You’re let down by god; you’re let down by boring strangers.
Hello! This will be a non-art post, and as such I expect approximately zero people to pay attention to it. I am in California right now, visiting mikari_chan and enjoying the fact that it is ~20º warmer than it is in Minnesota. Mostly I am enjoying not being at work, which has been crazy lately and which I will refrain from commenting on further here, since I complain about it more than enough on Twitter. Today we went to a cupcake ATM in Beverly Hills - YES, IT IS A REAL THING - and also the The Getty, which is worth it for the view alone. And a painting of a young woman in her study wearing a fur that was so beautiful it made me gnash my teeth in envy and rage.
I am feeling slightly guilty, especially after the museum, that my artwork for i_reversebang is 1) back in Minneapolis and 2) not further along in progress than it is. (By the way, there is still time to sign up for i_reversebang!) I still plan to do two drawings but I'm not quite one hundred percent sure what the second is going to be. I've kind of been on more of a quest than usual to challenge myself lately, and I'm leery of biting off more than I can chew by taking on more than one really complex painting. I've got plenty of time, realistically, since I'm perfectly fine with the thought of submitting them as WIPs, but I don't want to get horrifyingly burnt out on either one.
I've been having a number of conversations lately about artistic process and stagnation. It seems to be a subject that's on many minds, mine included, especially the past couple of months. I'm only really qualified to talk about it from an artistic standpoint, and in a way I'll never really understand it from the point of view who considers making artwork to be entirely a hobby. I went to a 4-year college and got a fine arts degree, and I can safely say that the idea of ever being satisfied with one's artwork was essentially a foreign concept to everyone who went to that school. There's a fine line between objectively being satisfied with one piece of artwork, knowing your talent level and your interaction with the piece as it is, and being complacent about skill level and mastery of subject matter.
And when it stops hurting, you have to just start beating a different part of your body instead. It becomes tempting to only draw what you like, and drawing what you like is often what you're most familiar with or feel you can draw most successfully. But ultimately it's unsatisfying for everyone involved, because I don't think there is a single creative person out there who doesn't want to improve, and audiences get tired of consuming the same product over and over, especially if there's not a visible improvement in skill level. Not to say that you can't keep improving even those things that you're good at, but if you don't work on the weaker areas too, ultimately it doesn't matter. A drawing isn't necessarily only as good as its most unsuccessful parts, but the quality of a piece of art includes those weakest parts.
I'm used to giving and getting critique, because I went through a lot of it. "Critique" includes both constructive criticism and praise, and it is difficult to give. A lot of the critiques I went through were mandatory, and arduous, and it's inevitable that in those circumstances they were not particularly enjoyable. But over and over, people said that when we graduated, critique would be what we missed the most, and I'm inclined to agree. The internet, and fandom in particular, is a great source of shared interest, and a wonderful way to share your work. People, myself included, get an incredible amount of amazing support and I think that fandom is at least partially responsible for motivating a lot of us, at one point or another, to continue to create. But in another way I think it can also be responsible for stagnation: we reach a plateau, we feel that we've found a niche, and we stay there. It gets easier to ignore the flaws in your work when you're receiving a lot of praise.
I've made it a goal of mine to give better feedback this year. That's kind of a lame goal, because I was a dedicated lurker before, and I left almost no comments. But I know I want to improve, and the only way I know to help other people improve too is by leaving meaningful feedback. I firmly believe that every critique should include at least as much praise as it does criticism, otherwise there's no point; if you didn't enjoy anything about the work, then why are you bothering to leave feedback to help its creator improve? I know that many people don't feel comfortable, or that they don't have anything to contribute, that they're disadvantaged by virtue of not knowing the vernacular or having the hard knowledge to back up their criticism. But I also think that those people do and should have a voice regardless of that. Art is democratic; more or less knowledge doesn't actually make your feedback more or less valid.
I don't expect everyone to leave paragraphs-long comments, by any means. But I do think that those thoughtful comments go a long way to helping me (and other artists/authors, I hope) avoid stagnation. Art is deeply personal and being called out on something you know is a weakness can be painful, but it doesn't need to be. Artistic weaknesses aren't something to be ashamed of, just opportunities in the making. Thank you to everyone who leaves me comments on my artwork; I appreciate them deeply even when they are just two words. Or one, heck.
