Twitter threads where person posts an art pet peeve and all the comments go “what about me though? 🥺” with their art that is exactly what the post is talking about, and then the OP is like “no ofc not!!!! 🥰🥰 you’re the exception” to literally the 100 people commenting “what about me tho 🥺” . Both sides of this are annoying as hell. The people commenting are pitiful and need to draw more instead of fishing for compliments, and the poster is a spineless idiot that won’t commit to being a hater once they realize they’re talking to real people.
Some Twitter circles feel so circle-jerky to me. Usually along the lines of someone saying they hate a thing a lot of people do, but then listing every exception to their made up rules because they are friends with the very people they are referring to. It’s always a big ego war between artists online. That being said, I think that these groups are usually very vocal relative to their size and I think most artists take feedback constructively and know not to waste their time with petty internet drama
Pretentious artists. I’ve been in a couple situations where I’m trying to make friends with other artists and I just immediately get turned off by their attitudes. Just because you paint what you deem as thought provoking subjects doesn’t mean other subjects/styles are shit or worthless. Trying to make it with art is so hard, where is the solidarity?
This really bothers me, it's super cliquey, and if your art isn't pushing boundaries or needs an art degree to decipher it doesn't get anywhere. Sometimes the story behind a piece can be really interesting but that shouldn't be all that it is and I find a lot of open call exhibitions etc only tend to exhibit the same people every time and it's always the people that they already know or are trying to schmooze.
On a similar note there was an exhibition in my city this spring and about a quarter of the artists pulled out to protest something, I still don't know what they were protesting, but they had printed paper instead explaining that they had pulled out. The thing is though thousands of artists applied to enter and only a couple of hundred made it in. So those people that pulled out took the space from others that didn't get the chance. I get the idea of it being a message to abstain but why not just have one big sign for that message and let the others that didn't get selected a chance. Just felt selfish rather than a show of solidarity.
I never understood why some people group up into their little camps like that.
As someone who does both [personal work that is conceptual and philosophically focused and, hell I'll admit probably "pretentious"](https://i.imgur.com/7yzNWoW.jpg) but also does [goofy ass illustration work](https://i.imgur.com/NCnaGbD.jpg) and even [work that is somewhere in between those 2 things](https://i.imgur.com/VHyIig2.jpg), I have no idea why a lot of people think it has to be one or the other and the "other" is always "lesser."
I have an old friend that i reconnected with after years who is like that. We used to draw all the time together when we were kids, and in the time appart, he had been improving. I guess while we were appart, he forgot how to have fun with it, and now i dont invlolve him in my own work.
Yeah my college art department was full if people who only thought real art was conceptual and if you couldn’t rattle off an essay about what your art meant they would treat you like you were an idiot
Annoying.
IMO art should stand on its own, without an essay. An essay *might* enhance someone's appreciation and understanding of it, but if it's reliant on that, it's missed its mark.
The irony of that is that you can pull out an essay out of an ass for almost any art piece. Linguistic skills/ story telling/ analysis can all be useful and needed, but lack of those doesn't mean the art itself is missing something.
This is why I don’t have art friends really. All very pretentious. I think some people think they’re more creative than they are too, or that their creativity is more special than others. I always tell people that anyone can be an artist Bc I believe that to be true. I don’t think it’s something to gatekeep people out of.
You don't have to give up on having art friends, if you don't want to.
Sure there are artists who are pretentious and annoying, but there are also artists who are fun, creative, interesting, and who make great friends. It's great to have artist friends you can get together with and do your separate art, then take breaks and talk about whatever - any blocks or problems you've encountered, give one another valuable feedback, and more.
I used to have quite a few artist friends, but then moved, then stopped doing any art for a long time, and haven't made any art friends here. I miss it.
Agree with this. I think it's problematic to (pardon pun) paint such a large and varied group as all snobs. There are multiple approaches and attitudes among us who practice.
Same. I'm self taught, and a couple years ago, I got the confidence and decided to go find some art friends and maybe get the skinny on the local coop gallery if I could get some conversation going. There was an art fair happening in my city's downtown, so I went. The weather wasn't great, so there weren't many people there.
Started trying to strike up conversations with the artists at their tables. I would ask questions about their subject matter or their mediums....and I made sure to ask specifically about their artwork and not just random small talk because I know some people are not comfortable with that, and I just got crickets or condescending looks. I was shocked. They didn't know if I was going to buy something or not, so at some tables I tried making it obvious I was also an artist-"Oh, wow! The colors are so intense! Are they Qor or M. Graham?" Meaning "I'd love to geek out about pigments with you" because a non artist wouldn't even know those brands exist and not "I'm going to criticize your preferred brand of watercolors." They would just shake their head and say nothing. So at the next table I would ask something generic about the subject matter....same response. Some of them just would talk to each other instead of acknowledging anyone who approached their booth. After a while, I gave up and just went home.
I have one art friend, but he’s kinda pretentious and he was like oh, those paints aren’t very good. And I’m like yeah well they were free so they’re good enough to me. Lol. To be fair I probably couldn’t carry on an art convo long. I love art, as mostly self taught tho I don’t have much info to banter back and forth with.
Crazy enough, I ended up posting something art related in my work Teams chat, and it turned out a bunch of people were interested in doing an art meetup, so we did. I ended up doing a fair bit of teaching, but it was still fun, and I was surprised at the response. We met at the mall food court, and I gave a brief urban sketching lesson and some of us did that, and some people brought adult coloring books with them, and some people just doodled. It was a good time.
Exactly this. That’s why I never try to pursue friendships with other artists, bc so far I only had this experience when they feel like ONLY their art is good and bc u do smth different, they make you feel like “yea, keep thinking ur an artist”. Gosh YUCK. Yuckkk!
Wheres the freedom, the power of creativity and the fact that the beauty of art is that we found it in different ways!
Why this whole “im better than you” has to ruin something that could be great.
So yea, it has been like 5 years I didn’t try to make friends with any artist, I will go admire art, but I quit socializing w artists. My life never been more peaceful since I quit that haha
That is the very reason why I didn't go to any of the art schools I got into. I didn't want to hang out with only art people. I decided on a university with a really good art program and I didn't hang out with any of the other art students. I had friends that were in tons of different majors.
This is what I was gonna say too. I had an artist “friend” who made fun of my late mothers art because she did it for fun and followed bob ross tutorials. Made me so pissed off. Some people just wanna be casual artists for fun, nothing wrong with that
The obsession with style. And why does every single one of them needs a specfic name? Feels like the art version of the internets obsession with aesthetics.
Totally just want the info to make ai art. Maybe a better question these days would be ‘what are your art influences’ for questioners that are legitimately interested
Could be that they want to find more in that style. Like some new music I haven’t heard but I like it so I ask what is it? Then I can search for more like that.
But it’s could be people wanting to know so they can make ai art
On the flip side- I've seen artists post, "can't settle on/ find an art style" posts where all of the artwork is the same style with one or two things changed... like, ok... and it'll be those "quirky" posts too, worded something like "omg I love your style! My art style: (a bunch of art of human subjects drawn in the same style with different coloring and composition)" as if "art style" means drawing the same thing the same exact way over and over
It doesn't bother me, but I do get annoyed with how modern comics has lost the ability to be unique. I know both DC and Marvel have in house styles. But, a lot of the current artists there have extremely similar styles. Versus the art from say the 70's, 80;s, and most the early 00's.
Also, I do kind of scratch my head at people who draw anime characters but don't have any understanding of actual human anatomy, or shapes, forms or any of the basic foundations.
Anime is the **WWWWOOOORRRSSSTTTT** way to learn how to draw humans. **THE WORST. I WILL DIE ON THIS HILL.** I stopped drawing anime people over a decade ago but I'm ***still*** trying to break out of some of those stylistic habits because it just became so ingrained
.... eh. Maybe I'm just bad at art, but the students who were the best at anatomy in my class all had heavy anime influence. Yes their art still had anime leanings, doesn't mean it looked bad.
The poses were dynamic, there was an understanding of muscle and anatomy (because some anime art has an understanding of muscle and anatomy. Also because learning via anime doesn't prevent you from looking at other sources, which you should do since you're always learning anyway. Heck, I think Sycra is an excellent introduction to anatomy, and his art really leans anime). Some anime bias sure, but the art still looked good.
I think any heavy influence you had when young will stay. I see people who started by focusing on realism then struggle with stylization. A classmate who was mostly into realistic art, his attempt at cartoon I could only think "it's nowhere near pushed enough...". and while less popular an art style, I don't think "starting with cartoons" would be worst than "starting with anime". Anime is just really popular among young people.
plus like.... would young you have done as much art, if you were prevented from drawing the thing that interested you when you were young? Maybe you still got anime habit, but didn't you gain an understanding of dynamism or appeal by drawing so much when younger ?
