10 EASY WAYS to Improve Your Art In 2026 (beginner friendly)

What's up guys? Welcome. In this video, I want to give you guys 10 pieces of art advice that will make you a better artist in 2026. Results guaranteed. If you don't see results from this, it might be a skill issue. Now, first of all, this is my work. This is what I do. Just so you know who you're taking advice from. And if you don't like my work and you're not a fan of my work, don't listen to a word I say. That's actually a very important piece of advice that we're going to get back to at the end of this video. That being said, though, let's get on to point number one. What is point number one? God damn, I got to write bigger. Draw what scares you. And I'm not talking about drawing that scary teacher or that scary boss or your mom. But I want you to find things that you are uncomfortable with. Maybe whenever you have to draw hands, you break out into a cold sweat and you start having a panic attack. If you ever find yourself just shying away from drawing certain things because they're challenging, then those are the things that you need to draw more. When I was just a baby back in the year 1804, I was not very comfortable drawing people, drawing faces. And guess what I did? I faced my fears. I drew a ton of faces. Now I love drawing people. The only way to get better, the only way to overcome your fears is to face them. Face your responsibilities. Number two, fix your form. This one's going to be a little bit difficult because habits can be tough to break. I understand that. But when you're able to hold the pen with proper form, which again is three points of contact with the tips of your fingers, you should be able to freely move your fingers, and you should not be squeezing the life out of your pen. Don't choke your pen. If you've already established a bad habit, this might take some time to correct, but it's always worth it when you consider the fact that if you draw with bad form for a long period of time, not only is it harder to level up your skills because you have less control of your pen tip, but it's also much more likely that you will suffer some sort of injury in your wrist because there's so much tension with the way you hold your pencil. I've spoken to a lot of artists over the past few years who do have some sort of issue in their wrist from drawing too much. And the most common denominator that I find between all of them is they're holding the pen in a way that is not entirely sustainable. Okay? So, fix your drawing form because I want to see you drawing well into your 90s. Number three, accept imperfection. This is more of a mindset thing, but if you allow this point to just click in your brain, this is going to change your entire art career. Understand that no artwork you make is ever going to be perfect and be okay with that. The entire point of this art journey that you're on is to allow yourself to make tons and tons of mistakes and learn from them. Look, there's absolutely no embarrassment in getting something wrong. We all get things wrong. I mean, I've been drawing for a long time. I still get things wrong all the time. And I truly believe that no piece of mind is ever quote unquote perfect, but they're just kind of a snapshot of my skill set, my mentality, my experiences at that moment in time. That's it. Needing everything to be perfect is like strapping an elephant on your back, man. Take that weight off. Don't don't do that. The free rent thing that happened recently is the best example of this. You know, it's such an imperfect drawing, but everybody loved it and connected with it because we all deep down know that's how we learn. That's somebody in their learning journey. That's someone making a mistake and trying to learn from it. Man, that's that's good. Number four, and I'm looking at you. Finish your drawings. When I [snorts] was younger, I was very much guilty of doing this. I would draw these characters. And then halfway through, I would have an idea for something else. I'm like, "Oh, that would be cool to do right now." So then I would just be like, "Okay, this character is going to be invisible. He's turning invisible from the bottom up." And I just wouldn't finish the lower body before moving on to the next thing. And then I would repeat the same process. And nothing ever gets done. Now, I know as artists, we're all probably pretty scatterrained and you want to move on to the next thing when you think of something cool. But look, just try this out, okay? Try to finish each drawing. Try to get into this habit of finishing what you start. It's not so much that, you know, you learn a ton of new information in the final stages of that painting. But it's more like it'll establish a sense of discipline in you that will translate to other areas of your studies. But there's a balance here, okay? Don't go and spend like a 100 hours on a single piece just because you said you would finish it. Know when it's time to move on. Number five, draw more. Sounds stupid, I know. Like, who would have thought of that? But this is just one of those truths that you cannot escape if you're trying to be a better artist. The only real way for you to improve, for you to level up, and this applies to anything that you do, is to do more of that thing. Look, no matter how many tutorials you watch, how much technical information you consume, how much you know about color theory, about perspective, if you don't put any of that into practice and spend the time applying them to your drawings, you're just not going to get better. And everyone looks for hacks. Everyone looks for shortcuts. You know, how can I be better without putting in the time? You can't. Number six, and this one kind of relates to our last point, but keep a sketchbook. So many of you guys, you iPad kids, you grew up with only Procreate. You just draw digital, and you've never felt the sheer joy of a stick of graphite scraping itself on a dead tree. Oh, it's beautiful. But look, when I was doing art in high school, our teachers always stressed how important it was to keep a sketchbook and keep brainstorming and practicing in your sketchbook. And that's just one of the things that really stuck with me. Even though all the pieces that you see me draw today are done on this tablet, I still keep a sketchbook. It's easily one of the most economical as well as authentic and tactile experiences that you can have as an artist. because no matter how good you get with that iPad or a tablet like this, there's always a little bit of a disconnect between this