Anyway, now that I've rambled about that, did you know that Bear in Heaven came out with a new album? It's amazing. Here's one of my favorite songs (so far, at least):
Tomorrow we are going to see The Hunger Games, finally. Hooray!
I am feeling slightly guilty, especially after the museum, that my artwork for i_reversebang is 1) back in Minneapolis and 2) not further along in progress than it is. (By the way, there is still time to sign up for i_reversebang!) I still plan to do two drawings but I'm not quite one hundred percent sure what the second is going to be. I've kind of been on more of a quest than usual to challenge myself lately, and I'm leery of biting off more than I can chew by taking on more than one really complex painting. I've got plenty of time, realistically, since I'm perfectly fine with the thought of submitting them as WIPs, but I don't want to get horrifyingly burnt out on either one.
I've been having a number of conversations lately about artistic process and stagnation. It seems to be a subject that's on many minds, mine included, especially the past couple of months. I'm only really qualified to talk about it from an artistic standpoint, and in a way I'll never really understand it from the point of view who considers making artwork to be entirely a hobby. I went to a 4-year college and got a fine arts degree, and I can safely say that the idea of ever being satisfied with one's artwork was essentially a foreign concept to everyone who went to that school. There's a fine line between objectively being satisfied with one piece of artwork, knowing your talent level and your interaction with the piece as it is, and being complacent about skill level and mastery of subject matter.
And when it stops hurting, you have to just start beating a different part of your body instead. It becomes tempting to only draw what you like, and drawing what you like is often what you're most familiar with or feel you can draw most successfully. But ultimately it's unsatisfying for everyone involved, because I don't think there is a single creative person out there who doesn't want to improve, and audiences get tired of consuming the same product over and over, especially if there's not a visible improvement in skill level. Not to say that you can't keep improving even those things that you're good at, but if you don't work on the weaker areas too, ultimately it doesn't matter. A drawing isn't necessarily only as good as its most unsuccessful parts, but the quality of a piece of art includes those weakest parts.
I'm used to giving and getting critique, because I went through a lot of it. "Critique" includes both constructive criticism and praise, and it is difficult to give. A lot of the critiques I went through were mandatory, and arduous, and it's inevitable that in those circumstances they were not particularly enjoyable. But over and over, people said that when we graduated, critique would be what we missed the most, and I'm inclined to agree. The internet, and fandom in particular, is a great source of shared interest, and a wonderful way to share your work. People, myself included, get an incredible amount of amazing support and I think that fandom is at least partially responsible for motivating a lot of us, at one point or another, to continue to create. But in another way I think it can also be responsible for stagnation: we reach a plateau, we feel that we've found a niche, and we stay there. It gets easier to ignore the flaws in your work when you're receiving a lot of praise.
I've made it a goal of mine to give better feedback this year. That's kind of a lame goal, because I was a dedicated lurker before, and I left almost no comments. But I know I want to improve, and the only way I know to help other people improve too is by leaving meaningful feedback. I firmly believe that every critique should include at least as much praise as it does criticism, otherwise there's no point; if you didn't enjoy anything about the work, then why are you bothering to leave feedback to help its creator improve? I know that many people don't feel comfortable, or that they don't have anything to contribute, that they're disadvantaged by virtue of not knowing the vernacular or having the hard knowledge to back up their criticism. But I also think that those people do and should have a voice regardless of that. Art is democratic; more or less knowledge doesn't actually make your feedback more or less valid.
I don't expect everyone to leave paragraphs-long comments, by any means. But I do think that those thoughtful comments go a long way to helping me (and other artists/authors, I hope) avoid stagnation. Art is deeply personal and being called out on something you know is a weakness can be painful, but it doesn't need to be. Artistic weaknesses aren't something to be ashamed of, just opportunities in the making. Thank you to everyone who leaves me comments on my artwork; I appreciate them deeply even when they are just two words. Or one, heck.
Anyway, now that I've rambled about that, did you know that Bear in Heaven came out with a new album? It's amazing. Here's one of my favorite songs (so far, at least):
Click to viewTomorrow we are going to see The Hunger Games, finally. Hooray!