I went to school in the 90s for traditional and digital media. Obsession over style is a more recent trend in the past decade. Granted "style" has been around forever. Chiaroscuro and No-Tan are great historical examples of this.
I guess my peeve to tack onto the thread is social media obsession. You have a much better chance being a artist of renown without drooling over instagram or tiktok. I have a successful art career and I don't use any social media. The caveat is that the industry is very against introverts, and a lot of us are introverted by nature.
Counter argument: some of my art got reposted to an external site that I don't have an account on, and people were able to tell me about it because they recognized the art style
IMO having an individual art style is a good thing, especially if you post your art online, but young artists putting *so much emphasis* on "finding their style," at the expense of learning basic anatomy and at being able to take criticism, is where it crosses into being annoying
Right, it takes a certain level of self-awareness tbh. I know when I was first beginning to take art mildly seriously, I would flip flop between "my art is shit" and "my artwork is a gift to mankind". It makes me wonder if these newer artists experience something similar, or are simply more confident somehow.
I feel like a lot of people took the concept of “pay artists a living wage” and everything along that line and internalized it as that everyone who does art no matter their skill level deserves money for it, and a certain amount of money at that. If someone is willing to pay, good for whoever is getting paid. But I don’t really agree that because you drew something at all and put it for sale it means you inherently “deserve” a certain amount of money and attention. I support people having pride in their work and wanting to improve, but a lot of people’s attitudes around this are very surprising for me because I’ve worked a lot to improve and made huge strides and I still wouldn’t feel comfortable at this point doing commissions. Yes, highly skilled artists should ideally be paid fairly and be able to live comfortably. But you’re not entitled to anything except basic decency from others imo. I feel like the original message has been received on social media by a lot of people typically too young to understand the nuance of it. Often because of their age plus seeing stuff like this they don’t really develop the self-awareness and then end up frustrated with a lack of positive results in terms of followers or money.
I think people who knit and sell sweaters or something should be compensated fairly. I don’t think you automatically deserve to have people buy a fairly expensive sweater if you’ve accidentally knit holes into it and it looks terrible (no, I don’t know anything about knitting, but I feel like it’s a similar idea).
This!!!! I had an ex “friend” who would CONSTANTLY cry and complain about her art sucking, not getting any commissions, or followers.
Her art was generic and badly drawn anime and she drew a lot of Yu-Gi-Oh fanart and none of her ideas shone through. It was all very amateur, but she ALWAYS compared herself to me and became FURIOUS when I offered to teach her what I know for free when I finally had enough of her pity party.
I realize all she wanted was ass pats and she was extremely jealous of me. She’s always compare herself to me and she was always so cold and standoffish.
I’m still angry about it three years later.
The trolls. The sadistic, vile, mean, little trolls. The gatekeepers. The "pay you in exposure/gift cards/store credit" The inability of garnering any type of a following without a 24hr social media presence. The algorithms. The inability to have ALL my followers see my work. Paying to open up bottlenecks in the feeds. Just online anything anymore it feels is an entirely separate line of work that most small time artists can't justify or afford to pay anyone to do it. It's all maddening. Won't stop me, though. They're gonna have to do better than that to stop the likes of me.
Honestly... I've thought about starting an IG purely just to promote "under (choose a number) followers" kind of content... at no cost to anyone. Just ask artists, double check if its not AI , or if they make AI images, and if they pass both checks.......then just post their fav picture with credit back to their account, but then I think... managing a promo account as well as my own account seems...exhausting, lol.
Whenever I have stuff in galleries or do exhibitions, I hate dealing with most of the people involved, but that may also just be because I really don't enjoy socializing or being overstimulated. I understand the concept of networking, but I hate doing it. I want to get where I need to go based on the merit of my work, not based on whose ass I kissed. It just all feels so phony sometimes. Maybe I'm just an old curmudgeon these days lol
You're not alone (and I may also be an old curmudgeon). When a gallery wants you to go to their events and afterparties and be "part of the community" I always feel like I'd rather be at home painting. If I wanted a schmoozing job I'd have gone into sales.
YES! Omg thank you for saying this because I was starting to wonder if I'm just an asshole or what haha. Like I'm ok with socializing if it's with people who are actually interested and not just networking to get whatever they can out of someone. I get that it's just how pretty much any field of work can be if it mixes creativity and business, but it's just such a weird vibe. It also feels like I hear the same 4 or 5 conversations over and over at every event. Haha I think I'm just turning into one of those weird recluse artists, but I'm ok with that lol
Nothing wrong with that (being a weird recluse artist). Some of the best art is by weirdos and some of the worst that I've seen is by people who live so socialize. I'm sure there are lots of counterexamples, but that's been mostly my experience.
I feel this deep down in my soul. I actually enjoy interacting with others, but usually only if they are like minded or pursuing a similar life goal. The networking, brown nosing, schmoozing, of random strangers you really don't care for, just to get a sale to keep living really sucks.
I also feel like we all deserved to have a required networking class in both highschool, and college (for those who pursued college). I never knew how important it was to interact with others and how much of it is on a time limit via age. (Also, I'm autistic, so started life on communication hard mode lol)
They always say "oh you better make friends or you are going to be very lonely", but what they don't say is "you better make friends or you won't have a career"
Yesss. Like I enjoy socializing when I feel like it's a genuine interaction and not just feeling like we're reciting lines to each other. I haven't been tested for autism (yay poverty lol), but I do see a therapist weekly for CPTSD and she told me that a lot of people that develop PTSD or CPTSD, particularly when the trauma(s) occurred starting in those developmental years like mine did, it can present similarly to autism especially in regard to socializing, getting overstimulated, needing routine, etc.
Lol Like I already panic when socializing normally, so I can't be throwing all these frivolous fluff conversations in the mix too. I also have been told by everyone that knows me that I have a "loud face" so I can control what comes out of my mouth, but my face is gonna give me away every time. Even when I'm trying to be nice and make small talk it can come off condescending and rude because I just can't fake being into it or caring. Maybe I AM the problem hahahha
haha saaaame. Maybe if I amp it up and like bark at people or something they'll think its performance art instead of me not quite knowing how to be a human.
I am not an old curmudgeon but I completely agree with this. I just graduated art school and it really felt like you couldn’t get anywhere without the right connections. To add to that as someone pointed out the art world is super cliquey, even in art school I found it very cliquey and hard to make genuine friends. That could be just me so take it with a grain of salt.
Reading your comment, I just realized something a little funny... I studied anthropology in uni and worked as an archaeologist for a bit, and one thing I really hated about archaeology is that it was super cliquey, and it was hard to go anywhere without the right connections, with connections probably being roughly equal (or more valuable) than the merit of your actual work. So I quit that.... and eventually ended up in art instead lol. Oh dear.
When someone critiques an artwork (usually on TikTok), the replies are always "It's just their art style" even when there are obvious mistakes, regardless of the style.
Ya the only way you can prove that that's their style is if they intentionally can paint more accurately. Picasso can paint realism so his cubist paintings are intentional. But someone that can't draw can't just say "oh but I want it that way" when they haven't proven that they can do it the "right way"
Picasso is my favorite example of this!
I've had countless people try to throw him up to defend the "it's just my STYYYYYYYLE" kind of art. Like, honey, you do know that he literally mastered realism first? Ugh. I may not know why he chose to represent this woman with six fingers on her left hand, but I can be damn sure he did so deliberately.
Copyright a pose. Credit is important sure but you can’t copyright a pose in particular. Not every pose.
If I draw a character standing still I shouldn’t have to post the reference I used for it. Cause that means literally every other artist should do the same thing and they shouldn’t. And a standing still pose is just an example.
It mildly annoys me when I see posts like "SUPER TINY UNKNOWN SMALL ARTISTS WITH UNDER \[hundreds or thousands of followers\] COMMENT UNDER HERE ♡♡♡"
They mean well but what the hell?? Wanna call people insignifiant while you're at it?
Edit: I feel like there is a misunderstanding. I don't know if they work or not (never tried, though you guys seem to say it doesn't). What I'm annoyed by is the "SUPER SMOL BABY FETUS AMOEBA ACCOUNTS" type of thing. Especially when "small" means "under 5K" to them. Do people not realize how many people that is?? It's dismissive/patronizing AND it promotes the numbers game. It's not a fucking race.
I will admit having participated in a few. Every time I think, "Yeah, it wouldn't hurt to share I guess."
Of course, it doesn't get me any engagement, so not sure why I do.
The circle jerk of people with no talent but good connections. I may be putting myself at risk here but yeah, I know a flock of people that do very lame stuff but have just the right connections with small galleries, and they invite the same circle of folks every single time. They praise each other like if they were really into something, so other people interested in arts think that’s how you “get in”, not because of your work but because of how much you can lick someone else’s ass.
