Artists, This Is Ur Reminder To Start Drawing References Or Redesign Your Original Characters Before

Snoopy watching me draw after a meal at a restaurant (I love drawing food)

being an artist and revisiting media you liked when you were 11 is like. oh ok. this shaped my sense of humor and the way I write characters and the way I pace narratives and the tropes I'm drawn to. and I vastly underestimated how much of an impact it had on me because I literally have not thought about it for 15 years. but it was there inside me the whole time. ok. ok cool! c ool

Birthday gifts for friends, I pushed myself with these ones because I will absolutely try anything new for my beloved friends, for myself…. maybe haha 😌 I absolutely adore how both of them turned out ✨

A banner I made bc I’m working on opening commissions (through vgen!!) and it’s strange to see my art next to each other like this for some reason

actually this reminded me of art blindness (not sure if it already has a term, but this is how I’ve thought of it as). It’s the idea that you’ll never quite know what your art looks like, how others see it, because you’ve seen so much of it and were there for the entire process so your brain has become familiar with it. Many artists won’t ever fully grasp how amazing their work looks to everyone else. It’s not always about perfectionism, it just comes from being unable to see it from an outside perspective like everyone else can. Not a bad thing, just a reminder not to be hard on yourself. You’re just used to it so you can’t see how amazing it is!!

It’s the same thing that happens when you grow up in a town with extremely beautiful flowers. Tourists would come from all over to see them! And you’d be confused about what the big deal is, since you’d known them so long that they’ve become familiar. You’d still appreciate them and you’d also have moments where that familiarity drops a little and you’ll see the awe-inspiring beauty everyone else sees, but it won’t be the same as it would be from an outside view. That’s also why artists are more easily able to judge their older art (for looking either better or worse than they recall) because it’s been put aside for enough time that the familiarity has faded enough for them to see it objectively.

A banner I made bc I’m working on opening commissions (through vgen!!) and it’s strange to see my art next to each other like this for some reason

Saw a video of all these people doing super impressive sports things today, and it was meant to be inspiring (which it still kinda was, the stuff was very cool) but it got me thinking about what would happen if the way we consumed sports and art were inversed, like:

"Ah, the artist chooses another brush! Things are about to get crazy, folks." "The crimson? Oh, no, she swerved at the last moment and chose the vermillion instead! An interesting choice, we'll have to see what this does to the painting in the long-term." "He drank the paint water! This will be bad for the season, folks, we may have another hospital visit on our hands. ...And looks like he's down for this painting session."

vs.

"That backflip turned out so well! Can't believe it took you five hours." "Oh you like, play sports, right? You should kick a ball for me right now!" "Yeah I was thinking about hiring a professional, but just anyone can shoot a few hoops, you know? Plus they have that new AI thing these days... sports are just so much more accessible now."

Anyway there's a lot of interesting comparisons you can make with art and a lot of things, just kinda funny to compare it to sports especially given recent controversies I think

that new generative ai thing is breaking my heart

Appreciation post for all the beginner artists who work hard despite the AI ​​looming over us. You are fabulous. You are precious. Keep up the hard work, you are needed.

Strawberry 🍓

We were all beginners at one point or another, and we ought to respect everyone's beginning regardless of what it looks like. Critiquing another artist's skills or mocking them for being inexperienced is in extremely poor taste.

"But it could look better, I'm just giving them advice so they can improve-" no. If they want advice, they'll ask for feedback. Also, feedback should be given in a constructive and kind manner, not just an infodump of their flaws. it's called constructive criticism for a reason, because it's meant to build others up not tear them down

There are so many art babies just starting and it always gives me hope for the future of art, knowing that people are still finding joy in creating and starting on the long journey of being an artist. We have got to take care of these beginners, not crush their spirits by criticizing them for not being as experienced as the artists further down the trail. It is a process. Let them learn like we did, like we still are learning.