When I was last at school I treated art lessons as a time to let my hair down, muck around and generally play the class fool. I don’t know what the kids must have thought of me – no wonder I didn’t last long as a teacher.
- Photo by Blue Monkey
Here are seven good reasons why it really does pay to brush up on your art skills at school.
1. Think Of The Money. There is very good money to be made from art. In 1895, Norwegian artist Edvard Munch knocked up a picture of an alien-type figure holding their head in their hands while screaming on a bridge. He called the picture The Scream and it’s just been sold for $119.9 million (£74 million) at auction.
2. Anyone Can Come Up With A Great Piece Of Art. Looking at The Scream it’s hard to resist the thought that anyone could have drawn it – the figure in the picture is just one step up from a stick man; Munch hasn’t even troubled himself with the task of giving the screaming figure tricky-to-draw details like hair, eyelashes or fingernails. The Scream shows that a very simple, well-executed idea will take you a long way. And makes you lots of dosh too.
3. Making Great Art Can Be Quick. Watching the great children’s TV artists of the 1970s and 1980s go about their work provided a crash-course lesson on how to create great art quickly. Both Rolf Harris and Tony Hart worked at a frightening pace – producing two or three top-notch pieces of work in each half-hour episode. Replicate this work rate over a 9 to 5 working day and you will have lots of interesting art to sell.
4. Art College Is The Modern-Day Fame Academy. Britain has a great tradition of people going to Art College going on to become famous stars. John Lennon of The Beatles, Pete Townshend of The Who and Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones were just three of the stars who went to art college to study painting techniques and graphic design. It is worth noting that all of these stars found fame not through painting but through music and that most of the 1960s art colleges have been closed down because of spending cuts but you get the picture.
5. People Love Child Artists. Paying attention during primary school art lessons can pay dividends very quickly as the art world is particularly keen to embrace young talent. Nine-year-old Kieron Williamson is a case in point. The Norfolk lad regularly exhibits his oil, watercolour and pastel originals at exhibitions and has been dubbed ‘Mini Monet’ by chin-stroking art experts. “It’s lovely to see a nine-year-old boy keeping traditional landscape painting alive,” Kieron’s mother Michelle recently said. And there’s clearly a market for it – the youngster’s brilliant paintings fetch as much as £150,000 at auction.
6. Art Is Self-Expression. What other professions allow you to choose your own hours, attract muses and keep a messy office without the boss telling you off? Being an artist is all about expressing your inner soul and letting your creative fires burn freely.
7. Art Opens So Many Doors. And if all else fails you can always become an art teacher.
Author Bio: James Christie writes for Yellow Moon craft supplies shop.
