Two important concepts to know for improving in art:

1. Art and painting is a language
2. We only improve at what we do

(cont., 1/5)

A language is used for communicating ideas, if you are a student only doing homework assignments then communicating your own ideas is something that is never practiced. It is the same with only doing studies, it's like reading the dictionary in order to learn to speak a language.

This is a big downside of large art schools where every student graduates with the same portfolio. We only get good at what we do, if we are never having real organic conversations and expressing complete ideas with this language, then it's not something we'll ever improve at.

If you already had the art skills you wanted and no client brief, commercial pressure, or school assignments, what would you be making? This sincerity is what gets people excited when they look at a portfolio, way more than technical skills or well done school assignments.

Studying art without having an idea of what you find exciting and want to express is putting the cart before the horse. There are no technical pre-requisites for making a picture. After we make it, we can then decide what studies would help us communicate that idea more clearly.