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doeeyeddaydreamer · 3 years

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So I dislike most art “tips”, and I say “tips” because they really aren’t tips most of the time.

Because when I see someone ask an artist how to become, the artist almost always responds with just ‘practice :)’

Okay, well, what does that mean???

Just the word practice means next to nothing if you don’t what the fuck you’re practicing. Like, okay, practice: does that mean I just scribble a shit ton of lines on a piece of paper in an abstract manner? Cuz I don’t know about you, but I don’t think that would help me paint the Sistine Chapel, man.

And not only does it not help someone understand the steps they should take, but it’s also not that helpful of a reminder. If somebody wants to get better at drawing, then they probably already know that practice is something they’ll need to do!

But that’s not all, either. Say domeone has ADHD and pretty much cannot force themselves to focus on a task for hours and have fuck all to show for it, then again, just the word ‘practice’ with nothing behind it isn’t helpful!

And no, repeating the damn word doesn’t do jack shit either. It’s not helpful.

And that’s not the only unhelpful “tip” people tend to give, either. No, no, cuz if someone ask ‘what brush they should use?’ or ‘what tablets are good?’ or ‘what software should I use?’ or even ‘what paper is the best to draw on?’

The answer to those questions are always ‘it doesn’t matter, because a good artist can work with any canvas or brush :)))’

And yeah, cool, the fact that you can carve out the Mona Lisa on a cave wall with only a rock, or paint an entire forest landscape using only different colored and sized rectangles is awesome. Seriously, that’s an amazing skill that’s worthy of praise!

But that means jack shit to a beginner, buddy.

The better of an artist you become, the less reliant on good tools you are. But I guarantee you, you still have a preferred medium, or setup. Those other things, like carving the Mona Lisa or using solely rectangles, are challenges, not practice. You are literally bragging about how good you when you do these things.

These “tips”, the ‘practice’ and ‘medium doesn’t matter’ sound like people saying ‘anybody can be an artist’, but in reality they come off as gatekeeping and bragging.

You can give good tips, but those aren’t them, chief.

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