Listen and Draw - Becoming An Artist In Retirement

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Becoming An Artist In Retirement

You run into some unique challenges when trying to become an artist after retirement. In this podcast episode, I want to talk about that a bit.

Welcome to the Practice Drawing This podcast designed to listen to while drawing. Also check out the Practice Drawing This website which is packed with free resources to help you practice drawing.

A life can be divided into three acts. In the first act, you are still young. You receive an education. In the second act, you make a career, and in the third act, you retire.

Basically, it is all centered around the second act. The second act is when you become busy: you start a professional career and hold down a job, you marry, you have children, you create a home for your family. The first act is basically about preparing for that, for example through education.

One interesting thing about how we define artists is that it centers around the second act: in the second act, you are either a Pro artist who makes a living making art, or, you are an amateur who dabbles in art while you hold down a paying job.

All art education, whether online or brick and mortar, is about that vocational aspect, that education is targeted towards first-acters, people who are about to start a career, and it is about preparing these young people to become professional artists.

However, in contrast to many jobs, making art can be something you can also do for fun, it can be very rewarding in and of itself. This makes it suitable as an activity you can do after you retire, in your third act.

The monikers Amateur and Pro Artist are for people in the second act of their lives. I coined the term Autonomous Artist for people who do not have to make a living. This includes young people in the first act of their lives, pre-work, pre-career, and people in the third act of their lives, post-work, post-career.

The interesting thing is that, as mentioned, all art education is focused on the first-acters, all the art education is designed to prepare young people for a working life, to prepare young people to become professional artists.

And this is a problem, because that art education is not necessarily suitable for third-acters who are not looking to turn their art-making into a career.

They are not looking to break into the industry and become a concept or storyboard artist.

Added to that, while first-acters still have their entire lives ahead of themselves, third-acters don’t, and they tend to be acutely aware of that. I saw an online academy that presented a twenty-year road map to becoming a specific type of professional artist. When you’re sixty, that’s not very appealing. Practice for twenty year so that you can, what, become a professional at eighty? If you’re even still alive then?

It also matters for the type of art you make. When you’re twenty, it can be okay to spend ten years making a graphic novel. You still have a lot of time after that to do other things. But when you’re sixty? At best, those ten years are half of your life you still have left! Is the idea really good enough for that?

Especially as third-acters, and that is what this podcast is about, you start to care more about the here and now. You start to care more about making every day the best you can. You frankly don’t know how much time you still have.

For second-acters, we have the monikers Amateur and Pro, and for first and third acters, I use the label Autonomous artist, meaning artists who can afford to work as much as a pro while making as little as an amateur.

But there are, as just mentioned, big differences between the needs of the first and third acters. Education very much focuses on first-acters but there is little for third-acters. There’s the watercolor course here and there, set up by a second-acter who needs to make money, but it is not custom-made for third-acters.

I suppose this would have been the spot where I flogged a course for third-acters, if I had one, but frankly, I don’t think I’m the right person for it. I have come to the realization that I don’t enjoy creating and running courses, and I don’t need the money. But someone should do it! And preferably a third-acter who has already gone through the experience. Or perhaps there could be an online community for this.

Because there is one thing I noticed, one big difference between first and third acters. First-acters are still used to adults, teachers, parents, being there for them to help them and teach them. They EXPECT help, feel entitled to it, ask it, demand it even, and they usually don’t say thank you. THIRD-acters, in contrast, know about time, they are afraid of wasting someone else’s time, and they are afraid of imposing. Their tone tends to be more apologetic for intruding, and they tend to thank you profusely for your answer and your time. They also tend to assume a space is not meant for them, which is usually the case because educational spaces are designed for first-acters. As a third-acter, you tend to be an outsider of society, discussions about mortgages, pensions, pay rises, raising kids, tend to not be a topic of interest anymore. The world is designed for first and second acters, and third-acters get used to that.

That means that third-acters are mostly invisible. But I suspect that it is a HUGE group. It’s all the baby-boomers, but also their children, gen-x, are entering their third act, some with more wealth than others, but most probably with more money than they had when they were first-acters. There is a huge, affluent market there!

It wouldn’t be for me, I wouldn’t enjoy creating and running a course. I do enjoy making podcasts, though, as it is satisfying to finish things, and it helps me structure my thoughts on a subject, as this podcast episode is helping me to.

First-acter courses tend to be cheap so young people can afford them, and they tend to be strict about requirement, the effort the student has to put in, partly because young people, at least in bricks and mortar academies, are less motivated and will try to game the system and try to do the minimum required for credits, and they still expect adults to tell them what to do.

If you are a retiree wanting to get into art making, you will therefore discover that most education resources are not particularly designed for you. You’re an outsider, after all. You are motivated. You don’t care about the credits! You are thirsty for knowledge. And you don’t respond well to being kept on a short leash.

Most art education is aimed at people in their late teens and early twenties, promising to prepare them for a life as a working artist. Promising to help them make money through art. But you, you don’t WANT to make money, you don’t need to make money. If you did, you’d probably go back to your old job; you’d be able to make much more money in a more convenient way.

