Seeking feedback is necessary for artistic growth, but it is also possibly the hardest thing to find reliably. Good teachers and excellent peers can lead you on the path to having a thorough understanding of your craft. Being a helpful teacher yourself is another acquired skill-set. How do you know when you have helpful advice, or just a personal preference? It’s worthwhile to make the effort to be a helpful peer to your fellow artists. You’ll make good connections, broaden your appreciation for different art and ideas, and strengthen your understanding of art concepts by verbalizing them to others. === HOW DO I GIVE A GOOD CRITIQUE? === A good critique tries to consider the artist and their goals. Give context for your opinions, and try to be objective about what is technical vs. your own personal tastes and biases. Ask artists what they want to improve on, and be curious about their interests. Try to frame things positively, and push people to have hope and want to work hard. “I like this pose, but the shoulder is looking dislocated. You might need to move it forward to make it feel more natural, like in this reference.” “There’s a ton of detail going on here, but it can be better to have a few places of lower detail to balance out the composition, here’s an example.” “What sort of art do you admire? I feel like you are aiming for this style, but knowing more about your goals might help us give advice.” === WHAT ARE EXAMPLES OF BAD CRITIQUES? === Bad advice does not consider the person receiving it. Critiques shouldn’t be designed to crush someone's spirit or make them feel hopeless. If something just isn’t your thing, it may be better to let people comment who are more experienced and interested in that area of art. Even if someone is picking up concepts slowly or getting frustrated, it’s not an open invitation to treat them poorly. “There is nothing I can say to you other than read lots of Loomis books.” “Stop drawing anime.” “Fan art is unoriginal.” “This style is a fad that will go away, you should just do something else.” “You just need to try harder.” “You’re too much of an amateur for me to even start critiquing” === HOW DO I GET USEFUL FEEDBACK ON MY WORK? === Help us cater to your artistic needs and goals. When posting work, consider including this information for context: - Tell us what your objectives where with the piece you want critiques. - Share anything you were struggling with while you were working on it. - Tell us what your goals are as an artist. Are you a hobbyist learning landscapes for fun? Putting together a portfolio to get into art school? A professional refining your skills in a certain area? - How long have you been practicing this form of art? - Who are some artists you admire who's style you strive to have in your own work? === HOW SHOULD I RESPOND TO CRITICISM? === There are a lot of ways you can respond. Generally, it is polite to show that you appreciate that someone took the time to give you feedback on your work. It’s important to keep in mind that critiques on your work aren’t personal attacks. Feedback is meant to help you see things from a different point of view. An artist might be trying to guide you away from mistakes they feel they made in the past. Arguing with the person critiquing you won’t be productive. It is their opinion based on their knowledge (or lack thereof). Think of them as simply opinions intended to help you out. You don’t have to accept every critique that comes your way, especially if the critique is subjective rather than objective. With time and experience you’ll have a better understanding of where you want to go with your work. Try to keep an open mind, but also have confidence to shed advice that doesn’t serve you. If someone is being hostile and rude or is actively trying to discourage you, report it. === KEEPING YOUR EGO IN BALANCE? === Egos come with being an artist. It is just a fact. If you didn't feel good about your work and didn't enjoy creating it, why would you do it? The sense of accomplishment is a great feeling, and you SHOULD feel good about the hard work you do. In communities, it’s easy for egos to get a little out of control. When a bunch of artists in a room, each with their own opinion of what is good art and what isn't is always bound to lead to a bit of head butting. This is a community that is meant to be friendly and helpful. Be proud of yourself, be proud of the work you do, but keep it in check. Be respectful to your fellow artists who are different from you. As much as possible, be open to criticism from people of various skill levels. Whether you choose to use them or not is up to you, but be open to the fact that they're going to happen. If you accept them with courtesy and grace, and maybe try to learn a bit from them and open your mind, you will help make this a strong community. If you choose to disregard everyone who gives you advice because you consider yourself better than everyone here, then this is not the community for you. Finally, people who post rude, off point or otherwise useless comments posed as criticism will be penalized by the mods. If you see posts such as this, use the "Report" feature to get the attention of the moderators. === WAIT, WHAT IF I THINK I SUCK? === Everyone has to start somewhere! Art takes hard work, and it doesn’t help to get down on yourself. Being humble is fine, but remember that having a little confidence is sometimes needed for motivation. Believe that you are worthy of kindness and that your art has value, even if it's just to you. Find enjoyment in learning and studying, it’ll guide you through the times when you are getting down on yourself. Just remember, begging (or demanding) praise, attention, or sympathy won’t generally go over well with your peers. Wanting to work hard is what gets you support. Embrace your work ethic and show effort whenever you can.

Heya, my name's Zenith, nice to meet ya! I love the way this site looks already and I'm excited for what the future holds for it. Let's drop some of our art down in the replies and a little message introducing yourself if you want. Here are some of mine:

Hi!! I'm a first time digital artist who's trying to learn. I mainly do photography and oil painting. I use Krita and I'm trying to use the eye I attached as my reference. I'm having a hard time trying to get proportions correct while using a track pad. does anyone have any advice for me or want to share their art? By the way, I'm not trying to completely copy the image, just the main vibes of it.

