YouTube Art Center

Step by Step Drawing (Beginner)

Great for NEW kazanjianm viewers. These videos are a great "first step" to make before moving on to my step by step portraits.

YouTube Visual Arts Category

For the first time in history, artists from around the world are communicating with each other and learning from each other.
- We can not only see each others work but often, we can see how the work was made.
- The master artists of this generation are exhibiting their work on youtube right now.
- This is unprecedented in history.
Artists of the past have their work exhibited in museums and museums have overflowed with generations of masterpieces. Our generation has YouTube. Yes, it is a museum. Think about it. Even major museums are exhibiting on YouTube right now. The current generation of artists has more expressive possibilities of artistic media than generations of the past, and I think that we have carried on arts rich tradition. Here are 20 examples of what I consider to be, Master art work. Click on any of the annotated links and they will open in a new tab.

But does YouTube fully understand the scope of what its created?

That question will be answered in time. But as of right now there is no category specifically for visual artists. The closest three categories are howto and style, education and film and animation. Howto and style is dominated by make up tutorials, workout videos and fashion tips. The Education category does not mention the visual arts and that is especially scary in a time when so many schools have totally eliminated the arts from their curriculums. Film and animation is the closest match but its classification is much more limiting than a Visual Arts category.

It is time to mobilize people. A Visual Arts category would mean a lot more views for all of us. And if you think about it, that is all an artist ever asks. They want a chance to create and to be seen. Just like how a poet uses words, we use imagery to communicate. And many have said that a picture is worth a thousand words. It is my new years resolution to help YouTube realize that it needs a visual arts category. But the good thing about YouTube is that they do listen. Think of how they are always asking for feedback.

So what is the plan, Merrill? I am going to ask you to consider doing two things. One.....Post a V-Log telling YouTube why they need a visual arts category. I don't care if you are Mark Crilley with over 400,000 subscribers or if you joined YouTube yesterday. If you are tired of ranking behind 10 pages of make up tutorials, do a V-Log and either post it to this video or mail it to me. I will put your v-logs in to a playlist which I will attempt to present to YouTube.

Two.....leave a comment in the youtube forum. I recommend going to the forum that I linked to in the video description. My friend Teresa Richardson, who has the fourth largest arts channel on YouTube already started this conversation in this forum. If there is enough comments, an administrator might respond. I encourage you to keep your comments positive and take the perspective that YouTube has given us a great thing, but we want to suggest a way to make it better.

Uploaded videos

Fundamentals of Drawing 101: For Beginner Artists

Are you a new artist? Well, this playlist is for you. Get the same quality instruction that you would get in a college class (I teach college) for free. After watching this playlist, you will be armed with important drawing formulas and useful information, to help you become a better artist. You will understand human proportion, facial proportion, the anatomic differences between males and females (the less obvious ones), and you will also learn how to break an image down in to simple shapes.

How to Draw Step by Step Portraits/People

No drawing experience? NO PROBLEM! This playlist will help you learn to draw your favorite athletes, movie stars, singers, rappers, musicians and more. Learn to draw step by step. Drawing is a skill that is slowly acquired and these videos will help you learn to draw.

YOUDRAW: Interactive Figure Drawing (Advanced)

A playlist for "graduates" of my step by step videos. In this video series THERE ARE NO STEPS......Just guided practice.

How to Draw the Hand Step by Step

How to Draw Basketball Players

Learn how to draw some of your favorite NBA stars (past and present) in this series of step by step drawing tutorials.

How to Draw Cars

How to Draw Cars Step by Step

Experimental Art Processes

A series of how to videos on the art processes that I use. In addition to being an artist, I am also a New York State Certified Art Teacher. I cover, pencil and painting techniques and a new artistic process, tradigital art, which mixes traditional materials with digital (computer based) possibilities.
-Merrill Kazanjian

Merrill Kazanjian (kazanjianm) Artwork

A playlist of noted YouTube artist Merrill Kazanjian's artwork. He is a Mixed Media artist from New York City and a pioneer in Tradigital Art; which mixed traditional materials (oil paint, colored pencil, pastels, traditional drawing) with digital possibilities (photo editing software, tablet art applications, photo manipulations, large format printer).

Merrill Kazanjian V-Logs

V-Logs by Merrill Kazanjian (kazanjianm)

kazanjianm user drawings

People who sucessfully completed my step by step drawing tutorials and posted their work as a video response.

YouTube Art News

YouTube Art News is your central hub for art happenings on YouTube. The show is hosted by Anchor Pablo Van Warhol and features reports from Tyler Lucas (tylersartshack), Serafin Ureno (orangemonkey92),Yoz Yozzer (YozCreative), Josh Waddey (JoshWaddey16), Thad Taylor (ThadTaylorArt) and Matthew Keeney (matthewkeeney).

Draw YouTube

Learn how to draw your favorite YouTubers!

Facial Expressions

Learn to draw various facial expressions.

Dry Brush Painting Instruction by Kazanjianm

Dry Brush Instructional Painting videos by Merrill Kazanjian

Favorite videos

Artmorphs