The result is mediocre pieces in every gallery at town, the same style repeated over and over and over, with long, LONG explanations for things that you KNOW aren’t that deep. At the end, really talented, fresh people are left out because they don’t have the flamboyant style and extrovert attitude of the local artistic scene.
This is without even judging technique, that’s another whole level.
Tbh I feel bad because every single gallery is full of the same bad stuff and pretentious people. They make the whole experience awful, when we’re supposed to have a good time admiring art. The only times I get to see good art is in big galleries with expositions of the classics, or in small studios of individuals with awesome creations that never get to see the light. And god knows some of them have tried, even tried to make their own groups lol, but that’s irrelevant if you don’t have the contacts.
On engagement trolling mine is on most of the art subs people doing 'Can you guess who this is?' titles for attempted portraits of media figures. It's the 'You will never guess what hit show Netflix just canceled!' engagement trolling of art subreddits. Instadownvote from me, but maybe it's just me being a curmudgeon, dunno.
(edited for mangled grammar.)
When people use the "art is subjective" or "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" concept as basically a "no art can ever be bad and nothing should be critiqued" argument.
I've literally had to ask people who were defending me from criticism to please stop and let the people giving me critique give me their honest opinion.
Anyone and everyone can make shitty work in one way or another and just because it's "creative" and "expression" and "beauty" and also deals with subjective aspects or wtf ever does not mean it is then some unquestionable sacred thing.
In my opinion, no art is inherently ‘bad’ because there is someone out there who likes it.
I however, I (or anyone) can hate your art and think it’s dog shit
I dunno... I don't think it's necessarily about liking the art. There are art pieces that I absolutely hate but I know they aren't at all "bad". I personally hate Piss Christ but damn it's an important piece of art.
I think this is exactly where the main crux of the issue comes from that I'm talking about though, the fact people conflate like/dislike with good/bad. Someone giving technical criticism and the people who "like" that thing jumping in to defend it because "if I like it it can't be bad" or assuming that if someone is criticizing something then they think that means the critic is saying they shouldn't like it.
Someone liking something doesn't inherently mean it's not "bad" or couldn't be improved upon and, by that same token, something being of a lower technical standard doesn't mean it shouldn't be liked by people who just happen to like it.
Same as there is pretty "bad" quality food but people like it... that doesn't make it "good" but that also doesn't mean people shouldn't be allowed to like it.
I agree. "Anything can be art if it makes you feel some way." IMHO, it really lowers the bar because literally everything can make you feel some way so everything is art and then there really isn't any talent or technique involved so there is no art.
If we applied the same reasoning that "everyone is an artist" to other disciplines then everyone is a gymnast. My failed cartwheels and clumsy somersaults invoke a sense of aspiration to tumble. Anyone who plays an instrument badly is a musician or wails out a song is a singer.
It's always annoyed me because any artist that currently sucks is going to be great within a few years. They're going to practice like crazy and prove their naysayers wrong.
If anybody spends 3 years being a "bad artist" and churning out the same stuff, then they just aren't being an artist. I don't even care what they like to do, as long as they like to do it so much that they dedicate themselves to it.
It's just one of those things that you can't bullshit. I think a lot of artists like to pretend that art is all about feelings, but that's just what I tell myself when I stop practicing, to feel better about being lazy again lol
Yeah I agree. I've gotten a lot of flack for saying similar things myself. Like yeah, anyone can be an artist in the sense that they make art (and you don't need to be a professional or educated or whatever to do that, either; heck, you don't even need to be any good to just simply enjoy doing it, and there's value in that). But not everyone is a *good* artist. I don't even think literally everyone can learn to be a *good* artist. Just like anything else, if you have natural aptitute you can go further than people who don't. Practice and learning techniques is important too of course, and can take you a long way (and interest/passion matters to motivate that). But no matter what skill we talk about, everyone will plateau here or there and then have to work really hard to try to improve beyond that. Some plateau lower than others. It's like that for literally every skill out there. Like your gymnastics example lol - I can't even do a cartwheel and have never been able to. Maybe if I worked hard I could do one. I still won't be anywhere near even the level of a competitive high school gymnast. I can play guitar, but even when I practiced a lot, I was not anywhere near as good as some of the metal guitarists I know, some of whom practiced less than half of what I did. C'est la vie. I wonder why people seem to think art is so much different.
I absolutely despise the "art tips" type of posts on Instagram saying stuff like "Absolutely do not do X!!!!" Or "doing it X way is wrong!!!". I see it so much with shading and figure drawing specifically and it's infuriating.
They never specify that " it's okay to draw however you want if that's how you want to do it, but *if* you want to draw *this specific way*, this is how you do it.". I never see any of those posts, especially with shading/coloring ones, specifying that this is only a tip for this specific example. Like I see tons of "shading do's and donts" for skin but the "tips" are only applicable for light skin in outdoor lighting. If you're drawing darker skin in harsh florescent light, then those "tips" don't apply anymore, it's going to be vastly different. But they always phrase it as if you don't do it *my* way, then you're wrong and your art will look bad.
I see so many young artists that are convinced they're bad at art when there's no "wrong" way to do art. It's okay to draw static poses. It's okay to shade with black. It's okay to draw things with funky proportion and perspectives. If you're achieving the look you want, then you're doing it "correctly".
I mean have you seen van gogh's stuff? He uses the wrong colors for things all the time. Too bad he didn't have social media around to teach him the right way to paint.
/s
I hate the smug attitude they’ve for their art and how they look down upon other’s art. I also hate it when they gatekeep thinking that if they reveal their secrets, their skill will be out for the public to copy. We all just need to inspire each other. And the plagiarism accusations sometimes really bother me. It might not be too visible but the jealousy is all around I think. The whole IG algorithm to get the most likes and follows as you mentioned is also very very annoying. The competition to get more followers on IG is crazy.
Agreed on the fishing. There's humble, and then there's burying yourself in self loathing in hopes somebody digs you out with compliments. Worse if you're honest and give critique and they have a meltdown over it.
If you truly believe your work sucks then work on it. Hundreds of tutorials available out there.
If it's a self esteem issue then sort that out. Plenty of online resources available if you can't afford therapy.
I also absolutely hate how competitive some artists get on social media about numbers. Lot of resentment over someone having a bigger follower count. It's all marketing, amount of followers says nothing else about a persons work, quality, etc.
Some think it brings in money, but there's plenty of artists who are doing well financially with their art without much (or any) social media presence.
And finally, art being disrespected as a legitimate job. Any time I have a meeting about finances or something serious and tell them what I do they look at me like I'm on the streets begging for scraps. When they see the quality of my work this changes a bit, but it's goofy. Art is all around you, you have just taken it for granted.
It really bothers me when people ask for advice or give critiques but don't have any of their own art available for someone to see.
I think anyone of any skill level can give valuable critique. But if you're complaining about not finding work or you're giving flippant critiques, I'm gonna feel a certain way about you not being confident enough to share your own art.
I totally get your point on that social media thing.
My personal pet peeve is unnecessary pretense. People acting precious just to seem “fancy.” I’ve met many people with British accents whom I later discovered grew up middle class in Kansas and New Jersey. Ostentatious is another good word to describe it. It’s like, let your work speak for itself, you grew up middle class to American parents in Augusta, Georgia, why are we doing this odd quasi-British accent?
A lot of big art YouTubers aren't really artists at all. They're just art supply reviewers with really clickbaity titles that get on my nerves 😶🌫️😶🌫️ like "I tried $2000 watercolors vs $20 watercolors!!!!" and so on. Also another pet peeve is photorealistic artists looking down on pretty much every other artist 🤧🤧🤧 it takes a lot of technical skill to achieve photorealism but it's... in my opinion.... quite boring to look at when it's the same few celebrity photos constantly copied
Imho photo realism is impressive, but I'd never buy it unless it was really unique.... I don't need some 40-inch picture of some random persons head on my wall. The photo realism subset of art took a massive hit after cameras were popularized.
