Weakness of my art?

by Kinaj

Hello, it's one of these journals again.

Soo, I've been wondering how my art is seen by others. Especially what is jumping into your eye on my pictures that's rather unaesthetic to you?

The background is the usual, why am I so behind other artists that, at least to me, are among or below my skills, who barely ever upload something.

NOW don't let me not notice all you people who care about my art and/or me as well. I notice that and really appreciate you people <3
It's just... that thought and having no clue why makes me...ugh.

Viewed:	24 times
Added:	5 years, 7 months ago 22 Aug 2018 11:25 CEST

3 Comments on this Journal

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Nonfinite

5 years, 7 months ago

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So I spent my half hour morning walk thinking about this, and I hopefully have some helpful answers. You ask a courageous question, and it deserves a thorough answer.

From the technical side of things, I think your art is great. It might not be the most detailed or beautiful art, but you have a crisp, clean style that doesn't distract from what you're trying to portray. When I look back through your gallery even to a year ago I can see a lot of technical improvement in your work now, poses and faces and expressions are all better than they used to be.

I can see where you're coming from with worrying about backgrounds, I worry about that a lot too. That said, a background is mostly there to set context, which some of your more recent stuff (ask the cast and such) doesn't really require. I was going to recommend trying to go back and add more detailed backgrounds to things you think need them, but in my experience trying to add bg once everything else is done never ends well. Maybe try planning one out while sketching your next piece and see if it feels useful or not.
(Ha, I just reread the question and realized you probably aren't talking about image backgrounds at all! I'm leaving this in here anyway, though!)

If you aren't sure where you want to improve technically, I've found a useful exercise is to try making something wildly different from the usual style. Maybe try some brushes you don't usually use, try a more painterly art style without solid line art, throw habit and caution to the wind and see what happens. In my past experience it will be hard, and frustrating, and time consuming, but sometimes you stumble into something you never thought of before (or at least feel a bit more appreciative of your usual style).

It's hard to compare yourself to other artists, especially when there are some many super good ones around here. The best, most reliable comparison you can make is to your past self. Look through older stuff in your gallery and ask whether you like what you make today better. If you do, great! If you don't, take a look at the old stuff and try to figure out why you prefer it.

I looked through the things of yours I've faved and thought about what makes them stand out so much to me. I think your art really stands out when it tells a story. It doesn't need to be complex, or explicitly told, but it's there. An example helps the most:

This one doesn't really do anything for me. It tells me a lot about Mica, which is good, but past the initial look I've never really thought about it again. Her different activities in the piece are all disjointed and jumbled, which makes it difficult to focus on any particular thing or build a narrative between them.

Contrast that with

It's a much more simple, less involved piece, but I keep thinking about it. The color and abstractness of the background hint at a time and a season, but leave the setting open. The way you directed Anna's eye slightly away from where she's walking makes me thing she's looking at something off page. What's she looking at? Where's she going? The small details conspire to get my brain to ask questions and fill in a story. It's late afternoon, the sun is low in the sky. She's going to the beach for one of the last times of the summer, looking at the birds in the trees while she walks a path known so well her feet follow it automatically.

It's very hard to capture that kind of storytelling in a single image, but that's when I think your art really stands out. I like to write little one or two sentence prompts for a sketch, and if it doesn't feel right I abandon it and move on to the next project. Wish I had more advice to give on the topic, but it's something I've only started to be aware of recently.

I hope that helps. I'm trying to figure out a lot of this stuff myself too. Happy to talk in more detail if you want. (Yes!!! 57 characters under the 4000 character limit!)

Kinaj

5 years, 7 months ago

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@ Nonfinite

Ok, now first is all I really want to thank you for this thorough answer. That already means a lot to me!

First of all, yes. With background I mean the background of this journal. But you are right nevertheless and you've got me to think about how I should try next time you make and treat my background more like art itself, not so mathematically or so.

Then thanks again for your nice words. Although I would have a question what you mean with not the most detailed. I mean, I obviously am not, but i also get told a lot especially for detailed mine is so I would wonder if you could specify that point more.

Other artforms and techniques is also an interesting idea. And if it's just to spice things up. But it's also great to learn new techniques for my main style, like the shading I do now.

Comparing myself however...idk, I mean sure, it's the best thing to do, bit it doesn't help me with my question. While I've really improved and like my art or now, not only the style, but also my ideas advanced I think, I still am not more broadly enjoyed. In my first year I made between 50 and 100 watchers. Now I am here 4 years and barely made it to 400. Watching the numbers is bad, I know, but then I saw artists with styles not nearly as good as how I am now and they got 100 watchers with their first 5 submissions. Now they are over 1000, still(at least i would say so) not better than me(stupid thought, don't like it and still use it) and barely upload anything. The only consequenz I have from it is that i am not that good actually, not to others at least.

Now I am astonished about your examples. Not so much about Mica. This was meant to show off some stuff, no real story intended, but the Anna one even less. I drew the pose basically storyless. It's amazing how much you could read out of it that I couldn't even see there. Just wow.

Hope I've covered everything up. Nearly 4000 characters, wow. Only got half as many.

Nonfinite

5 years, 7 months ago

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@ Kinaj

So with not the most detailed, I mean like you tend to keep your art simple and clean (I hate to say "simple" because it often has bad connotations, I don't mean any). You don't add things like completely light-source accurate shading or backgrounds with lots of foliage, which can be beneficial to some styles, but I think would likely just complicate and detract from yours. Hopefully that makes sense, I'm not sure I'm explaining myself well. It's more just a different feeling to the art than anything.

We're getting into some personal stuff now, so if you feel like taking this out of public at any point you know how to contact me.

I understand where you're coming from. It certainly hurts to watch other, possibly less skilled, people rocket off into success. There are a lot of different reasons for this, but I think ultimately it comes down to what we define as successful. I can't speak to our cultural differences, but I know I grew up with a lot of pressure to succeed in easily quantifiable ways (income, views, numbers, etc), whereas things that are more difficult to measure (friendships, happiness, contentment) tend to get forgotten. It's really easy to let cultural expectations (especially capitalist cultural expectations) mess up our priorities. I've only been starting to fix mine in the last couple years, and it's really challenging to shake such deeply ingrained thoughts, even when we "know" they're wrong.

To that end, I'd ask you a seemingly simple question: Why do you want more watchers?

There probably isn't an easy answer to that, but think about what the end goal is. I'm guessing wanting higher numbers in some regard is really just what you see as the next step to some further off goal, and when you realize and articulate what that goal is you might find a better way to approach it.

I realize what I just asked you to do is very difficult. It's something I struggle with from time to time. Especially when the end goal feels unattainable, it can be very easy to focus on a possible first step that's out of your control instead of picking a better one that you might attempt and fail at directly.

I don't have any easy answers for you, but hopefully talking through things is helping. Regardless of what you come up with, you're important to me, and I hope that's worth something. <3

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