My Advice to a Young Artist Starting Late

Tastes change and sometimes you won't know how you feel until you've gone down that path. Don't be bothered. When I was young all I wanted was to be an artist and after doing that for 10 years for some reason I wanted to be a nurse. So by the time I got into nursing school I got all envious of the younger students. You can only be you and your unique experience, history included (directly art related or not) is what makes your art special and unique to you, so my advice is to never think of your lack of art training a drawback as an artist. Art is only part technique, this can be taught and learned. GREAT ART requires depth, relatability, only gained by life experience. In your past that you didn't spend learning how to draw you probably spent it living, experiencing other things, battling different struggles, I would think of that as an advantage, draw on that, it is unique to you and other artists don't have that which makes your voice authentic and interesting. Lots of GREAT artists didn't make anything good until much later in life and it's partly because it took them that much time to not only master good technique but to more importantly experience the rich life that gave their art that special depth. J.K. Rowling was a school teacher before she wrote Harry Potter, Christopher Walken was a janitor for 11 years.