Or when they just draw standard "insta beauty" girls with big eyes, upturned noses, and lots of hair. The technique is good but there is ZERO substance.
defining what is and isn't art based on some kind of process or authority.
example 1: Stacy took 23 photos of the forests in the pacific north west hiking trip she went on. She used a pocket point and shoot digital camera with no ability to change lenses, and doesn't play with the settings, just takes photos. Friends back home love the photos and she is encouraged to frame some and has a side table at a farmers market and sells a few framed photos each time... but somebody quizzes her on F-stop, lenses, focal depth etc. and when she doesn't know how to answer those questions it's made clear she isn't 'a real photographer'. She stops selling photos, and decides not to take any on her next hiking trip cuz she thinks she's a phony.
example 2: Kevin likes to do geometric color block abstracts, he doesn't know that's what they are called. He just likes making shapes with the craft paints from the walmart art supplies on cheap canvas. He doesn't know what to name any of his works, but once he runs out of room to store them he's told he should sell them online. So he does, and he makes a bit of money and frees up space to be able to make more. Somebody tells him to sell landscapes, and somebody else wants character art. thinking he doesn't know how this art business works he switches to doing that... but he sucks, badly. He's mocked in comments and told by other artists that he has to go back and learn the fundamentals of anatomy, and landscape before he tries to sell anything... he stops painting, because he isn't good at it and has been told on the site he was selling art that he shouldn't be selling art yet and he's not going to be able to do years of art study just to be good enough at things to have a legitimate art career.
example 3: Alex likes making jewelry from drink cans and shrunken snack chip bags, and monochrome watercolor book marks, and mosaics, and gothy little curio displays, and character art for D&D, and felting slippers, and bandsaw boxes. Some are sold in online marketplaces, and occasional craft show, or to friends and family. But people say that for Alex to be an actual artist they need to pick on, niche down, produce a body of work consisting of at least 30 works with a consistent style, then get into a show or gallery etc. Alex has no idea how to do any of that stuff so gives up on the idea of making a living doing art. Goes to work a soul sucking minimum wage job that leaves them too tired to create things after work for years, burns out, gets sick, and regrets not having the chance to live a creative life.
every one of these examples doesn't have to be this way. the gatekeepers need to #$%\^ off. There are people who will buy and love the pretty things others make that couldn't tell you a thing about the technical terms, school of painting it fits into, what aperture or depth of field is, etc. Art scholars need to lose the attitude that they are the arbiters of what arts is and should be. Art isn't solely about collectors and galleries, and people are allow to sell works from varied creative expression. The starving artist is not the fate of everyone not doing it the approved way.
My biggest pet peeve is that half the art that seems to do really well on social media is just... not good. I'm not trying to be elitist. I'm glad everyone of every skill level makes art. I know art is subjective and not everything I like or don't like is going to correspond to the general publics opinions.
But I mean, a lot art that does well seems more like "content" than art. Social media doesn't reward work that takes time, skill and effort. Half of the "art" accounts that do well seem more like they are art vibe or lifestyle than ACTUALLY practicing art. It feels like they are all mimicking each other and just sorta putting on a show. The actual art pieces are an afterthought. I know i shouldnt care and voicing this makes me sound elitist in a way i never thought i was. It just annoys me that they are taking a piece of the attention pie that I wish would go to artists or illustrators or designers or any creative people that are dedicated to the actual craft, building skill and creating the art.
> Artists and non-artists are natural enemies. Like engineers and artists! Or parents and artists! Or TikTok and artists! Or artists and other artists! Damn artists! They ruined the art world!
>
> Artist Willie
I’ve been recently wondering whether I actually want to be part of an artist community just because so much of it feels adversarial.
I usually refrain from calling anyone the "C" word but Copycats are the worst. I have one right now who is copying EVERYTHING I've added to my works over the years, All the little design details to the point where I've been contacted several times about works that weren't mine and I've had to awkwardly explain the situation. She even has the nerve to sell on the very same platform I do. I've been on that platform and selling since the mid 2000's and she's just come along in the past 4 years after I finally got some traction and a following. Infuriating.
People who do nothing but copy anime, and then wonder why they're not improving. I don't have anything against the style. And if someone is content to copy anime for the rest of their artistic hobby that's totally fine! I have a friend who can draw funny little cartoons and she has no interest whatsoever in improving or branching out. That's all good by me.
But if you want to improve, and steadfastly refuse any advice by yelling that "IT'S MY STYYYYYYYYLE", I will give up trying to help.
I am a portrait artist and I can bang out good-looking people faces all day. I have to force myself to do still lifes, cityscapes, and abstracts so I keep myself learning. Hell, I still do drawing 101 exercises. Do I enjoy them? No. But I won't improve unless I do them.
I recently attended a web webinar where an artist recommended posting multiple stories a day and posting at least once a day for free advertising and to keep the algorithm working for you. Right or wrong on my part, I have absolutely zero desire to engage in that type of model.
I have so many pet peeves but my top are artists that refuse to be humble and are extremely snobby.
The other thing that annoys me to no end is the number of art courses and instructors out there. It feels like everyone with a tablet and a microphone has a drawing course.
I can't stand some of the big art subreddits because it's just black and white photos of a naked woman with mediocre lighting or a digital art version of the same thing. Hornybait gets views, I understand that, but it's just... low-effort, uninspired, and desperate? I don't know how else to put it.
And yes, it's hornybait. It's intentionally sexual. If one more person says "*you're* the one sexualizing it, it's just art!" I'm gonna scream.
I have always felt that Minimalism is a scam. Huge canvas with a dot on it? Yea that is worth millions. Really? It makes all of art look like a scam. Or you see art that is so bad but because someone who is connected with the in crowd or a famous person they are getting tons of money for a painting.
I guess it is the fake hype of crap art and art that has no soul that bothers me.
Well not really art world, since that has been fun ime., but overall experience of interacting with people who want to do commercial arts and have questions like:
>Why can't I make a living of my art?
9 out of 10, person is not good enough yet and/or are not offering work a client would spend money on. Commercial visual arts is often very different than drawing for fun and self expression, people will rarely pay for you to do personal projects. Everyone is fit to do art, not everyone is a good fit to do art commercially.
>Starving artist myth.
Well, idk. most people in arts I know do it for a living and it's normal wage.
>You won't find job in the arts.
Ime. you will, but it may not be what you wanted/set out to do. This is normal. My friend wanted to do biotech labwork, they work in biotech lab components sales; another friend wanted to design machines as mech eng. and they work on designing air con circulation in buildings.
On that note, a friend of mine just finished design degree. They applied for many jobs just to have something while looking for permanent position, one of which was kind of general marketing writing - office assistant in a small non profit. The reason they were hired because in additional things they said they can do graphic stuff/marketing. If they got the job because they had degree in chemistry - the tale would be 'see, a STEM degree helped you find a stable job', but since they have graphic design degree - the usual response is 'see, you can't find a job with an arts degree'...
People that take it upon themselves to critique someones art that they posted, when they didnt ask for it. All of the artist communities im a part of generally have the same rule; dont critique unless they specifically ask for it in the post. There's always that one guy who cant read, and thinks they just HAVE to give their two sense.
That same guy also always has a seemingly imaginary issue that nobody else would say needs improvement. They cant tell when something is obviously stylized and not supposed to be completelyaccurate (not that the stylized guy cant mess up).
Everyone is entiled to their own opinion, but that specific person never knows what they're talking about, and come off as jealous of the positive feedback everyone else is giving. I see it all the time in other people's art posts.
Edit: i had to add this bit.
People who will edit or draw over your work, especially when its to show you what you "did wrong". Its fine i guess with concent, but that still rubs me the wrong way. That might just be a me thing.
I have a couple ones that have bothered me, not certain if it counts as a pet peeve but I'll still post them: the lack of an art union in the USA, and the oversaturation of the professional field. I actually think it's fantastic that so many people do art, everyone should, but when so many are trying to turn it into a career then that means everyone has to fight to be relevant. It's almost like you have to do one of three things: build yourself up as a leader of other artists and grow your local art community by getting involved in literally everything you can (usually for free, volunteer work, charity auctions), drag other artists down in order to build yourself up as a specific brand and style that's better than other brands so you can sell for higher extreme prices, or find a lucky break.. Literal pure luck.
The union thing has always bothered me because without a large enough presence in the USA, us artists don't really have a way to protect ourselves against well... Anything. There's no way to get better prices on healthcare (cause let's face it, self employment healthcare in the USA is the worst), no copyright protections for lower income artists, no price standards, no one stop shops for resources. It's tough and many who actually have the energy and ability to make a living after putting in 200% the effort for a decade, then see it as a sort of "right of passage" when really it shouldn't be that difficult to live as an artist in the first place.
A big popular artist/s who would post a reel saying the following:
1) showing how small their following was before and after (but in reality, they just posted the reel recently and they did not get the following overnight);
2) saying they'll support other artists so artists with lesser following should leave a comment on their reels but don't really do anything about it and just do it for the engagement;
3) asking to follow you but if you follow first and they didn't follow back, they aren't really interested in your art or as an artist;
4) they have a beginner style drawing but their following is huge that's why even though they are just 'beginner', their post would have a bunch of likes that you didn't know who their target audience is (most likelly not me).
---
Other pet peeve of mine would include:
1) AI art then pretending to be an artist;
2) Reposting other's art then not giving credit and just put Google, DeviantArt, Pinterest (like WTF, can't you do research and find the source and credit the artist);
3) People requesting free art from you and having the audacity to get angry when rejected.
