Artists: when did your talent really start to develop?

[Puffin]

This is a question I'm asking to anyone who likes to produce creative pieces. Why I'm asking, is because I'm working on a piece right now in photoshop, and I'm blown away by it. I honestly can't fathom how I managed to develop so much over the course of a year. I've really gotten into making sure everything looks right before sending it off, and working to perfect little details, since I turned 16. I'm almost 17 now and the result is just wow (personally)!

[Lynn]

I was about 12-13 when I started being "good" at art. I think people's artistic abilities (if they have it) are usually developed more when they get to be teenagers, for some reason. Not sure why this is true, but I see it all of the time. The people that don't have artistic ability are usually not going to "blossom" in the fields of art at this age unless they take some classes. I know people who have started with the basic building blocks of anime, at around 12 years to 16. Maybe that artistic ability starts at a younger age, and unless you keep practicing, it may go away.

[Zhaylin]

I never had much talent in drawing, but I was writing novellas when I was 13. I did my most writing between the ages of 15-20. When I was pregnant with my 3rd child though I was crazy for drawing (I was about 21 years old). I can't draw anything at all from memory, so I'd buy comic books and try to copy bigger versions of the pictures. And I went through ALL of my Dragon Lance books, looking for things to draw. The most impressive drawing though was from a book I don't even recall any more. It was some sort of strange dream journey and on one of the pages there was a picture of ??? houses, waterfalls, streets, trees etc on what looked like a floating mountain. I drew it almost perfectly. Now I'm back to not being able to draw worth a crap lol- not even if I'm looking at the most captivating image. Interestingly enough, my 3rd daughter was drawing me masterpieces before she knew her ABC's She's a teen now- 15, and she hardly draws at all. I always try to encourage her, but her mood comes and goes. I think creativity is either with us or not, for the most part. I KNOW that's not true, but it's how I feel anyhow. By the time a person reaches their teens, their creative energy seems to spike. If they find they really enjoy it or HAVE to create, then they usually work toward "perfecting" their craft. Sadly, I don't know of any adults who were creative as kids remaining creative as adults (at least not in the "traditional" way).

[Puffin]

I totally agree with the part of having to keep practicing. My mom was very artistic into her teens, but she never draws anymore and says "she lost it".

[Marvo]

I got really into photography a long time back when my older brother bought a relatively expensive digital compact, maybe when I was 12. A little more than a year ago I bought my first DSLR and I just love it. I've always been fascinated by representation of stuff in 2D (drawing, painting, computer graphics, photography and so on), and photography is the most accessible expression form, requiring mostly creative thought (and a bit of money), rather than actual drawing talent. Claire from Six Feet Under has sort of been an inspiration for my photography too, as well as my mother who has won several photography contests when she was around my age

[greenhavoc]

mine never stops, it's almost freakish at times what i find still running around in my head -and im 33

[SophroniaLee]

My creative abilities kind of exploded when I was 13. I started drawing anime, and I also began my first novel. Looking back now, both of them are utter crap, but that's when the interest first developed and I've been growing ever since. I've progressed from anime to more realistic styles, and I've started dabbling in paint. And right now, I've got three stories that I'm working on.

[ThirdIris]

Like most people who posted before me, I'd say mid-teens. I have loved to draw and paint my whole life, but around 13-14 I really started getting serious about it, and around 16-18, I started making stuff that I thought was actually quite good. Now I am in art school.

[oooooo]

I got good at drawing in my mid-teens as well, when I just put my mind to it, but it wasn't until many years later that I realized that just being good at drawing/painting/playing an instrument/etc is just that, it's a skill some people can learn and master. At that time I nearly stopped because I felt it lost all meaning it had other than just doing for my own enjoyment and sanity (which is more than a perfectly good reason to keep doing it), but soon after that all these ideas kept coming up to me, concepts that had actual meaning and had something to say - and not being able to execute/portrait these thoughts well enough has kept me practicing harder and harder. I admit, I am a bit of a perfectionist, but I am developing all the time. I might never get to be as good as I'd wish to be, but at least it's keeping me painting and drawing all the time. I feel it's more about ambition and vision than your current skills and ability to do it, and patience.

[Oneironaut Zero]

I kind of always had a bit of talent in drawing. When I was 8 or so, my best friend and I would always have contests drawing Ninja Turtles. They weren't masterful works of art, of course, but I had a good grasp of drawing characters from different angles, while most of the kids I knew would draw them from the typical 'straight-on' perspective. But, like others, early- to mid-teens is when I really started getting good (middle-school / high-school). I started drawing Marvel characters first, and was introduced to anime in 9th grade. That's pretty much when my artwork started getting more detailed. That's also around the time where I started working with portraits and stuff.

[tommo]

Well when I was young I never drew except for these strange pointy characters. Or really squiggly line characters. Usually just faces. I've got OCD and I'm pretty sure it just had something to do with that lol Coz it felt like I had to draw the lines that way to get that "done" feeling you get when you complete a ritual. But other than that, I never really tried to draw or anything. Then I took graphic design in highschool for 2 years and I decided I could actually draw (see attachment) (first painting, never done digital or traditional before). So then I took art too in year 10 or 11 (so to answer the question probably 15) and everyone was amazed by a landscape I painted. I think it's shit as now of course, but I suppose that will almost always happen once you progress.

[DeletePlease]

Third grade. I was pretty talented when it came to drawing and I was always putting things I saw onto paper. I used to pay attention to the most minute of details and spend hours on parts of the drawing. I kinda lost interest by the time I got to sixth grade and stopped altogether by the end of the seventh. The quality of the work started dwindling along with my interest, I peaked in the fourth grade; which admittedly doesn't sound too impressive but drawings really were good, even when compared to the work I saw during my high school art classes. Nothing mind-glowingly amazing but they were good. I became decent when it came to painting during ninth grade but I eventually lost interest in that too.

[Xaqaria]

My abilities started to develop at a much faster rate once I put aside most of my self conscious mental blocks and just started really doing it; or around age 18-20 or so. Pertinent quote: “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.” Pablo Picasso

[jbmotter]

I'm bad at drawing-- plain and simple. However, I do enjoy writing, and my desire to write started to sprout during 8th grade. I think I could most likely pin it on the teacher difference from 7th to 8th grade; my 7th grade lit teacher was a horrible, horrible person whom I hated, which most likely caused me to abject from writing, but my 8th grade teacher was fantastic, and gave me praise for my work at every turn. Every now and again I wish I could draw AND write, but I'm just BAD at all forms of visual art