Hey guys, I'm just about to wrap up stuff for high school and plan on going to art school in the future. Art is something I do want to pursue in terms of getting better, and being the best artist I can be. But one thing I am unsure of is if I should/ want to do art as a living. If I were to do it as a living I would most likely go into comic books, character design, or some other form of game art. If anyone in here is in the industry can you tell me what doing art as a living is actually like?

Hello. I’ve been on a recent search for art documentaries that inspire and motivate me in my own journey as an artist. I’m always looking for new ones to watch. I’m looking for some suggestions on some new content you might enjoy watching or get inspired to create by watching and learning about other artists journeys. Please and thank you!

Hello, I'm thinking about doing the full 'Drawing Basics' course, and I'd like to find a small group of people (4 or 5 or so) who are about to start the same course so we can (constructively) critique each other's work and try to keep each other motivated for the assignments :) Because in general it looks like instructors feedback is only sporadically happening, and without any feedback at all it's probably a lot harder to get better at drawing. At least for me, your mileage may vary of course :) If anyone's interested, feel free to let me know. (also posted this in 'Drawing Fundamentals')

Hello everyone today I want to ask and vent out some of the stress i have and it has always been that when I am doing portrait drawing my mind is like bonkers too much stressed heaviness all over the mind while making a portrait and I am always worrying about getting the likeness 100 percent of the photo whenever I am doing a portrait drawing and then the drawing of a portrait becomes so much stressful and all these super prolific pristine artist like jeff watts,erik gist and stephen bauman whenever they are drawing portraits do they always have a 100 percent likeness can't they have have lower likeness maybe 70 percent or 50 percent and all the time I am worrying in portrait drawing that my portrait drawing doesn't have accurate 100 percent likeness like as if it is a print out mannn fuckkk it sucks this stresss!!!!!!!!! And I feel like we have glorified copying accurately 100 percent accuracy of the refference we use for our respective artworks that we all have become slaves to it this mindset destroys the creativity and makes art so fuckin stressful and it sucks fuck I hate this stress my mind will explode like this way I am going please help me in this!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hey all. I’ve been drawing for a few years now but still consider myself a beginner artist as I’ve not drawn too many complicated things. One thing that’s consistently been a struggle for me is being envious of others art/progress. Whenever I look at other people’s art, both in the assignments here and elsewhere, it often makes me feel inferior about my own art and often kills my motivation to draw. It’s especially prominent here because I see all these other people with amazing drawings and sketches, and it feels like they’re improving at lightning speed, but for me it feels like I’m learning at a snails pace, and in some cases even regress to how I used to draw years ago. I try replicating the techniques shown in the drawing basics course but I feel I can’t get those right either and it’s incredibly demotivating. If anyone has any advice I’d love to hear it.

Hello everyone Today I want express this frustration that i have is that why do we artist are expected to draw for free when people from other professions can charge freely for their products and service like every other other day some friend of mine and relatives keep asking for an free artworks like seriously what the fuck like why the fuck would I waste my fuckin time just to draw for freee seriously I do not have any dearies to draw for freee like recently my friend asked me to draw his portrait for free I just gave him empty promises but kept messaging me phone calling me a lot 20 to 30 times and I got so angry and decided to draw that carricature in frustration like fuck I was so frustrated i did not wanted to draw for freee like fuck i did not wanted to draw him for free but I was forced to draw him for free I could not say no to him directly I was stucked and fuck it is so stressful this bullshit we artist are not doing any charity we are in here to make money if we keep drawing for free how the fuck will we aern money and I hate thisss bulshit we artist truly and truly deserves to be paid and art is also an real job and fuck this non artist morons and people who keeps asking for free artworks without payingggggggggg fuckkkkkkkkkkkk pay us or get the hell outttttttt!!!!!!!!!!!

"One of the best ways to elevate your character immediately is to find worthy role models to emulate... There is nothing false in this. We all carry the seeds of greatness within us, but need an image as a point of focus in order that they may sprout." -Epictetus Who are some of y'all's role models in art? No wrong answers, just looking for some names to broaden my horizons. Drew Struzan is my favorite atm, which is no secret haha. But John Singer Sargent might be a close second. Also... Frank Frazetta? Completely overrated. Come fight me about it, haha.

If you order some kind of 24 x 18 paper pad from Amazon I found that the box they ship it in can be really easily turned into a shadow box for cast drawing etc. (I had enough black felt hanging around from an old halloween costume to line it). Just separate the box at the seam and cut a couple of notches for binder clips to hold its form. Attach some black felt and you're good to go! Getting ready to start my first 'real' cast drawing... I'll post progress.