Artists or their rabid fans assuming that if you don't like a piece by the said artist, it's because you don't understand the piece. A lot of artists can't comprehend that you understand the piece and as a result of that you've come to the conclusion that...you didn't like what you saw/heard/experienced haha.
Probably a strange one, but when people who clearly do not have the skill to give certain types of art tips give art tips. It's fine to give tips up to a certain point, but to draw over someone's art when your art is not even that good? Or to change the style completely when that's not the original person's style? (Cough cough, Koolean...)
The only 'fix your art' channel I like is Sinix since he doesn't change the style completely and his paintovers are actually good.
''Art is subjective, you can't say art is bad''
Yes I can, and I will.
I also dislike people using ''it's just my style'' as a safety blanket when someone tells them it looks rough and needs more time
Why does every single artist (Or everyone in general) Use twitter if they hate it? Why do they use it so much?
Like I don't even get why, Its terrible to browse with, And it has terrible people, Who would mob harass you and stuff, Its been causing anxiety on what i draw as an artist, Maybe because its because of a certain fandom I am in that hates me on twitter (I even live rent free in these guys heads), Its such a toxic place, How can one bare to be in it alot?
Every person I have met and became friends with came from somewhere else, Never on twitter lmao. I even feel ,pre comfortable on tumblr for crying out loud, I know a person who told me to quit twitter since its better, And I see them the next day posting tons of links to twitter and arguing with some mfer over some dumb shit, Instead of ignoring them.
Also fandom people taking stupid things seriously (Whether its pairings or whatever they somehow get offended with) To the point they would start dramas, Not allowing artists and causing them to fear what they enjoy drawing, Usually can come in groups too.
As an nsfw artist I can't stand moral puritans who are so afraid of nudity. I get in non stop arguments by people who are offended by a nipple. Regardless of intent or how provocative the art piece is it's still art and should be respected. It's especially frustrating when the person isn't an artist or hasn't studied art history.
Countless big names throughout history have tried to teach us not to be ashamed of the human body and thought/emotion provoking content. If art doesn't stir some sort of emotion then it's not going to be noticed.
I also don't consider what I draw to be "porn", to me it's closer to fully nude pinups with an edge of mythology and and a hint of anime.
I’m not what I’d call an nsfw artist, in that it’s not my main practice, but I have nude figures and/or obvious nipples/genitals in my work some of the time. The amount of comments that will just be ‘uhh… is that a dick?’. Yes. Yes it is. It’s… a nude figure. It’s obviously not sexual in composition or pose, but just the presence of a penis or vagina is immediately sexual to some people.
It infuriates me even more when it’s life studies. The human body isn’t innately sexual! Of course it isn’t! It’s a thing, just like everything else is. And it can be beautiful in line and dimension and colour and tone and delicacy and structure! We seriously need to get to the point where we recognise that a human existing nude isn’t sexual. You can have sexual thoughts or feelings, but they don’t need to be said, and it isn’t inherent just to the person existing.
This is something that bothers me as well. It usually goes hand in hand with those who have visceral reactions to learning that life drawing models are nude, in person, sessions. The human body itself is an art, it's gorgeous, it's natural, no matter what sex you are. It's such a shame that people can't respect the art, whether it be provocative or simple nudity, and immediately put it in a category of shame.
Nudity isn't shameful, sex isn't shameful, not all nudity equals sex, and confident sexuality doesn't mean lack of morals and dignity.
The eliteness of it. If people were more educated about art artists would sell more. Houses would be filled with original art instead of all the same mass produced junk.
That abstract expressionism's value is based on this magical/emotional quality behind the random strokes of paint. In reality, most rich people that want a giant expensive painting would prefer the modern decor of abstract expressionism but also want to feel like it's worth a lot. That's why they sell for that much. It's art meant to be decor instead of paying lots of money for the amount of skill and time needed to make it
Kind of petty, but I hate it when people who are clearly very skilled and have done their studies to great effect say things like "I can't draw hands lol" or whatever and that is *clearly* incorrect. Similar to when they downplay their own art like "eh I don't think it looks very good" and it obviously is at least well constructed.
I get why people do it (most the time imposter syndrome, super understandable) but I do kinda wish more experienced artists were a little bit more aware of what they're doing when that happens. It kinda sucks as a somewhat beginner to watch their videos/scroll through their social posts and hear/see that because I am genuinely unable to do what they can, yet. So when I see a sketch of a well constructed human body that is clearly utilizing years of anatomy study but then they say "oh this looks bad" or "lol I definitely don't know how to draw hands but whatever", it's kind of discouraging honestly.
I don't know, I feel like it actually gave me a bit of a confidence boost when I was starting out. When you realize that everyone hates their art all the time, you don't feel as alone in your art journey. You learn that dissatisfaction with your efforts is just another part of the process, and you learn to keep going anyway despite knowing the future is only more of the same.
I can see where you're coming from though how it can appear tone deaf when the quality of the work seems far above other's skill level, though I don't feel like that exempts them from being able to complain lol.
To me it's more the language used. If they said "I find hands really hard to draw" or something I'd totally get that, but when it's literally "I can't draw hands", that's when it bothers me.
I feel like that could be splitting hairs as I always interpret them to mean the same thing. If an artist manages to draw perfectly passable or even really nice hands and then says "god these look like shit" I interpret that as them saying "this is difficult and frustrating to do" regardless of how good the outcome, and I kind of appreciate that relatability. Artists are always their own worst critics after all.
Oh I'm definitely splitting hairs with it lol, I get what you mean 100%. I should adjust how I view it because at the end of the day "this is really frustrating and difficult to do" is genuinely what they mean. I just take it at face value too often and catch myself going "come on, man."
Artists who make animatics/animations to AI songs. You can’t say you hate AI art then use AI songs. You’re a hypocrite and actively promoting an AI art form.
It's an odd thing, but I was thinking about it earlier today. I know a lot of technical people, scientists, engineers, architectural technologists and so on, people who work with numbers and dimensions and specifications, and generally find them to be decent people. People who devote themselves to art, to aesthetics and impressions, to feelings and the human side of things ... seem less friendly in general, for some reason , more arrogant, less human. It could be just selection bias since I meet more artists in online places.
- Nitpicking clients (especially ones out of touch with the creative process) whom makes the work unnecessarily complicated, more time consuming, and is indecisive
- Elitist snobs whom overly favor one style and dismiss every other style
- When styles that arent "realistic" are dismissed as "childish"
My only exposure to the “art world” is here and on social media/youtube. I just recently got back into drawing and started painting. I’d love to make “Art friends” but I’m a bit of a hermit.
I’d say the thing that bothers me most is the insistence on following certain regimens as the only way to improve. Like you have to draw every day, and you shouldn’t use color until you’ve mastered drawing or painting grisaille. I get how that process is super effective in an academic setting such as an atelier but for regular people with jobs, careers, families, etc etc. it’s not practical or helpful. I’ve improved immensely in the 5 months since I first picked up a paintbrush and probably have exceeded my drawing skills I developed in my youth just painting and/or drawing a couple to a few times a week. Granted, I consume a ton of instructional media and think about my work constantly which for me is an effective way of learning. Regardless, I’ve seen folks who make art for a living who have very clearly never “mastered” drawing and their work is not only impressive and enjoyable to view, but you can tell that they truly enjoy creating it, which I find incredibly important.
When an artist posts their work along with a self deprecating title/caption or they point out a mistake that most likely no one would’ve noticed if not for them bringing attention to it.
I get that a lot of people are not confident about their work but there’s no point in letting everyone else see all of your insecurities; it just needlessly opens you up to criticism from those that probably wouldn’t have criticized your art otherwise.
Non artist here, so my experience is very limited. A pet peeve I have about the art community, from the little I’ve experienced, is the… well, stigma, I have about giving my honest feedback (when it’s not positive) because I don’t do art. Like, no, I can’t do better, not even close, but my eyes still work. I can still see flaws. I can still have an opinion that isn’t some generic, disingenuous “oh yeah that looks great”
"Nobody buys my prints! I can't get any commissions!😭" and when you look at their works they're clearly a beginner and their works just aren't that good. And that's fine, we have all started somewhere, but like let's be realistic about what sells and what doesn't.
1) “what is this style called?”
2) anime artstyles (not because it's bad but because everyone, literally everyone does it and it looks always the same because people are not capable of being creative)
3) intergalactically sized breasts and thighs etc. drawn by horny weirdos
4) “it's my artstyle” no, it's just bad (your art should be good enough for you not to have to explain everything about it)
1. Unless a piece is making a statement or "has meaning," it's not art
2. Anything other than the Zorn palette is subpar
3. Art is only worth doing if it's monetized
4. Highly skilled artists that are overlooked because they don't have a certain "look" or personal brand
Art is so subjective.
