Growing as an Artist

First, every artist must define the word "growth" for themselves. How do you measure your self worth and success ? A lot is to be taken into account. Your history from the past to the present, your feelings and thoughts all contribute to your painting. A painting can not be separated from the artist. Even if an artist is primarily self taught, she is influenced by all different kinds of things that she has been exposed to.

Things to do in order to grow:
For one, drawing is the foundation to all else. Practice as frequently as you can. You will see improvement in a short time.
Another, is study the Old Masters. Check out their achievements for their times. They went "outside the box", so to speak. Learn from them paint without constraints, let loose, and develop your own style. Experiment.
Realize that painting is a growth process. There is no end. It just keeps going and going. I think that is what makes a lot of us keep doing what it is we are doing. It's reaching for achievement, then another and another. It's refreshing, never boring and keeps us going. Along the way, there are pitfalls, but that is what enables us to get a better understanding of our craft.
A teacher I had use to said over and over, "Just keep painting". There is a lot of truth to this. Much practice goes into obtaining growth. You can't just go to museums, galleries or read. Regularly working is what is required. Be disciplined.
Work from life. There is no better way than to have a model right in front of you. No guess work is involved because the source is there. The farther and farther away you get from the source the harder and harder it is. One has to rely on memory or photo interpretation. So, when possible try live models or plein aire. It also really helps to get in touch with your subject. In the drawing phase, you learn your subject firsthand and the better you know your subject the better off you will be.

So get out there and make something of yourselves :)