Sorta sermon

[bladespark]

This is not a religious sermon. This is one of my other soap-boxes. One of my BIG, FAT, hot-button issues. Let's see what you guys think of it.



Have you ever heard somebody say "If you never get critique, you'll never improve as an artist"? I bet you have. I bet you've heard it, and things like it, a bajillion times. And it's implied that people who dislike critique are babies, cowards, and horrible people who just "can't take it."

I'm going to let you in on my dirty little secret. I hate critique. I loathe it. I despise it. I hate it for a number of reasons.

First, I hate it because most of what's offered under the name "critique" is nothing of the sort. That faux, pretend, critique is usually rudeness and insult, the desire to assert superiority, put other people down, and thus make yourself feel better, hiding as "I just want to help you improve." False critique tells you what you're doing wrong (and it may do so politely, couched in compliments about what you're doing right, even) but it offers no help for doing better. It comes without redlines, hints, tips, or suggestions. It is THE most common sort I get, and it's bloody useless. Completely, utterly, 100% without a use at all.

Secondly, I hate it because nobody actually cares if you take it. For example. Several times I had people tell me I should do poses other than standing side views. I favored the standing profile when I was a young thing, and I still do use it, it's a useful art convention. But these "critiques" about it... well, firstly NONE of them ever gave me any idea how to go about doing anything else. "Do something else" is all well and good, but how? When I finally taught myself how to do other poses... I stopped hearing about it. That's all. Nobody complimented me. None of those people turned up and went "I notice you've improved! Wonderful!" None of the people who'd watched my early sad attempts at doing it chimed in to applaud when I did it right. Nothing changed. And you can go on all you like about how I probably got more watchers now that my art is "better" and that I probably will get more commissions too. That may be true. But the simple fact is that the people giving you critique don't care about you. See above. They're doing it to make themselves feel better. Even if they offer real, useful crits, they're just playing the Wise Guru for a moment, and they will not be there tomorrow to say "good job" when you take their advice and get it right.

The ONLY critique I happily take is from close friends. People who WILL be there tomorrow, and MAY actually say "good job." I am not producing art so that some stranger can get their Old Sage jollies from me. I am not producing art so that people can put me down and tell themselves its for my own good. I'm producing art for me, because I am an artist. And I do not need critique to improve.

Because there's where it really falls apart. Critique can help you improve your art. But it is just one of many other tools that frankly people neglect in favor of just asking to be told what to do. And there we come to the third, and most important reason why I hate it. The reliance on critique robs people of the chance to use all the other methods for improvement that are out there just waiting to be used. It takes your development out of your hands, and entrusts it to other people. It removes the chance for you to develop your own art, by yourself, as yourself. It encourages little art clones who do just what their mentors do, and never try anything on their own.

Do you think people who avoid critique are cowards? Well I think people who constantly seek it out are lazy. They are asking for someone to hold their hand. They want it done for them. They want other people to come up with the techniques, redline the problem areas, even define the style. They don't take responsibility for their own art!

I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with sometimes asking for help. Everybody asks for help sometimes, even me. But the way current artist culture praises people for seeking crit and ostracizes them for avoiding it drives me NUTS. The one is not any better than the other. Cowards or lazy bums, if you want to use those terms. Or how about self-motivated creators, and open-minded learners? There is virtue in seeking critique. There is also virtue in avoiding it!

Let's talk about where you can get as a self-motivated, creator. Here. I'll show you.

This is my first wolf head. (My fourth head ever.)


This is the wolf head I finished a month ago.


I had almost NO critique between those two. Nobody told me how to air brush (actually I've ignored everything I've been told about "airbrushing" because I don't airbrush, I use a paintbrush. Sometimes you improve by actively going against people's suggestions. In fact a number of things on this head are things I was told by people NOT to do.) Nobody taught me now to shape the face. Nobody gave me so much as a suggestion about how to make the eyes, or the nose, or the teeth, or the ears. (The one time I asked somebody with really good ears how they made them I was ignored! So I worked it out on my own.) Nobody gave me ANY advice about any of it, except a few things from JJ, who as a friend I trust to give crits. So to "you can't learn without critique" I say BULL SHIT.

Let's try again, shall we?

Here's a dragon I drew in high school.


Here's a dragon I drew last week.


In between do you know how much critique I got? One drawing class entirely about still life, with some good critique about using pencil for shading and coloring when drawing from life that's right in front of you. Not exactly applicable here, especially as we learned with Prismacolor pencils and my current medium is watercolor pencil. And I had a few people on the internet telling me I should try dynamic poses, and I think JJ suggested something about line weights, or maybe that was my idea, I forget. That's IT. I taught myself, by myself, everything I learned in between. All the anatomy. All the color theory. All the ways to shade and highlight from off the top of your head. All the technique for varying line weight. All the dynamic pose, ALL that. I still have a lot to learn. I'm sure somebody could give me critique on that later picture and have something valid to say. But they can just sod off. I'll continue to improve without their frigging critiques, and it doesn't make me some kind of coward to prefer learning by myself!!!

Not that my art exists in a vacuum, I taught myself by looking at other artists, and seeing what they did, and trying it. I taught myself by finding tutorials and using them. I taught myself by using references, and looking at real life, and looking at photos. I taught myself by a lot of means that involved other people, but that precious, holy, oh-so-essential "critique", without which we "can't improve" had NOTHING WHATSOEVER TO DO WITH IT.

So quit fucking saying that it's impossible to improve without critique. It's untrue. It's complete and utter BULLSHIT, and I want to punch somebody ever time I hear it!

Thanks.