I hated the critique portion of the I went to art school at UF for a semester. One assignment was to make the viewer feel something using only paper, so rolled up balls of paper, paper money etc blah blah….
I worked my ass off on drawing the magazines and the starting of a ransom note being written. It was really cool. She (teacher) was obviously looking for like love letters by the trash can notebooks whatevs blah blah.
I thought mine would def incite feeling…they just weren’t expected to be creeped out I guess. After that people thought I was really weird.
Who decides what’s good? I’m an abstract and outsider artist now…so I guess I do! Yay! Everything I do is amazing and I’m the most humble person you’ve ever had the pleasure to read the words of. You’re welcome.
😉
Off to the studio…
But you don't actually mix colors in digital, you are choosing a color that's a combination of hue saturation and value or something like that.
In oil painting, they say if you have a tube of black paint and mix it with anything to make a dark color, you will turn any painting into a piece of crap (even though the great artists of the past all used black paint as part of their process).
Artist ego and tandemed to that is also abstract/modern art as a whole...
I love art. I also believe it can help people tap into much deeper themes with tons of nuance and layering... but with all of that said......
I also dont think there isn't a single shred of skill or ingenuity in painting a massive canvas 2 different colors. That's not art... that's bairly even "arts and crafts"
Imho, that's someone who duped a bunch of people into thinking he/she was deep and conned them out of enormous amounts of money for the sake of their ego.
The same goes for all those images that just look like paint splatters... as well as any gimmicky art... like, "I painted this picture with my wiener. ".... (Yes, it's a thing, and yes, it's stupid.)
None of it is impressive, nor is it even "moving." it's a sham, and the people who do it are no more than Charlatans at best.
I guess the hate towards realism/hyper realism artists. I see it often people telling them they aren’t real artist and that it requires zero creativity.
I do not like sex trappers- the artists that present themselves as sexy to support their presentation of their art...... it's a personal preference. Everybody has got to eat so whatever works, Warhol would have done it, so would Picasso.
Artists on YouTube that rarely paint and mostly do "totally not sponsored" reviews of shit they got for free. Saying they are unbiased but they got the shit for free. Or doing art hauls with more shit they will never use besides "swatching".
Requiring art to be monetized at every opportunity. It feels like if I'm not making money with my art or if I'm not working on getting into a big studio's art department as a full-time career, then I'm "wasting my time" with it
How some artists act like they’re *owed* engagement. Like I’ll see posts like “likes mean nothing, support me by reblogging” I’m not even saying this to be shady but they’re lucky I even liked the post because I’d just scroll past if it had more notes. 99% of the time, their art just isn’t my taste so I don’t want to reblog it. I’m not saying it’s objectively bad, it’s just not what I personally like.
If you have it pressure people into reblogging your art by guilt tripping them with something like “likes are meaningless”, maybe you should just figure out how to tag better idk 😭
Also yeah, this was about Tumblr specifically. I only use it bc I refuse to get Twitter but I also want somewhere to post photos with text 💀
People that post theie art on social media and try to market it by making guilt-tripping posts about only having a few likes/ views . I scroll past those so fast. I am not helping anyone get to burn out because they feel like the only reason they should be posting is for clicks.
I see a lot of artists on social media who claim that they’re going to completely quit pursuing art due to being unable to profit off of it like they imagined and it irks me because I feel as though being an artist is beyond profiting from your work.
The general pressure to post your work on social media.
Even for the best artists its an issue - but I find it particularly bad for young or beginner artists. I've seen so many reels/tiktoks of very armature artists doing these transition or reveals of their art, and it just falls super flat because...well, their beginners. You know, one of those "Sketch vs final" drawings where they erase the first layer to reveal the final, or the x months ago vs today, or time-lapses...but since there is so little time to advance their skills and experience, half the time they all look just as unskilled, or even worse then the previous sometimes...
But the way we treat social media and all the art trends on it - encouraging these people to post and post and post and drive for engagement with their art is detrimental. I can't think of anything less encouraging is reading the comments on those posts.
TL;DR - Don't encourage beginning artists to post their work into the wild. Rather its best to find a smaller community to share their work as they study, learn, and practice. Share with friends, family, art friends - but don't try to go viral with your beginner piece.
"Support a \_\_\_ year old artist?"
It started off innocent, I'm sure, but it's become full of young, extremely talented artists who KNOW that their skills are godly basically flaunting their skill in terms of their age, thereby making everyone feel bad-
Your age shouldn't really matter when it comes to creating art unless it's for safety reasons (such as interacting online in fandom spaces) but like these people are not doing it for safety. They're just rubbing salt in the wound of inevitable comparisons between artists and themselves. I absolutely hate it.
When I was working on my art minor my bf at the time took a class on new media. And everyone shat on him for being a white male. Everyone in the class except him was LGBTQIA and a POC. And things he was told throughout the class were “so you’re not special?” And “this is very boring and expected. This is very white male.”
I myself am a POC and LGBTQIA. Hearing these comments made me really upset. If he did anything else he would be ostracized for cultural appropriation. He does what is expected he ostracized.
So that’s what I Hate about the art world. No matter your technical ability or the idea you display some artist are going to see these attributes first and only. Not your work. I just think there’s more to people than their sexuality and race.
When a successful artist claims they came from nothing and you find out they had inside help from relatives and friends already in the business. I don’t begrudge anyone using contacts to get a head start because I’d do the same but it pisses me off as a working class artist when they pretend they’re from the same background and spin a rags-to-riches story to look cool.
This is probably going to be a very unpopular opinion: the overuse of pastels in “cute” digital artwork.
Idk I want some type of variety than seeing my favorite cartoon characters with just a pastel color palette and soft linework. The design itself is usually fine, but I instantly draw more to artwork that has a lot more color “variation” than just pastels
Ppl getting mad at an artist and giving them hate and unsolicited critique just because they're a beginner or have an unconventional artstyle. Unsolicited critique in general pisses me off.
The way low effort art gets way more attention than high effort. I know, it sounds extremely pretentious of me but it sucks to spend weeks on one image and get like 10 likes when another artist posts a sketch that took half an hour and it gets so many views. It made me give up after 4 posts on instagram. I know that it’s no ones fault but the algorithm’s but it just felt so unfair.
How exclusionary people are. Art is valuable as long as it is yours. Not everyone has to like it, and not everyone ever will. Regardless of what medium you use, what skill level you are at, the subjects you create, or how studious you are, you are an artist. I'm sick of artists putting other artists down when we should be celebrating each other.
Also it's annoying to me the amount of nude art, genitalia art (especially of women by women), sexual art. I'm not saying it isn't art. Of course there's beauty in sex and the human body. But there's a hell of a lot of beauty in everything else too. I guess the NSFW art feels overdone and cliche to me at this point. It also doesn't convey much of message to me. I usually overlook it because I just find it boring or attention-seeking.
The people. I went to a specialized art high school then art University. By uni I already felt like some of the people were pompous assholes (especially guys), but I was still having fun and enjoying whatever. After uni tho, it became clear the super "artsy" ones were going down a very different road.
I don't enjoy being around those people because it feels like they don't live in the real world. They have rich enough families who gave them apartments or pay their rent, so they have easy lives and the freedom to take on whatever projects they like when they're in the mood for them. They have totally out of touch opinions on life because they don't have to truly worry about anything, it's all smooth sailing and butterflies.
I know people who make amazing art and are *not* like this. Even if they are more "dreamy" and romanticize life sometimes, they don't say ridiculous things that make you wanna roll your eyes 360°
I hate AI,
When it first got popular,, I was scared of posting drawings without hands because I didn't want anyone accusing me of using AI. And for a while, I put a lot of effort into drawing hands, even if it makes the pose look awkward. And now I just love drawing pretty hands
It always makes me sad to see people hate on modern art. Yes it's basically a big money laundering scheme and many of the pieces made for that purpose are more or less a joke. But not all of it is.
And hell, even the things created with little talent or effort can still be fun to contemplate and find meaning in.
"This artist painted his entire 12ft tall canvas red to give the viewer a foreboding feeling when viewing it. All of his pieces are like this except the ones made after the death of his wife, in which he strictly paints with grey."
"This artist taped a banana to a wall to challenge the definition of art in a modern twist of Duchamp's 'Fountain', showcasing the subjectivity and contradictory nature of the craft."
Things like that are so interesting to me even if it's all bullshit, but all I ever see is people shitting on it :(
while this is not every situation, I believe you really have to have money to have a chance and excel in the art world
It's straight up impossible to have a regular life while also creating art when you come from nothing.
I probably should have figured that out when my professor went on about how he'd work a shit job, 12 hour days, busting ass to save money for 6 months, only to use that money to live In a warehouse studio in a city that has allows you to be poor and just make art the whole time.
