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Art Is Hard™
Jan. 25th, 2019 09:31 amI follow a lot of visual artists on Tumblr and Twitter, so I see a fair number of posts about how the best way to get better at drawing is to practice. I know that these artists are coming from a good place, and I get that this is sound advice, but also, like…
This is a post about art, but it’s also a story about how someone on the internet annoys me. It doesn’t paint me in the most favorable light, so feel free to judge me for being an asshole.
( Read more... )
The story is that, during the past ten years, this artist’s style has not changed in the slightest. Every once in a while I’ll see her work in a zine or comic anthology, and every so often I’ll see someone reblog her fan art for the fandom I used to follow, and I always get this visceral feeling of anti-nostalgia, like, that time has passed but nothing has changed.
If I can be shallow and superficial for a moment, I think it’s fair to say that her style is distinctive only in the sense that it’s perfectly generic. It’s like she draws the people who appear in diagrams in the sort of textbooks and emergency prevention posters that the “try not to cry” meme was parodying, and her range of faces and bodies and poses doesn’t seem to have expanded. She drew entirely in cel-shaded grayscale then, and she still draws entirely in cel-shaded grayscale now. As far as I can tell, she still uses the same two Photoshop brushes. This artist is fairly prolific and seems to be serious about her creative career, but she’s still drawing in the exact same way she was when we were both babies on the internet in 2008. Basically, she draws a lot, but she hasn’t improved at all.
If you know me, and if you know my fandom history, then you can probably guess the fandom, which means it’s probably easy to guess the identity of the artist as well. If you’re wondering if it’s the person you’re thinking of, the answer is YES. Even if it’s not, and even if you’re thinking of an entirely different fandom, the answer is still YES. I get the feeling that every big fandom has at least one of these artists, someone who draws and posts a ton of content but never gets any better.
Granted, I haven’t really improved either. I didn’t start drawing seriously until September 2017, but daily practice and experimentation haven’t done much for me during that time. Here I am, judging this artist who was mean to me this one time ten years ago, but can I really say that I’m any better than her? I’m afraid that maybe some people only have a limited amount of talent, and it does not matter in the slightest how hard they work or how much they draw. I understand that a lot of “talent” and “getting better” is subjective, and I’m happy for people who are happy creating for the sake of creation, but I’m specifically talking about myself here. It’s like, I practice drawing hands hands hands hands hands hands HANDS HANDS HANDS all the time, and guess what I still can’t draw to save my life? (Answer: Literally *gross sobbing* everything.)
This is why it bothers me when artists say “the best way to get better is to practice.” It’s like, yes, of course it’s important to practice, but people who make good art are clearly doing something more than making a commitment to “just draw every day,” and I wish I could figure out what this is.
I’m going to follow this up with a post about writing and my own experience of what that “something more” was and continues to be for me. I’m not sure if putting this in words will help me create connections to visual art, but it would be nice if it could.
In the meantime, I also want to say that it is nothing short of pure joy watching my artist friends try new things and grow and change across their posts on social media, and I’m always so grateful that they’re comfortable sharing their work with the world like that. I’m not even remotely at their level, but I’m still inspired by them!
This is a post about art, but it’s also a story about how someone on the internet annoys me. It doesn’t paint me in the most favorable light, so feel free to judge me for being an asshole.
( Read more... )
The story is that, during the past ten years, this artist’s style has not changed in the slightest. Every once in a while I’ll see her work in a zine or comic anthology, and every so often I’ll see someone reblog her fan art for the fandom I used to follow, and I always get this visceral feeling of anti-nostalgia, like, that time has passed but nothing has changed.
If I can be shallow and superficial for a moment, I think it’s fair to say that her style is distinctive only in the sense that it’s perfectly generic. It’s like she draws the people who appear in diagrams in the sort of textbooks and emergency prevention posters that the “try not to cry” meme was parodying, and her range of faces and bodies and poses doesn’t seem to have expanded. She drew entirely in cel-shaded grayscale then, and she still draws entirely in cel-shaded grayscale now. As far as I can tell, she still uses the same two Photoshop brushes. This artist is fairly prolific and seems to be serious about her creative career, but she’s still drawing in the exact same way she was when we were both babies on the internet in 2008. Basically, she draws a lot, but she hasn’t improved at all.
If you know me, and if you know my fandom history, then you can probably guess the fandom, which means it’s probably easy to guess the identity of the artist as well. If you’re wondering if it’s the person you’re thinking of, the answer is YES. Even if it’s not, and even if you’re thinking of an entirely different fandom, the answer is still YES. I get the feeling that every big fandom has at least one of these artists, someone who draws and posts a ton of content but never gets any better.
Granted, I haven’t really improved either. I didn’t start drawing seriously until September 2017, but daily practice and experimentation haven’t done much for me during that time. Here I am, judging this artist who was mean to me this one time ten years ago, but can I really say that I’m any better than her? I’m afraid that maybe some people only have a limited amount of talent, and it does not matter in the slightest how hard they work or how much they draw. I understand that a lot of “talent” and “getting better” is subjective, and I’m happy for people who are happy creating for the sake of creation, but I’m specifically talking about myself here. It’s like, I practice drawing hands hands hands hands hands hands HANDS HANDS HANDS all the time, and guess what I still can’t draw to save my life? (Answer: Literally *gross sobbing* everything.)
This is why it bothers me when artists say “the best way to get better is to practice.” It’s like, yes, of course it’s important to practice, but people who make good art are clearly doing something more than making a commitment to “just draw every day,” and I wish I could figure out what this is.
I’m going to follow this up with a post about writing and my own experience of what that “something more” was and continues to be for me. I’m not sure if putting this in words will help me create connections to visual art, but it would be nice if it could.
In the meantime, I also want to say that it is nothing short of pure joy watching my artist friends try new things and grow and change across their posts on social media, and I’m always so grateful that they’re comfortable sharing their work with the world like that. I’m not even remotely at their level, but I’m still inspired by them!