tool and the surface that you're drawing on, but not in a sketchbook. And it gives you a place where you can just explore. If you have an idea, you can just try it out. Do a thumbnail sketch. You want to study perspective? Sure, draw a page of boxes and then tear it out and burn it. And this is going back to one of our last points, but the sketchbook provides a space that encourages mistakes. Use it to have fun. Do it for yourself. You don't have to show anyone else. You don't have to post it anywhere. That's your space. Also, speaking as someone who has always had a sketchbook from like elementary school until now, it's so much fun looking back at them. It's like a little glimpse into who you were at that time and where you were in terms of your art journey. I love it. Number seven, set goals. Now, this one sounds very easy, but you'd be surprised how many people get this wrong. When I say goal, I don't mean, oh, I want to be an art god by 2027. Sounds like a good goal, but how do you quantify that? What does that even mean? Make it something that actually will help you that you can actually track. Like for example, I want to spend 20 minutes every day practicing anatomy for the next two weeks. Oh my god, how did you do that? Oh my. Now, see, now we have something that we can actually track. You can set a timer for that. You can put a check mark on your calendar for the days that you actually managed to achieve that goal. Or how about, you know, I want to make three finished pieces every single month. Oh my god. Wait a minute. That's quantifiable, right? There you go. And I'm talking about art goals, not stuff like I want to get 200 likes on my next post. Don't do that. Look, if that is one of your goals, I'm going to come through this screen. Hold. I'm going to reach through this screen and I'm going to choke you like you choked that pencil and you're not going to like it. Lucky number eight. And this is the most important thing that I will say today. So, please open your ear holes, study your fundamentals. This has been driving me insane because I see a lot of people submit beautifully rendered pieces to me, but they don't understand anatomy. I personally think this one is so important because I used to make these same mistakes. A lot of my old drawings in my sketchbooks, I used to spend like 8, 10, 20 hours just rendering the absolute living crap out of them. They become so smooth and silky and so beautiful, but the anatomy is wrong. This has happened to me time and time again, and now I see it happening to a lot of younger artists. And this is the one thing that I'm trying to correct for the next generation. Okay? We got to focus on our fundamentals because guess what? An unrendered line art piece of an anatomically correct character is going to look better, higher skill than a fully rendered, anatomically incorrect piece of that same character. Think about it like this. How can you expect to color a drawing super effectively if you don't understand values? How can you draw a highly complex environment without really understanding perspective? And how can you stylize a character in a beautifully pleasing way without actually understanding basic anatomy? Know the rules before you break them. Okay? Don't make the same mistakes that I used to make in my sketchbooks. Don't be like me. I did all that so you don't have to. Number nine, use references. I say this all the time, but this is so important. Do not let anybody shame you into not using references. Referencing things from either real life or images is how you retain information in your mental library. And the more information you have up here, the more you can do. Every time you draw from a reference, you're collecting XP. You're grinding. You're leveling up. Now, last but not least, number 10. Stop listening to everyone. There's two parts to this final point. Part one is throughout all of my deep dives into short form art tutorial content that has decreased my lifespan by like 30 years. I've noticed that there's a lot of people out there who are teaching things to others who don't really fully grasp the concept themselves. I noticed this a lot with how to draw faces, how to draw bodies, you know, anatomy tutorials that I come across on Tik Tok. Sometimes people will see other artists use a cross method for the front of the face, but they don't really understand why the lines there where they're supposed to intersect and they just regurgitate that information to new audiences. Now, this I've personally seen become like a game of broken telephone. So, in the end, what happens is everybody is confused and everybody's using a flawed method. I cannot reiterate this enough. Check the work of the person who is trying to teach you things. If they don't even understand what they're teaching you, how can you know you're being taught the right thing? And that's part one. But part two of stop listening to everyone is consume less and create more. I'm seeing more of this now, unfortunately. But a lot of people spend more time browsing art tutorials, watching art content than they actually spend drawing. If you fall into that category, close this video down after you're done with it and go draw, okay? Do let your imagination run wild. Do your thing. Time is the most precious resource that you have. Take that from ank. Okay, I I know this I'm going to leave you with that. Okay, create more, consume less. Anyways, guys, I wanted to make this video to help you guys out for all of you who are very motivated to become better artists. I've made all of these mistakes over and over in the past, so I don't want you guys to suffer the same way that I did. Anyways, guys, if you want to see more art related content, subscribe to my channel and check out my Patreon for monthly tutorials. We just uploaded one on how to pick colors for your drawings and there's a new one coming out every single month. You can just join for a little bit and cram the backlog of like 20 tutorials just like how you would cram for an exam. Anyways guys, that being said, hope you have a great year in 2026. I love you guys so much. Thank you for all your support and I will see you guys on the next

Remember these for the rest of ur life my nephew. ✨ Monthly Tutorials on my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/samdoesarts 🫶 Limited Merch and Print Releases: https://samdoesarts.com/ ⭐️ check out my work here: https://www.instagram.com/samdoesarts/ 💫 Gumroad shop: https://gumroad.com/samdoesarts My art book: https://store.3dtotal.com/products/the-art-of-sam-yang