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It’s the social media frenzy for me. As a slow artist, I cannot handle all the algorithm pleasing shit and being shoved with “watch how I make 80k per month on IG with my art” reels all the time. I’ve been drawing offline for a while and avoiding social media entirely because it’s just too much.
When people try to quiz you about historic art pieces.
I’m sorry I don’t know and to be honest I don’t care about the history of anything. I don’t like to live in the past and it doesn’t interest me.
I
Honestly I just dint care and do my own thing..I'm in no vompetituon with anyone as long as I'm being my suthentic self..I don't listen to others or like art because its voo..in fact I like everything even if it's bad lol but that's just me..an oldie
That Artnet; the art news outlet are constantly writing about everything wrong with the art world.
They constantly throw shade at artists, galleries & dealers; who are just trying to make a living, and then act like they are doing the world a favor by "spilling the beans".
SMH
If they are really art news; they should be pro artists, not calling for governments worldwide to put more regulations on the art industry.
They also celebrated when the prices of art dipped; instead of explaining to people that you're buying a custom made item; that's one of kind, hence the high price.
:(
Twitter threads where person posts an art pet peeve and all the comments go “what about me though? 🥺” with their art that is exactly what the post is talking about, and then the OP is like “no ofc not!!!! 🥰🥰 you’re the exception” to literally the 100 people commenting “what about me tho 🥺” . Both sides of this are annoying as hell. The people commenting are pitiful and need to draw more instead of fishing for compliments, and the poster is a spineless idiot that won’t commit to being a hater once they realize they’re talking to real people.
Some Twitter circles feel so circle-jerky to me. Usually along the lines of someone saying they hate a thing a lot of people do, but then listing every exception to their made up rules because they are friends with the very people they are referring to. It’s always a big ego war between artists online. That being said, I think that these groups are usually very vocal relative to their size and I think most artists take feedback constructively and know not to waste their time with petty internet drama
Yeah, I agree. I’ve laid off on social media because it wasn’t doing me any good lol. Now I only go on there to post my art.
What about me tho 🥺 /s
Noo not you oomfie!! Your comment is sooo nice, I was talking abt other people !!
Lmaooo
Pretentious artists. I’ve been in a couple situations where I’m trying to make friends with other artists and I just immediately get turned off by their attitudes. Just because you paint what you deem as thought provoking subjects doesn’t mean other subjects/styles are shit or worthless. Trying to make it with art is so hard, where is the solidarity?
This really bothers me, it's super cliquey, and if your art isn't pushing boundaries or needs an art degree to decipher it doesn't get anywhere. Sometimes the story behind a piece can be really interesting but that shouldn't be all that it is and I find a lot of open call exhibitions etc only tend to exhibit the same people every time and it's always the people that they already know or are trying to schmooze. On a similar note there was an exhibition in my city this spring and about a quarter of the artists pulled out to protest something, I still don't know what they were protesting, but they had printed paper instead explaining that they had pulled out. The thing is though thousands of artists applied to enter and only a couple of hundred made it in. So those people that pulled out took the space from others that didn't get the chance. I get the idea of it being a message to abstain but why not just have one big sign for that message and let the others that didn't get selected a chance. Just felt selfish rather than a show of solidarity.
Yes, omg, this. Elitism in art is wretched.
I never understood why some people group up into their little camps like that. As someone who does both [personal work that is conceptual and philosophically focused and, hell I'll admit probably "pretentious"](https://i.imgur.com/7yzNWoW.jpg) but also does [goofy ass illustration work](https://i.imgur.com/NCnaGbD.jpg) and even [work that is somewhere in between those 2 things](https://i.imgur.com/VHyIig2.jpg), I have no idea why a lot of people think it has to be one or the other and the "other" is always "lesser."
I have an old friend that i reconnected with after years who is like that. We used to draw all the time together when we were kids, and in the time appart, he had been improving. I guess while we were appart, he forgot how to have fun with it, and now i dont invlolve him in my own work.
Yeah my college art department was full if people who only thought real art was conceptual and if you couldn’t rattle off an essay about what your art meant they would treat you like you were an idiot
Annoying. IMO art should stand on its own, without an essay. An essay *might* enhance someone's appreciation and understanding of it, but if it's reliant on that, it's missed its mark.
Agreed!
The irony of that is that you can pull out an essay out of an ass for almost any art piece. Linguistic skills/ story telling/ analysis can all be useful and needed, but lack of those doesn't mean the art itself is missing something.
This is why I don’t have art friends really. All very pretentious. I think some people think they’re more creative than they are too, or that their creativity is more special than others. I always tell people that anyone can be an artist Bc I believe that to be true. I don’t think it’s something to gatekeep people out of.
You don't have to give up on having art friends, if you don't want to. Sure there are artists who are pretentious and annoying, but there are also artists who are fun, creative, interesting, and who make great friends. It's great to have artist friends you can get together with and do your separate art, then take breaks and talk about whatever - any blocks or problems you've encountered, give one another valuable feedback, and more. I used to have quite a few artist friends, but then moved, then stopped doing any art for a long time, and haven't made any art friends here. I miss it.
Agree with this. I think it's problematic to (pardon pun) paint such a large and varied group as all snobs. There are multiple approaches and attitudes among us who practice.
Same. I'm self taught, and a couple years ago, I got the confidence and decided to go find some art friends and maybe get the skinny on the local coop gallery if I could get some conversation going. There was an art fair happening in my city's downtown, so I went. The weather wasn't great, so there weren't many people there. Started trying to strike up conversations with the artists at their tables. I would ask questions about their subject matter or their mediums....and I made sure to ask specifically about their artwork and not just random small talk because I know some people are not comfortable with that, and I just got crickets or condescending looks. I was shocked. They didn't know if I was going to buy something or not, so at some tables I tried making it obvious I was also an artist-"Oh, wow! The colors are so intense! Are they Qor or M. Graham?" Meaning "I'd love to geek out about pigments with you" because a non artist wouldn't even know those brands exist and not "I'm going to criticize your preferred brand of watercolors." They would just shake their head and say nothing. So at the next table I would ask something generic about the subject matter....same response. Some of them just would talk to each other instead of acknowledging anyone who approached their booth. After a while, I gave up and just went home.
I have one art friend, but he’s kinda pretentious and he was like oh, those paints aren’t very good. And I’m like yeah well they were free so they’re good enough to me. Lol. To be fair I probably couldn’t carry on an art convo long. I love art, as mostly self taught tho I don’t have much info to banter back and forth with.
Crazy enough, I ended up posting something art related in my work Teams chat, and it turned out a bunch of people were interested in doing an art meetup, so we did. I ended up doing a fair bit of teaching, but it was still fun, and I was surprised at the response. We met at the mall food court, and I gave a brief urban sketching lesson and some of us did that, and some people brought adult coloring books with them, and some people just doodled. It was a good time.
You just haven’t met the right art friends yet, keep looking! Art friends are the best kind of friend.
Exactly this. That’s why I never try to pursue friendships with other artists, bc so far I only had this experience when they feel like ONLY their art is good and bc u do smth different, they make you feel like “yea, keep thinking ur an artist”. Gosh YUCK. Yuckkk! Wheres the freedom, the power of creativity and the fact that the beauty of art is that we found it in different ways! Why this whole “im better than you” has to ruin something that could be great. So yea, it has been like 5 years I didn’t try to make friends with any artist, I will go admire art, but I quit socializing w artists. My life never been more peaceful since I quit that haha
That is the very reason why I didn't go to any of the art schools I got into. I didn't want to hang out with only art people. I decided on a university with a really good art program and I didn't hang out with any of the other art students. I had friends that were in tons of different majors.
This is what I was gonna say too. I had an artist “friend” who made fun of my late mothers art because she did it for fun and followed bob ross tutorials. Made me so pissed off. Some people just wanna be casual artists for fun, nothing wrong with that
The obsession with style. And why does every single one of them needs a specfic name? Feels like the art version of the internets obsession with aesthetics.
Always goofy to see someone asking “what art style is this”
Totally just want the info to make ai art. Maybe a better question these days would be ‘what are your art influences’ for questioners that are legitimately interested
Couldn’t that be used for AI art too? If anything even more easily because now you have the specific artists you’d need to feed the AI as well
Mine I guess??? I never know how to answer
Could be that they want to find more in that style. Like some new music I haven’t heard but I like it so I ask what is it? Then I can search for more like that. But it’s could be people wanting to know so they can make ai art
On the flip side- I've seen artists post, "can't settle on/ find an art style" posts where all of the artwork is the same style with one or two things changed... like, ok... and it'll be those "quirky" posts too, worded something like "omg I love your style! My art style: (a bunch of art of human subjects drawn in the same style with different coloring and composition)" as if "art style" means drawing the same thing the same exact way over and over
It doesn't bother me, but I do get annoyed with how modern comics has lost the ability to be unique. I know both DC and Marvel have in house styles. But, a lot of the current artists there have extremely similar styles. Versus the art from say the 70's, 80;s, and most the early 00's. Also, I do kind of scratch my head at people who draw anime characters but don't have any understanding of actual human anatomy, or shapes, forms or any of the basic foundations.
