Culture: 5 YouTube Channels All Artists Should Subscribe To ASAP

By Audrey Garrett

​If you are an artist (musician, singer, athlete, illustrator) or want to be, you will need inspiration. The backbone of any artistic progress is copying and practice. YouTube gives millions the chance to appreciate and imitate specialists in their fields for free, so make use of it. Below are the top five YouTube accounts selected by Quail Bell Magazine for any beginning artist, blogger, or creative.
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1. For The Traditionalist: The Metropolitan Museum Channel

​The Metropolitan Museum of Art (tied with the MoMA) is New York City’s hub for masterpieces. The Met's YouTube channel is no different. The channel and the museum's main building on 5th Ave, serves the public as a meeting spot for artists needing inspiration. The official YouTube channel posts weekly slice-of-life interviews with contemporary artists revealing each artist's inspirations, motivations, and anxieties on constantly creating. The vulnerable mini-episodes can give any stagnant artist the motivation to attempt (or reattempt) their latest work. Right now (March 2021) The Met's YouTube channel has released the playlist “Women and Art”. The playlist compiles all the interviews The Met has conducted with female artists whose exhibitions have been installed in one of their beloved gallery rooms. Each interview includes the artist's personal page, exhibition online gallery or history. The channel generously provides a free subscription into the subconscious of hundreds of acclaimed artists' minds. 
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2.  For Photographers: CreativeLive

Photo by: Rob Shum, CreativeLive student

​CreativeLive is a YouTube channel for photographers who know they can improve. The verified YouTube channel houses dozens of playlists on portraits, landscapes with specialized video collections on marketable skills of wedding photography, business photography, and filmmaking. The channel, founded in 2010, does not take up time with ads or lengthy introductions. CreativeLive's informative lessons of photographers demonstrating a new skill or lecturing to a small group are never longer than 10 minutes. Demonstrations are conducted by famous photographers including wildlife photographer Frans Launting and model photographer Nigel Barker. This channel is for visual artists determined to improve their craft.
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3. For Illustrators: Minnie Small

Photo by: Minnie Small

Minnie Small is a YouTuber and illustrator. Her YouTube channel is full of sketchbook tours, 30-day drawing challenges, and videos on how to market yourself as a commissioned illustrator. Her voice is soothing and her drawings range from watercolor, pen art, to digital graphics. Minnie Small is famous with over 415k subscribers on YouTube and 84.1k followers on Instagram. Based in London, the young Black female illustrator inspires beginning illustrators to be organized, motivated and persistent in making their artwork their career. 

4. For Abstract Thinkers: Jan Hakon Erichsen

Jan Hakon Erichsen is a self-described “Visual artist and balloon destroyer”. His YouTube channel includes videos of Erichsen, a Norwegian artist educated at Staten's Kunstakademi National Academy of Arts, ripping bananas apart with string, and popping balloons with power drills. His audacious at-home videos of him destroying structures of uncooked spaghetti, tape towers, and coffee tables involve Erichsen rolling on the ground, spinning in circles, and doing somersaults, to destroy his self-built structures. His videos are playful and creative and engaging and motivating without any background music or voice-over. For any artist experiencing a creative block, Erichsen’s videos will help their creative process proving ideas are not precious but numerous and always worth exploring. 
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5. For the Curious: art21

Even if you are not a practicing artist, comfortable in their medium you will enjoy following Art21 on YouTube. The channel includes interviews with contemporary painters, sculptures, and musicians from all around the world. The channel’s playlists "Taking a Stand”, "Portraying the Black American Experience", and “Artists to Artists” inspire conversations on the future of modern art in New York City (“New York City Upclose”, Digital Series), and international artists (“Borderlands”, Digital Series). The 20-minute videos on artist exhibitions, processes, and motivation for creating are insightful and inspiring and worth viewing on anyone's next lunch break or bus ride home.