inspired you to be an artist? What is the reason you chose art to be your passion, rather than just a school assignment?

I chose art as my passion because I love to create things, I have a fantastic imagination for creation, and love to see my thoughts be brought to life. not to mention I love animated films, and dream of making my own story someday.

I was born blind but was still attracted to color, the feel, taste, sight, and thought of such wonders excited me, I guess I've always been attracted to art, just a my fate ^^

what about you?  

[Nonobotica]

Hmm, I just sort of got into it slowly over time really, as a kid apparently i told my parents i wanted to be an "art-teest " with emphasis on the "teest".
So nothing really inspired me to become one I guess.
I just like the feeling I get from completing and working on a piece. There hasnt been anything which has felt better than the feeling I get from making pictures.  

[Gash Rain]

Well its starts way back when I was a kid and well dad used to draw alot in his youth. He used to draw/color model cars and even made me and sister posters. My sister had disney related characters and I had all 4 ninja turtles. Anywho as a really young kid I aspired to be as good as him one day and from then I practiced and have always loved art since then.  

[Copic-Kun]

It started when i was a Little Girl. My Mother took me to a art gallery and i fell in love with all of the, I wanted to take some home but my mother would say "no..Dear make your own" Andim like Ok? So i Grabbed a penciland a peice of paper and i started drawing animals, then to Princess's, Trees and now to anime :3  

[Laila Izuka]

I've really only been picking up on art, and improving my art in the last year. But I'd say that it's my friends and anime that inspired me to draw. I love the way my friends draw. Each of them has their own unique style, and ways that they draw. It's fascinating watching other draw. Also for anime, I absolutely love the different styles of anime. I've wanted to learn how to draw anime and manga since I started watching and reading different series a couple years ago.

My drawings for a couple years ago look really bad. Though I take into consideration that I've learned what I know already by teaching myself. Studying different styles, poses, clothing designs, and more.

Also Gaia has helped me wanting to become a better artist as well. After I found a couple people I met at an anime convention (Ani-Jam in Fresno, CA almost exactly a year ago), I saw their art, and that they sold their art for gold, even doing RL commissions. I wanted to improve my art and sell it as well. I've done a few commissions already, and feel really happy when people are satisfied by the art I drew for them.

Regardless of that, I'm still learning more and more during each drawing. I usually draw from my own imagination, but use lots of references as well. I cannot draw poses that well, unfortunately, and usually resort to using bases on deviantart. But drawing bases does help me with actually drawing poses myself, so I guess it's not all that bad.

I'm also hoping that I can really improve my art, and then someday work for Gaia, being one of the many artists that works for the site o3o  

[Folken_Schezar]

2 words Jim Lee. his stuff was so good and its only gotten better  

[Eizoryu]

What inspired me was my uncle, great aunt, and a couple of cousins. All with artistic inclinations, though my great aunt was a wonderful painter.

It's actually difficult for me to know exactly when I started drawing for the fun of it. Pretty much picked up a pencil as a tot and never put it down, metaphorically speaking.
But I do know when I started taking it much more seriously. I had this mentality to be better at what I did in art class than the rest of the kids. I wanted to make my work stand out so much that people could just know it was mine. Pokemon helped a lot with this, too. The whole "PokeMaster" mentality, but applied to art. It was sophomore year in high school that I actually started to observe other artists and learn from them, mostly due to signing up on dA.

I look back on my drawings from then, and I quite frankly think I sucked. That may be my perfectionist mind speaking; which it has a habit of doing, and it's been a lot of the reason why I've been driven to improve. I never really was able to get critique that really helped me until I started posting here on Gaia and getting people pointing out my weak areas. I'm quite thankful for those people, though, hence why I'm here now.
And like Laila, I saw that people were selling their art for gold here. I'd toyed with the idea of actually doing RL commissions, but broke the ice with Gaia commissions first. I gotta say, it helped me immensely with my artist-to-client communication. Now I've done a few RL commissions and I'm always happy to know that someone liked what I created for them.

I never plan to stop learning and improving though. I admire people like dA's Wen-M and the late Hakubaikou(RIP), hoping to one day reach a skill level on par with them.  

[Karillis]

Well what let to me to be so in love with art and drawing was actually my friends fault. We decided to go to a technical school to take Commercial Art there but when the classes started she sort of left me there. I continued with the class and I enjoyed every day of it. Now I go to the Art Institute to follow and strive with the passion that those classes gave me, to become an animator. I try to find ways to improve and continue trying out different mediums and such. I love art ;D  

[Vodou von Prettypants]

Oh, hello there, internets!

I hope it doesn't make me a "bad" artist, but I really can't say -- I can't pinpoint a time in my life when I decided to make artwork. I don't remember any particular inspiration. I'm just an observant person. I like experimenting with materials and figures; I like seeing what happens when I put this over there.

Sometimes, too, it's difficult for me to express myself through words or actions. I'm not a vocal person; I have to show how I feel, and art is just the way I do that.

I did not see you there.

 

[Bubblegum_Paint]

I was bored one day and tried drawing a person from a magazine and I guess I just stuck with it. Not to exciting is it?  

[lhomg72]

to me drawing is fun and so i started to draw wen i was little and people loved my art. then i wanted to improve the art by shading at 3rd grade. at 4th grade, i continue the shading. at 5th grade, i taught myself into shading with colors....... i dont really no, i just like drawing  

[Jiyou]

Aside from the "drawing" done for school, the time I really began my own journey into the quest for art is when one day I don't really know what I was thinking but I decided to draw characters. My own characters. I showed them to my bestfriend who endlesly drew and she adored them. From then on I stuck with it.
I always had a sort appreciation for beauty. I see beauty in the most simplest things, and in art there's just so much of it. I guess that's what draws me to it the most.
As stated I enjoy creating. I love creating things that makes someone feel something. Joy, embarrassment, sadness. I love the moment I give someone a piece of art and they're just over-joyed. It makes me happy making someone happy with what I do.  

[Elsiane]

My recent interest in art is more academic than leisurely. I'm not an art student, but I want to acquire good drawing/painting/art skills and be exposed to the critique and knowledge that art communities and art students have.

But to be quite honest I don't really think of myself as an artist.  

[The Titanium Spork]

2 years ago a friend of mine who drew terrible anime insisted I learn to draw from her. I went along just to humor her. I got better than her really fast, and I just wanted to keep going. So I did. I now cannot imagine living without my art.  

[ahiru_chan]

I started drawing ever since I could pick up a writing utensil. I remember in preschool I spent a lot of my time drawing flowers. There was a teacher there who would draw the same scene over and over again for the kids. It was like a bunny in the grass near a house. Now that I think fo it, I don't know why she always drew the same thing, maybe because thats all she knew how? I don't know but I was like wow, I wish I can draw that as well as her. I guess I've always been labeled the artist in my class ever since I was tiny. My sister always said my pictures were ugly though and I remember thinking when I was in elementary school that all I wished was to get as good as her. In high school, not that many people knew I drew just because it was such a huge school. My friends always looked at my doodles I did in class during lunch time though xP It was weird too because in high school my parents and relatives started noticing that I drew pictures and after getting compliments from their friends on my artwork, they started thinking I was artistic. No one at home even thought I had any talent before then (my sister was aware of my love for art but I wasn't as good as her). Even though now I don't get so many compliments on my artwork like in elementary/middle school, I still love to draw. I don't know, I just love drawing something and thinking it turned out great and being proud of it =)