What is a skills gap in art?

GOING THE DISTANCE IN ART

Ever heard of a “skills gap?”

A skills gap is the distance between the art you actually make and your taste in art.

It’s mostly psychological, and can be the reason why artists are stereotyped as being the harshest critics of their own work.

When you loooove hyperrealism and want to make artwork that looks ultra detailed, but you can only manage to draw basic outlines of a person and a few wrinkles around their eyes, you may be disappointed with your work.

It doesn’t look how you want it to. Not because you don’t have the vision, the taste, the style — but because you don’t have the skills.

CLOSING THE GAP

Want to close that skills gap?

Practice.

The more you practice, the quicker this gap will close.

Here’s an example of me closing my skills gap:

The first snake was created in January 2018. The second I painted last week.

The vision was always similar, my taste in style the same, but I just didn’t have the skills to make the lines as smooth, the patience for the details, the understanding of coloring and layering textures.

Three years of practice bridged the gap between these two illustrations.

Nobody wants to wait three years to get a result they love but sometimes that’s the reality.

Either way, BOTH of these illustrations were immensely satisfying for me to make. I was very proud of the black snake on the left when I made it. At the time, that was the best I could do, and I felt accomplished by making it. Today, I feel very proud of the snake on the right because I know it’s the best I can do and I had a great time making it.

In three more years, I’m sure I’ll look back on both of these snakes and see how much smaller the skills gap has become for me still.

Stick around and see!

SKILLS GAP IS IN YOUR MIND

The skills gap is also a result of the way you think. 

Because you want to make something that’s at a higher level than what you can actually create, you feel dissatisfied. What creates this gap is your lack of skills, but also your desire to make better art. 

If you desire to make art that’s 10 levels above your skillset, you’ll feel this pain a lot more than someone who desires to make art that’s only 2 levels above their skillset. You’ll feel the gap much more because your gap will actually be larger. 

You can close the gap by setting realistic expectations or changing what you want. You can change where the goalpost sits, basically. 

It’s not that you won’t try as hard to make great work, because you’ll always try your best. But it’s knowing that you won’t jump from level 1 to level 10 in one painting session. It’s moving the goalpost to level 2, so that you might actually achieve your goal and feel as satisfied as possible with your painting.

But having bigger goals and higher desires can help you move along faster, even if it feels like you’ll never get there.

Having a gap that’s large because you want to create phenomenal work can be a good thing. 

Just keep in mind not to beat yourself up. You won’t create your ideal piece of art every time you sit down to work. And that’s okay.

GET PRACTICAL ABOUT PRACTICE

The practice is just as important as the mindset when it comes to dealing with your skills gap.

The skills gap is necessary for growth, inevitable for artists who strive to be better, and it’s something we can all relate to.

If we want to get practical about our approach to improving our skills, we have to ask ourselves questions first: What type of art do you want to make? What’s your ideal style? How far do you have to go before you get there?

Then you can make a plan to practice regularly, and check in with yourself to see how far you’ve come.

If you’re not sure how to make art in the direction of your art style, check out my blog post on it here.

My favorite way to test the distance you’ve overcome is to recreate an old painting. Like the snake illustrations above, you can see exactly how I’ve closed my skills gap and adapted my techniques to match my desired style. 

Pick a piece from three years ago to remake!

You’ll be pleasantly surprised with how far you’ve come. If you don’t see a difference, you’ll know you have to put in more practice or test a new strategy. 

Happy practicing!