Talent, Potential and Skill

I want to talk about a little thing people call talent, it doesn’t exist, except in the minds of people who are unable or unwilling to do well in something creative or wonderful. Let me expand on that, from my own experiences and through talking with other creative types about their experiences, I found that when someone says, “This person has talent”, they have the mind set that the person they refer to has some innate ability that allows them to do wonderful and creative things without effort. This is from the truth, because every successful creative person out there had the passion to dedicated themselves to the time and effort it took to get their skill to that level, it isn’t easy.

While I don’t believe in talent, I do believe in potential and aptitude. Every single person has the potential to do wonderful things if they dedicate themselves, but some people have more aptitude than others in achieving wonderful things and that is the only real edge they have. Lets take artists for example, they start off drawing young just like everyone else and for the most part they don’t draw any better than anyone else and the only difference is that they either took more enjoyment from it or took it more seriously. So, as that artist grows up they continue to draw and learn from mistakes. Sometimes, if lucky, the artist grows up in a family that has an artist or two living with them, whom they can learn from. If the passion is particularly strong that artist might ask for art lessons or get books on the subject, but still that is not always enough. If the artist stops their artwork longer than a year they become rusty and have to retrain and this is devastating. The successful artist is the one that seeks help through training but also continues self education and is willing to explore, make mistakes, and discover for greater understanding to create wonderful art. So, the successful creative person often puts years upon years of time, effort, and dedication in order to become good at what they do; sometimes this takes a life time.

Enclosing, always remember that if you want a writer, artist, musician or other creative type to produce something wonderful for you, your business or any other venture, remember we all work for a living.

"If you are good at something never do it for free"— Joker (Heath Ledger)

The following pieces of art are to the best of my knowledge in chronological order to show how long it took me to progress to my current skill level in art.

  Around Age 5

 Around Age 8-10

 Around Age 8-11
















Around Mid Teens ( I think I am going to revise this comp it is just to fun to pass up)

Around mid to Late Teens (was modifed in PS 10 years ago can't find original was two separate pieces)














Around mid to late Teens














Early 20s

 Early 20s





















Mid 20s











Mid to late 20s finally in college studying art

 Late 20s still learning to paint digitally

Present day!

Check out more of my work at Tobias White Illustrations

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