Can Michael Giff finally work through the Natural Way to Draw after having it on his bookshelf for decades? I wouldn't bet on it... BUT LET'S FIND OUT!!

I picked up a little pad of Strathmore Artagain coal black drawing paper today. It's pretty strange! Trying it out with a Conté à Paris blanc pencil. Here's my first sketch, just trying to get used to thinking in terms of putting down light value instead of putting down shadow. Anyone else have black-paper sketches, or tips to share?

Hello everyone does it ever happen with anyone that since we are artist and draw daily and make kickass drawings and we spend years of hardwork with mind heavocing grind and then we get to a level and then what we fuckin get to hear that from our friends and family like they daily always taunt you to draw their portrait portrait aalll the time portrait like we didn't grinded so hard to draw for freee why should we give our labour for free it sucks it bullshit and these people don't have the courtesy to pay the artist for their services instead they want our services for freee and why we artist are expected to give our service away like we are in it for charity or something i don't want to draw for free and will not draw for free but these maggots ons of bitches friend and family members always ask me to draw for free like if I had a regular candy store would they ask for free stuff no just because we are artist we are expected to give free services it litellary boils my blood up a lot why do these people disrespect artist by asking them for freebies fuck them and their freebies fuck them. I absolutely fuckin hate when these friend and relatives ask to draw them freee fuckkkk themmm

Today I want to share that while drawing figure it was so fuckin stressful man I was trying to find exact origin and insertion point whenever I was trying to do figure drawing and that's why it felt so fuckin difficult figure drawing because of it and it took a lot of uncessary time and energy wasted on it and my drawing suffered a lot I still remember that whenever I took a refference to practice figure drawing I saw that biceps i wa sthinking in my mind while drawing it yo where do that biceps came from the exact point and where did it went the exact point and I was trying to memorise all the origins and insertion so that I could draw from imagination and I used to feel bad that I could not get the exact points accurately correct it was so dang stressful as I am releaseing the stresss my head feels so dang lighter feels like a load is clearing off my head and IS IT RRALLY REALLKY NECESSARY TO THINK ABOUT EXACT ORIGIN AND INSERTION POINTS WHILE DRAWING CAN'T WE BE SLIGHLY INAAACURATE MANN!!!!!!! I DON'T FEEL LIKE DOING FIGURE DRAWING BEACUSE OF IT FEERELS LIKE LEAVING FIGURE DRAWING FOREVER MAN FUCK THIS STRESSD BUT I WILL RELASE THIS MINDSET AND BECOME BETTER

Hey so I have drawn mostly digitally for the past couple of years and am coming back to paper. I've been having this problem where I struggle to erase the pencil lines underneath the ink. I draw really small most of the time (something I'm trying to fix given that it's caused some issues in my wrist), but even when I don't have a super small area I still find it a little hard to erase. It might be because I'm a little heavy handed when I draw, but if you guys can recommend anything like an eraser that doesn't smudge the ink and whatnot that would be great, thanks.

Helly guys I want to talk about passion is that does it mean that being passionate means working even though if we are mentally tired and if we are feeling mentally tired and we wanna stop does that mean that we lack patience and wanna relax and I have always looked at passion like something that would instantly give energy and I have been so much fuckin infuriated by it and thoughts like don't stop you won't be called passionate if stop and take break while working on an art piece like all the time I thought about passion and passion passion this passion that so much that I destroyed my mental state because I thought I won't be called passionate if I stop and I don't want that I want to be called passionate but at the same i don't want to destroy my mental mental state and what exactly is this passion and how is it necessary and how do you all look up to it????

Hi everyone :) I’m currently in a phase where I’m trying to figure out which artistic direction I want to pursue. I’ve realized that watching an artist's full process is the best way for me to see if a certain style or technique resonates with me. I am looking for real-time process videos (not time-lapses!) of artists creating their work from start to finish. Seeing the actual speed, the decision-making, and even the "ugly stages" would be incredibly helpful for my development. Could you please share links to videos or creators who showcase their full process? It doesn't matter if it’s digital or traditional, fine art or concept art—I’m open to everything right now to find what clicks.

Hello everyone I am confused in this last paragraph in the above text the author is trying to say so far what I have understood is that scary stories are best in nightime when darkness is pitch black and on stormy nights etc when the character is conflicting with nature but at the same time on the last paragraph it is contradicting itself by saying that you can tell equally good scary stories in day time also but why I don't feel like scary stories could be told in daytime and it would look very bad and take away the scary mood. Or I have misunderstood the last paragraph please can anyone help me understand the last paragraph the one highlighted in blue line

A new medium! Holy charcoal Batman! This stuff is awesome. I recently discovered the existence of liquid charcoal from Dave Finch's YouTube channel (check out the livestream of his liquid charcoal Batman. Amazing.) I saw what it could do, and I was instantly sold. Highly recommend it for people who are thinking about dabbling with painting but are unsure if they can handle a brush or color just yet. Sir Alec Guiness. Charcoal on vellum Bristol. Give it a shot!