Copying other artists to learn is still a taboo in the art world. Is it OK learning from copying art? In this post, we dig into when it is okay to copy art and when it is bad. Copying art is not necessarily plagiarism. Even art schools consider copying art to learn good practice for beginners, if it is for personal use. Copying can help you study other artists and get good at art. Let’s see what exactly that means…
Copying other artists to learn?
“I think copying someone’s work is the fastest way to learn certain things about drawing and line. It’s funny how there is such a taboo against it. I learned everything from just copying other people’s work.”
– Lynda Barry (Cartoonist)
Let’s start this post about whether it is OK learning from copying with this quotation by Lynda Barry. She aptly describes that copying other artists to learn is widely a huge taboo in the art world.
‘Copying art’ is automatically considered something negative: you are a ‘copy cat’, ‘stealing’ other artists’ work.
Sadly, there is hardly any discussion happening about the benefits of copying art. When is it okay to copy art? That’s what we are going to talk about today.
We are going to have a close look at when it is okay learning from copy art, how to study other artists by copying them, how to follow good practice in copying, and why it is OK to copy art for personal use!
Let’s get straight down to the nitty-gritty…
What is ‘good practice’ of copying art?
No question: plagiarizing is bad. This holds true for all types of art. Not only copying a drawing is bad, it is as bad to copy a photograph, a painting, a digital artwork, and so on.
But what is actually the difference between plagiarism and copying art to learn? Plagiarizing means you take the work or the idea of another artist and pass it off as your own.
Plagiarism has become a big issue, and many artists are afraid of having their work plagiarized or being accused of plagiarism themselves. The internet made it easy to ‘copy other artists’ work and call it your own’. One click is enough to save another artwork and re-post it as your own.
This should never be done and is surely not ‘good practice of copying art’.
However, if you copy art for personal use, without the intention to call it your own or to sell it, then you are on the safe side.
Because copying art is one of the best ways to learn and practice, especially when you are just starting out as an artist.
As a matter of fact, you shouldn’t forget to credit the artist whose work you copied for practice!
When is it OK learning from copying art?
“You start when you’re young and you copy. You straight up copy.”
– Shel Silverstein (American writer, poet and cartoonist)
Fact is you learn to draw, paint, sculpt, write, … – in short to create art through copying other artists. When you copy, you have the possibility to practice and improve your skills, and to become better at your craft.
Some art schools even promote copying other artists to learn as an essential part of the learning process for beginners. That means lots of up and coming painters, drawers, etc. go through the phase of imitating other artworks.
Don’t you think it’s time to let go of the belief that copying a drawing is bad?
It is okay to copy art if you use it to learn, to get good at your art. In that respect, it’s an important tool of your artistic development.
How to study other artists through copying?
Copying can also help you study other artists and better understand the steps they applied to create their work.
In order to learn from copying, you need to look at the piece you want to copy very closely: Where exactly are the lines placed? How exactly is the shape? What exactly did the author do to achieve the facial expression? What about the shadows and all the little color nuances?
In a word, what exact steps do you need to follow to make your copy look the same way?
This is how you can learn a lot to get better at the type of art you are creating. This can be any type of art and you may also copy any type of artwork to learn. You are basically teaching yourself an art lesson.
At the same time, you will also have to get out of your comfort zone. Trying to reproduce the same skill level of another artist’s work is a struggle – especially if you are just at the beginning of your artistic journey.
As you challenge yourself to reach a higher level of proficiency by copying, you will be able to brush up on your own skills. You will notice where you still have weak points to improve on, but also where your strengths are.
Did I ever copy other artwork to get good at art?
Yes, of course, I also practiced by copying other art when I started out as an artist!
Even though learning from copying art is somewhat still a taboo in the art world, I believe that most artists, if not all, begin by imitating the works they love.
If you don’t see any copied work in their portfolios anymore, they may never have uploaded it or deleted their early pieces because they think they were not good enough, or because the feel ashamed of copying other art.
But no one is born the perfect artist. We all get attracted to art by seeing the work of other artists first and we then feel inspired to create art on our own. It is just normal that we feel like re-creating those works we fell in love with in the first place when we are at the beginning of our journey. And that’s totally OK.
So let’s talk about it!
I started to create art in 2010, mainly with photographs of myself and nature & macro (which I still love doing today). One to two years in, I shifted more towards digital art, in particular surreal photo manipulations.
That was the time when I made an account on DeviantArt and browsed through the digital works other artists uploaded to the platform. I stumbled upon many pieces that I loved and that I wanted to be able to create myself.
One of these pieces was ‘Evola’ by SleepySh on DeviantArt. And like any other beginning artist I thought: ‘I love it so much, I want to have one myself!’
That’s how I came to create ‘Broken Dreams’ in 2012. As you can see below, there are lots of similarities between the original and the one that I reproduced in my creation. In particular, the eyes, the shape of the face, the hair and the colors.
‘Evola’ is a digital drawing, but since I was about to dive deeper into photo manipulations, I used my own face to create the piece (like I always do it nowadays in my Surreal Stories) and added a bit of my own ideas with the breaking heart.
What are you thinking? Not so bad for the first photo manipulation, no? In any case, I learned A LOT through copying that digital drawing: how to create these huge ‘pop surreal‘ eyes, how to shape the face, how to create the facial expression, how to paint the hair, how to color in Photoshop, …
If you’d like to find out more about my creative process, then check out my post How To Do Lowbrow Art – A Personal Story.
‘Broken Dreams’ is one of my first photo manipulations from 2012 when I just started out as a digital artist. I obviously emulated ‘Evola’ by SleepySh (a digital drawing that I still love today) and was able to learn a lot and improve my editing skills. If you want to know more about my creative process, check out my post → How To Do Lowbrow Art – A Personal Story.
Is it OK to practice drawing by copying?
It is OK to practice drawing by copying, too. Even though I myself never created a drawing in my life, there are other artists who recreated my photography.
One example is the pencil drawing ‘Sweet Despair’ by UtiliaMignano that is based on my monochrome photograph ‘Longing‘.
I think she did an awesome job! How do you like her drawing?
Some artists feel offended when someone copies their art. I take it as a compliment. I don’t mind when other artists get inspired by my works and recreate them. Getting back some credit is nice, which Utilia gave back to me.
I hope she enjoyed the process and learned a lot to improve her skills. As I said, I’m not a drawer, so I can only guess what she got to practice: to draw a realistic portrait based on a photo? To reproduce the natural light and shadows? To pick the right pencil for the very saturated and the very light shading?
‘Sweet Despair’ is a drawing that was created based on one of my monochrome photographs, ‘Longing‘. I never did a pencil drawing, but I like to see other art inspired by my work and hope the artist had the chance to learn a lot to improve her skills!
I hope this post convinced you that it is OK learning from copying art, as long as you comply with good practice, i.e. credit the artist and don't sell the copy.
‘Copying art’ still seems to have a bad reputation in the art world, even though many artists use it and are aware of the benefits it offers to improve their skills.
At the end, I hope you enjoy your creative journey, do what you love to do, and learn to get better at your art in whatever way is best for you!
Hi to all art lovers and up and coming artists! I somehow felt that it was necessary to touch upon this taboo topic and I hope this post helped you understand that it is OK learning from copying art. I wish you lots of fun and success in your artistic career and see you on the next post! Angie ✌️
