you havent truly seen art until you’ve seen one direction fan art
Okay, screw the BS being spewed by the original (re)poster. The artists who got reposted and mocked here are probably scanning the list of reblogs, looking to see what other people have said, and I want them to hear the truth.
So I am talking here to the artists who made these pieces, and many others like them—regardless of age or experience level. Listen. As an artist, you are POWERFUL. You are improving yourself—and if people try to tell you that your art is frivolous or empty, they are either lying or they do not understand.
- Following your art means that every day, you are renewing your commitment to the things you love.
- It means that you are exploring your passions, navigating the span and depth of your own soul where so many people cower and hide from themselves.
- You are learning yourself: the way you see the world, the things you value enough to make them into art.
- You are testing and expanding your patience.
- You are improving your ability to observe.
- You are pushing yourself, your boundaries, teaching yourself skills and techniques.
- You are working to improve on something because YOU WANT TO.
There are many, many people in the world who don’t know how to seek out their own interests, follow their passions, and teach themselves the skills they want to learn. But you know. Especially if you are young, you may not understand yet how powerful that is, to chase your choices and take your own desires into your hands. Art teaches you how to push through when something is hard; how to set your sights on a goal and conquer all the obstacles because in the end, they always yield to patience and hard work. And when you pursue art, you learn that you will get there, because you know how to keep trying.
And art teaches you the truth of the world: that there is never an end. That there is always more improvement. And that isn’t a bad thing. It means that we can be damn good at what we do, AND still have something more to strive for. It means that every day, we can do the thing we love, and look at it and see that we have gotten better than we were the day before. It teaches us how to cherish that.
Now quite frankly, many of the pieces that reposter mocked were damn good. They clearly do not have an artist’s eye, because another thing an artist learns is that art is made up of whole sets of skills—and that different artists have natural talents with different ones. Some of those artists are killer at shading. Some are fantastic at shapes. Some have a real way with color. Still others have a natural skill at zeroing in on the key points of their piece and emphasizing them to get at the heart of what they’re trying for. I’ve been doing art for 30 years, and many of the artists in this post are better at what they do than I am.
This person was not offering valuable, considered critique. They were only being a spiteful bully. And that’s the other thing art can teach you: how to sort spite from valuable information. How to recognize and tune out the people who have nothing but viciousness to offer, and listen to the people who give you feedback that you can actually use to improve with. In every walk of life, you’re going to meet both, and it will serve you well for the rest of your life to learn how to dismiss bullies and spite, and recognize and appreciate usable critique.
Also it’s great for your blood pressure when you learn how to ignore the blowhards.
So don’t ever listen to anyone who tells you that your art sucks—not even if they are a parent or teacher or professional artist in their own right. First of all, ‘sucks’ is not useful critique. If they want to be worth listening to, they should be able to point out specific things, like how you can improve the shape of the eyes. Second of all, your art NEVER sucks. It has room for improvement (all art does; not even Michelangelo was perfect), but your art is the physical representation of your passion, of hours of your work and creativity, of your training and dedication and your willingness to share what you love with others, and of everything you learn from every single piece you create. Your art is beautiful in its power, and it’s worth doing.