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in regards to art

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by
Adder
, 6-19-14 at 3:41:49 PM (372 Views)
so it's been like another two months. and yea.
i've started that new palette challenge thing thats all over tumblr cause i've been wanting to get back into digital art.
anyways, i finished my first piece last night and decided to post it on here as well as several other sites i go on for critiques. and then i remembered why i never post artwork on here. it took all but a nights sleep to come back to someone accusing me of just painting (?) over an image. it honestly didn't bother me cause there's been some critiques at school where my professor was basically like, "this is crap cas."
but i felt like addressing something about artwork.
i took a grand total of 8 art classes in high school, including an AP studio art class that i got college credit for. i'm a graphic design major. i've had my work in the north carolina state fair. i've submitted work to national competitions. i designed a billboard when i was 17 years old.
you do not get better at art by disregarding artistic rules.
if you look at my work in ninth grade compared to now, it's a huge change. one of the first things you do in art class in high school is a fabulous thing called gridding. you take a photo, slap a grid on it, then take a blank piece of paper and slap a grid on that. you then transfer said image onto your new piece of paper via looking at each individual square. it's annoying at crap because it takes so long but it helps you get better.
so naturally whenever i try out a new medium (like getting back into digital art) i go back to that really annoying thing i did when i was a mere 13/14 years old and apply it to what im working on now.
the point of this is to let you know that it's ok to use image references when you're learning.
one of my biggest pet peeves in the art world is when people get chastised for using them. plagiarism is one thing but personally i don't see any problem with using references when doing exercises/learning new mediums. obviously if you start to sell your work or submit them into competitions you can't just recreate an image you found on google. that being said, though, don't trace.
at least for me, i love using references of people when i'm practicing. it's helps me understand facial construction and transfers the focus onto shadows and highlights as the piece goes along.
i have other things to talk about, oh yes.
the rant is just getting started.
when giving cnc, respect what the op is asking for and what theyre not.
if i ask for cnc on anatomy and ask to disregard the fact that a drawing might be sketchy and not inked perfectly, dont be a smart-aleck and post something about how the drawing is sketchy. as another artist, or just a critic, be respectful. it makes you look bad when you're purposefully trying to be rude. same goes for artistic style. you can still have style and be within the boundaries of correct anatomy/shading/whatever else. for example, my style is super messy, it always has been. i work best when i can just spazz out on a piece of paper, which is probably why i like charcoal and nupastels when doing traditional work. at the same time though, i can be messy but still have correct anatomy and have good shading.
no one is going to go back in time and tell monet or van gogh to redo their paintings because of how they put paint on a canvas even though their lighting/perspective is great.
dont let pride get the better of you.
there is an extremely fine line between being constructive and being rude. not just on here, but in school i constantly see artists who think they're better than other people because they just think they're the bees-knees. it's one thing to be proud of your work, and an entirely different thing to be prideful. even if someone isn't at the level you are, be kind to them. every artist used to be crap at something. being mean to someone who might be just starting to get into art/gfx is going to run them out of it before they can even get better.

anyways, that's all i've got to say.
i swear i love art but artists really tick me off sometimes.
fell like posting my day 2 for the palette challenge. i absolutely hated the colors for today but i managed i guess. his eyes are a little wonky, hah.

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  1. Adder's Avatar
    haha yea, i'm probably an oldie on central now. but since i know the majority of the artists on here are amateur (and i still definitely consider myself one) i wanna help out. like i was fortunate enough to go to a public school that had an extensive art program and great teachers.
    it's funny, though, cause i just finished reading a book about van gogh (which was fantastic) and the majority of the work he did when he first started drawing was copying work from books. he did that for YEARS learning how to draw figures.

    and the guy is james mcavoy, he's charles xavier in the newer xmen first class movies.
    but yes, gridding is helpful. that was actually one of the first projects we did in art 1 like 5 years ago and we used that technique all the way through all the other classes. it takes a while to get the hang of it and it'll be super meticulous at first but it's helpful because as you get more experienced you'll eventually start learning how to take your own reference pictures, and learning how to properly transfer those onto paper help a ton. and eventually you won't need the grid, you'll be able to just look and draw
    this is sorta off topic but if you're going into an art program for college, you absolutely cannot use other people's reference photos. you might be able to get away with it sometimes but it's honestly not worth the chance of getting kicked out of school. there were a couple projects i had last year where our professor allowed us to use like one creative commons photo, but all the others had to be our own. there is no way you can major in art and not use reference photos, which is why i really encourage new artists to start there.

    i've been thinking about making a guide about this kinda thing, honestly. dunno if people would find it helpful, though.
  2. Adder's Avatar
    the grid dimensions can be whatever you want. if you're using a smaller photo, half inch would probably be fine, or even an inch. as long as it's a square. when transferring it onto paper you can double the grid (1 inch to 2 inches) and basically double the size of the photo or keep it the same size. it's mainly used for resizing images but i found it better for doing image ref work.

    yea the thing about photos is kind of a pain. when i was in ap art, we could only used creative commons photos, which is like.. the photographer is giving you permission to use their photo for non-commercial use but you can't go and claim their photo as your own or redistribute it. even though, if you completely just copied their photo that's totally not allowed in a professional sense (but i do it for practice pft). but by reference photos i mean, if you look up a girl with bangs on google, pick one, draw her, and then turn it in as your work that's considered plagiarism. more often than not the images on google are usually copyrighted. so to be safe from that professors will make you take your own ref pictures, of poses or a face for example. also, the legalities in using someone elses picture is way too much work. i've heard awful stories about people getting sued because they didn't follow the picture license, or their print went over limit of the license or something like that.

    i don't see any problem with using pictures that aren't your own for examples though, i do it all the time. there could be some unwritten rule about that but the internet is full of resources that're supposed to help you so why not utilize them.
  3. Adder's Avatar
    i'm honestly not 100% sure. there's a spoken rule that basically says it's not plagiarism if you change like 10% of the photograph, but even then it's a bit sketchy. i'm not sure about youtube videos though.
    and i usually dont use google to find image refs. sites like flickr have a huge source of creative commons photos. gettyimages and morguefile are also big on that but i've heard that sites specifically made for stock photos are more likely to sue you for whatever reasons theyve got.
    but the image refs that i used on my palette drawings were totally not creative commons photos, theyre probably copyrighted. when i practice i usually dont go through the trouble of trying to find free pictures, cause to be honest most of them stink and it's really just for my personal exercises rather than going and getting them printed and sold, which would be illegal.