What are some tips for contacting other artists and asking for advice?
Ask educated questions, show that you’re motivated and you’re really interested and people are more than willing to help you. If you’re going to ask for someone’s help, really appreciate and value what they have to offer and don’t waste their time. I think that will get you a lot further.
If you’re going to ask someone’s advice, and this is probably a good thing for other artists to know, you have to do the work. Don’t just go ask someone, Hey, how did you make it? Go and do research first to figure out 40%, 50%, so that you have an educated question to ask them.
A lot of people ask me things like, Hey, how do you make your own T-shirts? And I’m like, Have you done any research? Because that’s a much different question than, Hey, what do you think about this shirt technique versus this technique, right? I’m more willing to offer advice to someone who’s already done some of the work.
Another thing I’ve learned is to talk about it to people. There are two people at the shop who oil paint and I do a lot of live painting with other artists, so I can pick their brains about what brushes they like best. Brushes are really expensive so it saved me probably 100 bucks by just asking what other people liked. Then I went and got some myself and they’re awesome.
Some of the artists I look up to here in Denver are interactive and you can talk to them. And then it’s weird how life works and you end up in situations with people you look up to and you might get that opportunity to talk to them face to face. Or you just end up being friends with them and then you can hang out and ask any questions you want at that point, you know?