And anybody who wants to debate with me about this is welcome, but see icon. I am kind of pissy right now, so don't expect me to be all gentle words and kind correction, if I think you've said something stupid I'm going to let you know. :P

Comments

[harliquinnraver.livejournal.com]

i agree with everything youve said here. and youve said it better than i ever could.

[ellixis.livejournal.com]

I agree. Improvement has little to do with the methods used to learn, and everything to do with the practice, work, and thought put into the art.

(Icon aimed at idiots, not at you.)

[lilsongbird.livejournal.com]

Oh god, amen to this! I am more then happy to accept critique but some I get is people not reading and tearing stuff apart because they are "omg so much better" yet when I look at their gallery their work us more flawed then mine e-e I actually snarled at someone to try what I had done first before going "u suck" (I was using a difficult method just to see if I could do it- something the description stated), and until they did get off their high horse and learn the difference between constructive criticism and being a critical brat. Ugh

[jenn malenfant (from livejournal.com)]

I pretty much taught myself everything I know right now too. Most of the critique I got in the past few years is "You need to change this and this and then make me something for free for helping you."
I know exactly how you feel about this. I think people just need to not say anything unless it is actually useful.

[pointytilly.livejournal.com]

I like useful crit under the right circumstances. I've had a few cases where someone pointed out an issue with my writing/art and/or gave advice that made something click in my head that I might have taken a lot longer to figure out myself. (Like the whole shade with dark version of opposite color, not black deal. Or shiny metal reflects its surroundings AND itself.)

I learn better by messing around and screwing up a lot (and then redo, and repeat...) than I do by step by step Do It This Way, too, though I do like tutorials that are more general guides/advice.

And like you said, I often see "crit" used to mean well I must pick at this person's work because that's how you learn to art don't you seeeee, and just, argh. No. The best are the people who go and pick on things like kids drawing art for fun and go but but I'm just giving them REAL CRIT so they can GET BETTER...yeah no, they just wanna feel smug.

Rambling a bit, here. Short version, good to know I'm not the only one sick of the no no I have to give harsh "crit" or people don't LEARN thing.

[vintagevwolfe.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm.... To some point I agree with you but I've never taken critique from others very well. Personally I've always improved more when I took the time to self critique. To actually go through and make notes on anything and everything that I thought was wrong and then push myself to a farther point of perfection. True that it means I never really think of my work as "perfect" because I'm always criticizing and trying to be better but I think that it's almost more helpful. I like.... suggestions instead of critique as well; they feel nicer and don't make me want to slap someone.

:) hope you feel better and less ranty soon!

[aburamechan.livejournal.com]

I rarely get critique, and I probably wouldn't take it too well if I did. I'm easily offended, and many people don't know how to word negative feedback correctly. They take it as a chance to be a dick and vent their anger somewhere. >_>; I don't understand people who crave and "need" feedback to make any sort of improvement though. The only thing feedback ever did was frustrate me...especially sine most of the time it's alway been from people I honestly don't think are any better than I am. :/
Most of my improvement is learned through dumb mistakes, practice, and tutorials, and it seems to work pretty well. It's far less frustrating to do something wrong and fix it than it is to have someone blatantly point it out and tell you to fix it.

[wolfmare.livejournal.com]

Agreed.

And what little "critique" I've gotten has always been thinly masked insults. I'm not *great*, but I'm improved drastically since 2005, and I'm sure I'll be even better in another 5-10 years.

[chiscringle.livejournal.com]

My aunt once gave me a set of books on how to write. Without reading past my works from about 8 years ago. I forget where they books went, but I never bothered with them. Personal art in any medium is a function of the person, otherwise it isn't personal - hooray for defining something using the word!

Since I dislike people who weigh in with a restatement of my own point and agreement rather than anything material, there's also this: I'm the sort of person who has to resist the urge to write critique. There are a lot of people I knwo how agree with you and so I rarely point out the problems I see and how they might be fixed. Most of the time when I do, the response is either nothing or the artist saying that they were going to get to that part next. I ask for it on my own work, however, knowing I'll hate it but perhaps see what the other person is getting at even if they never say anything directly useful. There's a difference between self-serving criticism and critique. If someone sees something that has nothing to do with themselves and plenty to do with what I'm trying to do, I want to know about it. They may not know how to fix it, but if they notice it and I don't, I might be able to work something out myself. As an author, I hate it because it means I missed something that ought to be obvious. As a Flash animator, I demand that whoever tells me something is wrong go and fetch me some Actionscript code that will fix it.

[cargoddess.livejournal.com]

I'm a fan of constructive criticism:

"I really like ____, but I think ____ could be better if you did ____, _____ and _____."

But, good gravy, that's something you do WHEN ASKED or in private. And only if you know what the hell you're talking about. The people that just say "that sucks" without any experience in what you're "critiquing" need to be shot.

[unspeakablevorn.livejournal.com]

As a math teacher, my most powerful piece of criticism is "where did you get that?" because it gets people to think about what they've done and try to defend it -- which makes it clearer to them where the error is.

But I suspect most of this comes from the fact that in math, there's generally only one right answer...

[kiwihunter8.livejournal.com]

I've been thinking about this post since you made it....you really made me think about this in another way. I think especially in furry circles what you say about people critiquing others just to make themselves feel more important is true. There is a method to critiquing that is helpful, and one that is definitely NOT, and I think we see a whole lot more of the 2nd in furry art circles.

I always disliked hearing critique of my work even in art school, but in the end I did find it helpful for people to point out things I wasn't seeing, or the same mistakes I was making over and over again. Sometimes I've recieved fursuit making critique that has really helped or even saved a suit from looking plain bad.

But again, I think those are anomalies. We have a saying where I work "Everyone's a graphic designer" because people with no training whatsoever will stomp all over what you took years of school and many more years of experience to learn to do.

I think that correlates well to the fine arts as well.