I think the art education institutes are leaving a lot of money on the table not serving middle-aged people who want to get into the arts. These are more affluent, more deep-pocketed people, at the end of their careers, looking for purpose, and thinking that maybe the arts might be it. I suspect there is a lot of money to be made there if programs are developed for that group. No one is doing so. It’s also an invisible group, they stay silent, keep to themselves, try not to make too much trouble, try to not take up too much time from a teacher as they know the value of time, having seen the finiteness of their own remaining time.

I see this on our discord. Surprisingly many people there are middle-aged and looking to get back into making art. I can recognize them. They are almost apologetic, afraid of taking up too much of my time thinking they are imposing. Young people don’t do that; they are still used to the adults like teachers and parents around them helping them. They expect that help and don’t say thank you. I can often guess which demographic the person talking to me is from, and surprisingly many are middle-aged, and they hide, they try to stay invisible, minding their own business. But it’s a big group with probably more money to spend than younger people. If you’re middle-aged o retired, you’re not alone, there are many more like you, just keeping their heads low.

A course that was designed for a third-acter could cost more, but should probably be more open. Third-acters tend to have a clear idea of what they want and need and tend to respond to a directive approach less well. Such a course should also not be focused on turning art-making into a money-making career, but rather on how to enjoy the experience every day.

Here’s another difference: the ‘taste gap’ as they call it, is much bigger for older people who have seen more, seen more art, and know what things are supposed to look like. Kids see far less what’s wrong with their art and are much more easily satisfied with their art. Older people... you see all the mistakes in your art, but your skills are not at a level yet where you know how to fix it.

An art course targeted at third-acters should, in large part, focus on helping third-acter autonomous artists navigate this issue.

There are several approaches that can be taken. Here are some quick tips.

One thing you can do is go in search for a mark-making tool that is right for you, that you enjoy making every mark with. For me, that is a fine-tipped, wet pen. Wonderful to feel the tip flow over the paper! But for you it might be pencil, or a ballpoint pen, or a brush, watercolor, oil paint.

Go in search for the right mark-making to that lets you enjoy every second.

In addition, there are things that are easier to draw because you don’t need to be that accurate. Clouds, trees, and dragons fall into this category. Our brain doesn’t have a clear mental model of what these are supposed to look like, so you have considerable leeway and it can still look good. Old men with beards are fun, too, a go to for me.

Faces of pretty women or children, for example, are the opposite. You have to get these exactly, precisely right or they won’t look good. Their clothes, however, you can be a bit looser with, and clothes can even look better loose, for example if the loose marks effectively suggest the cloth material.

This might surprise you, but hands are in the middle. When you start to understand the structure of a hand, it becomes easier and you can be a bit looser about certain aspects, as long as you get the important structure parts right.

Another thing you can do is take a break when you’re satisfied with what you just made. Enjoy the dopamine hit, and let it motivate you to continue with your art later.

Refrain from posting online immediately after you made it, for the same reason: reception is always, ALWAYS disappointing. Why not stop when you’re happy? Why snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

A page with “failed”, in quotes, sketches, can also still look great! Even if the independent sketches contain mistakes.

When you see mistakes in your art, make notes next to them. Come up with a plan how to fix it or practice to become better at it. That turns it into something constructive, and it tends to leave me at least with a positive feeling, motivated to continue.

Write dates on pages, and look back at your work later. You tend to notice the mistakes less and tend to notice the charm in the drawings more. Also, you tend to see the improvements you made, which is encouraging, while also seeing the seeds of what your art was to become already in your early work, which is really cool.

Also, it is okay to “land”, in quotes, somewhere. For me, it used to feel like I was a bird flying around, searching but failing to find a branch to land on, meaning making art I liked. When I did land on a branch, which is to say, I could reliably make a certain type of drawing and be happy with it, I stuck with it for a while, resting on that branch, drawing the same type of thing that pleased me, until it started to bore me, and I’d fly away in search of another branch.

Now, I have a whole tree of branches. I enjoy drawing with a thin flowy pen and tend to be able to arrive at visually pleasing results when I just draw directly from observation.

And I now stay near that tree.

It is okay to land, to stick with one medium or one subject if it consistently gives you joy. You do not HAVE to go out in search for something new if you’re happy with where you are.

And related, and maybe more a note to self: when you see art you admire, you don’t have to give in to the urge to make the same type of art! Yes, you can, but you don’t have to, anymore. Or maybe that’s just a note to self. Ahem. For me, for example, I had to learn that I could just enjoy reading a graphic novel without having to then go out there and spending ten years of my life making my own.

Relatedly, it can be satisfying and educational to copy art you admire. Just keep it to yourself and don’t pretend it is yours.

These are some ideas that might help third-act autonomous artists a bit. They did help me. I’ll make more podcast episodes if I come up with more ideas. But these are specifically for third-acters, I think.

Yours sincerely,

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