How to Improve Your Art

How to Improve Your Art

It always amazes me at the amount of effort people will put into making up excuses for their work. Like many other people, I try to leave comments that are more than just the "hey cool" one-liners. But all the time this is the reply I receive from the artist:

"Thanks, but this was done at 5am in the morning after I had surgery on my hand because it was crushed saving two orphans from a car fire."

See what's wrong with that?

One of the worst things you can do as an artist is try and defend your own work when other people (constructively) critique it. When someone first suggests the drawing you just spent hours on might not be perfect, of course your first reaction is to jump to your own defense and line up a page of reasons as to why the errors aren't actually your fault (or in some cases, why they're your "style"), but the hard truth is if you don't grow past learning to accept constructive criticism you will not make it very far in the art world... or anywhere else for that matter. Being an artist is hard, and one of the hardest parts (aside from subsisting on a diet of ramen and water for roughly half your life) is hearing what other people don't like about your work.

But fret not, fellow artist-in-training, because I have figured out a completely foolproof way to improve your art in two steps and will share it with you for only three easy payments of $99.95 ( $9.99 S&H.) Ready?

Part I:
Be objective with your own work
(don't worry, I'll send the bill to your house.)

To be objective is to basically allow yourself to look at your work as though it's not yours, which removes the automatic tilt in your favor (and despite what artists say (i.e., "I hate this piece it sucks") they generally will not post work they're not proud of.) Why should you be objective? An objective critique will always be more accurate than one done by the artist, or the friend of the artist. You (theoretically speaking) have no attachment to the piece and so have no reason to tilt towards compliments (like a friend would) or insults. Now of course you will never be 100% objective and that's perfectly normal and acceptable, the only important thing is you at least make an honest attempt to step back from your work and go "what is good about this piece and what needs work?" The obvious way to do this is to pretend the work isn't yours. For some people this is really easy and for others it isn't... there isn't really any surefire way to do this, other than to keep working on it. With every drawing you finish, take a step back and look at it objectively. Try looking at other people's work objectively.

You can also try leaving the drawing for a few days, then coming back to it. Does it still look as great as it did when you first finished it? When you leave your work and return later, you can sometimes find errors that you missed upon first finishing it.

And with learning to be objective comes

PART II:
Learning to accept constructive criticism
(stop your whining already)

The hard truth is that you will not improve without being critiqued from time to time. Praise and flattery are fun to receive but in the long run they're veritably useless. "That's so cool!" is fun to hear the first ten times, but after a while you want to hear someone say something substantial, and preferably longer than one sentence (see "How to Write Constructive Comments\" for help on how to write comments.*)

Now, what should you do if you run into a comment you completely and totally disagree with?

Well, you have a few options...

- Leave the comment and come back to it later (suggested by Minstrel Ayreon.) This allows you to time to cool off and decide whether the comment is really valid or not. Are they being constructive or are they just flaming? Flamers are usually obvious by their broad, negatory remarks ("stop drawing you suck at it".) The best way to deal with a flamer is to ignore or report them; do not respond and don't try to argue with them. Modern science has shown that many people turn into flamers because they fall down too many flights of stairs and suffer permanent brain damage**, so to argue with them would only be a waste your time (and probably give you a headache.)

- Get more information. Many times people will say what looks bad without saying why; sometimes this is because they can't quite place their finger on the reason but usually it's because they're lazy. Politely asking them to explain their reasoning.

- Ask an independent party, preferably one who will be honest instead of just agreeing with you. One way to circumvent that problem is to just not state which side of the problem you're on and just lay all the options out ("does his head look too small, too narrow, or fine?") Your friends might hate you for it, but usually bribing them with candy or doodles (or possibly both) will fix any irritation.

And then what about the pieces that were made with a special meaning in mind instead of accuracy? Submitting artwork then going "don't critique it!!" is perfectly fine when a piece has special significance to you (we've all done it), but to do that for every single little doodle and scrap you submit is a sign you aren't ready to be told what people don't like about your work, and you probably shouldn't be posting it on the Internet (and especially not in an online gallery.)

It's probably safe to say that most of us post our art on places like Sheezy Art to get at least some attention and praise, but we also post it so we can get the advice of other artists and continue to improve. Unfortunately it seems that many artists forget the second point and post their work expecting praise and admiration... and nothing else. But to refuse help because you feel your art is already perfect is tantamount to shooting yourself in the foot during a marathon: in the end all you have done is handicapped yourself. The nice thing about art is you can spend your whole life learning about it, but you'll never know all there is to know. Art is constantly moving forward, and as artists it is simply our job to try and keep up by continuing to learn and grow along with it.

- RiDE (Kayo) o9.21.2oo6
word count: approx 1200
beta-readers: PK

*Why yes, I am completely shameless and totally advertising my other article...
**I totally made that up, but I also completely stand by it.