3 things an artist make:
1. Finishing and finishing often. You should not be making the same thing all the time, but you should be consciously iterating in any direction you like as long as you are still finishing. Great painters, writers, musicians, are constantly making stuff, you only see the polished stuff that ends up through the filter.
2. Studying the great works in whatever your chosen field/style/genre. Know the "rules", the normal directions on the map, before you break them and decide on a shortcut or to buck convention all together. All great artists, even the enfant-terrible avant-garde artists, are extremely knowledgeable in art-history in their chosen field and can explain extremely precise opinions on the merits of one artist or movement. Most postures of naiveté are just that: posturing. Great artists know their stuff.
3. Surrounding yourself with other artists. You need people who will look at whatever you finish and tell you about it. Hopefully, these people should be as interested in good art as you, and as well versed or more well versed in art history as you. Engaging in communities of artists will make your imagination and creativity soar.
You absolutely need 1 and 2. You can get by without 3, but you will likely never achieve true greatness without it.
Everything else after that is luck.