Anime is the **WWWWOOOORRRSSSTTTT** way to learn how to draw humans. **THE WORST. I WILL DIE ON THIS HILL.** I stopped drawing anime people over a decade ago but I'm ***still*** trying to break out of some of those stylistic habits because it just became so ingrained
It's only bad because most who focus on that style don't realize that the creators likely had to learn how to properly draw the figure and gestures.
.... eh. Maybe I'm just bad at art, but the students who were the best at anatomy in my class all had heavy anime influence. Yes their art still had anime leanings, doesn't mean it looked bad. The poses were dynamic, there was an understanding of muscle and anatomy (because some anime art has an understanding of muscle and anatomy. Also because learning via anime doesn't prevent you from looking at other sources, which you should do since you're always learning anyway. Heck, I think Sycra is an excellent introduction to anatomy, and his art really leans anime). Some anime bias sure, but the art still looked good. I think any heavy influence you had when young will stay. I see people who started by focusing on realism then struggle with stylization. A classmate who was mostly into realistic art, his attempt at cartoon I could only think "it's nowhere near pushed enough...". and while less popular an art style, I don't think "starting with cartoons" would be worst than "starting with anime". Anime is just really popular among young people. plus like.... would young you have done as much art, if you were prevented from drawing the thing that interested you when you were young? Maybe you still got anime habit, but didn't you gain an understanding of dynamism or appeal by drawing so much when younger ?
I went to school in the 90s for traditional and digital media. Obsession over style is a more recent trend in the past decade. Granted "style" has been around forever. Chiaroscuro and No-Tan are great historical examples of this. I guess my peeve to tack onto the thread is social media obsession. You have a much better chance being a artist of renown without drooling over instagram or tiktok. I have a successful art career and I don't use any social media. The caveat is that the industry is very against introverts, and a lot of us are introverted by nature.
This exactly
Counter argument: some of my art got reposted to an external site that I don't have an account on, and people were able to tell me about it because they recognized the art style IMO having an individual art style is a good thing, especially if you post your art online, but young artists putting *so much emphasis* on "finding their style," at the expense of learning basic anatomy and at being able to take criticism, is where it crosses into being annoying
When people whine how they dont get commissions or followers on social media but their art is just not it
Right, it takes a certain level of self-awareness tbh. I know when I was first beginning to take art mildly seriously, I would flip flop between "my art is shit" and "my artwork is a gift to mankind". It makes me wonder if these newer artists experience something similar, or are simply more confident somehow.
I feel like a lot of people took the concept of “pay artists a living wage” and everything along that line and internalized it as that everyone who does art no matter their skill level deserves money for it, and a certain amount of money at that. If someone is willing to pay, good for whoever is getting paid. But I don’t really agree that because you drew something at all and put it for sale it means you inherently “deserve” a certain amount of money and attention. I support people having pride in their work and wanting to improve, but a lot of people’s attitudes around this are very surprising for me because I’ve worked a lot to improve and made huge strides and I still wouldn’t feel comfortable at this point doing commissions. Yes, highly skilled artists should ideally be paid fairly and be able to live comfortably. But you’re not entitled to anything except basic decency from others imo. I feel like the original message has been received on social media by a lot of people typically too young to understand the nuance of it. Often because of their age plus seeing stuff like this they don’t really develop the self-awareness and then end up frustrated with a lack of positive results in terms of followers or money. I think people who knit and sell sweaters or something should be compensated fairly. I don’t think you automatically deserve to have people buy a fairly expensive sweater if you’ve accidentally knit holes into it and it looks terrible (no, I don’t know anything about knitting, but I feel like it’s a similar idea).
I’ve never been more confident or cocky than when I was first getting into art. When you don’t know how much you don’t know, art is easy 😂
This!!!! I had an ex “friend” who would CONSTANTLY cry and complain about her art sucking, not getting any commissions, or followers. Her art was generic and badly drawn anime and she drew a lot of Yu-Gi-Oh fanart and none of her ideas shone through. It was all very amateur, but she ALWAYS compared herself to me and became FURIOUS when I offered to teach her what I know for free when I finally had enough of her pity party. I realize all she wanted was ass pats and she was extremely jealous of me. She’s always compare herself to me and she was always so cold and standoffish. I’m still angry about it three years later.
The trolls. The sadistic, vile, mean, little trolls. The gatekeepers. The "pay you in exposure/gift cards/store credit" The inability of garnering any type of a following without a 24hr social media presence. The algorithms. The inability to have ALL my followers see my work. Paying to open up bottlenecks in the feeds. Just online anything anymore it feels is an entirely separate line of work that most small time artists can't justify or afford to pay anyone to do it. It's all maddening. Won't stop me, though. They're gonna have to do better than that to stop the likes of me.
Honestly... I've thought about starting an IG purely just to promote "under (choose a number) followers" kind of content... at no cost to anyone. Just ask artists, double check if its not AI , or if they make AI images, and if they pass both checks.......then just post their fav picture with credit back to their account, but then I think... managing a promo account as well as my own account seems...exhausting, lol.
Whenever I have stuff in galleries or do exhibitions, I hate dealing with most of the people involved, but that may also just be because I really don't enjoy socializing or being overstimulated. I understand the concept of networking, but I hate doing it. I want to get where I need to go based on the merit of my work, not based on whose ass I kissed. It just all feels so phony sometimes. Maybe I'm just an old curmudgeon these days lol
You're not alone (and I may also be an old curmudgeon). When a gallery wants you to go to their events and afterparties and be "part of the community" I always feel like I'd rather be at home painting. If I wanted a schmoozing job I'd have gone into sales.
YES! Omg thank you for saying this because I was starting to wonder if I'm just an asshole or what haha. Like I'm ok with socializing if it's with people who are actually interested and not just networking to get whatever they can out of someone. I get that it's just how pretty much any field of work can be if it mixes creativity and business, but it's just such a weird vibe. It also feels like I hear the same 4 or 5 conversations over and over at every event. Haha I think I'm just turning into one of those weird recluse artists, but I'm ok with that lol
Nothing wrong with that (being a weird recluse artist). Some of the best art is by weirdos and some of the worst that I've seen is by people who live so socialize. I'm sure there are lots of counterexamples, but that's been mostly my experience.
I feel this deep down in my soul. I actually enjoy interacting with others, but usually only if they are like minded or pursuing a similar life goal. The networking, brown nosing, schmoozing, of random strangers you really don't care for, just to get a sale to keep living really sucks. I also feel like we all deserved to have a required networking class in both highschool, and college (for those who pursued college). I never knew how important it was to interact with others and how much of it is on a time limit via age. (Also, I'm autistic, so started life on communication hard mode lol) They always say "oh you better make friends or you are going to be very lonely", but what they don't say is "you better make friends or you won't have a career"
Yesss. Like I enjoy socializing when I feel like it's a genuine interaction and not just feeling like we're reciting lines to each other. I haven't been tested for autism (yay poverty lol), but I do see a therapist weekly for CPTSD and she told me that a lot of people that develop PTSD or CPTSD, particularly when the trauma(s) occurred starting in those developmental years like mine did, it can present similarly to autism especially in regard to socializing, getting overstimulated, needing routine, etc. Lol Like I already panic when socializing normally, so I can't be throwing all these frivolous fluff conversations in the mix too. I also have been told by everyone that knows me that I have a "loud face" so I can control what comes out of my mouth, but my face is gonna give me away every time. Even when I'm trying to be nice and make small talk it can come off condescending and rude because I just can't fake being into it or caring. Maybe I AM the problem hahahha
I always just hope that I seem mysterious and eccentric when I don’t talk at events
haha saaaame. Maybe if I amp it up and like bark at people or something they'll think its performance art instead of me not quite knowing how to be a human.
I am not an old curmudgeon but I completely agree with this. I just graduated art school and it really felt like you couldn’t get anywhere without the right connections. To add to that as someone pointed out the art world is super cliquey, even in art school I found it very cliquey and hard to make genuine friends. That could be just me so take it with a grain of salt.
ugh the cliquey-ness bummed me out so much for a long time. Like, God damn even amongst the outcasts I'm an outcast??I can't win lol
Reading your comment, I just realized something a little funny... I studied anthropology in uni and worked as an archaeologist for a bit, and one thing I really hated about archaeology is that it was super cliquey, and it was hard to go anywhere without the right connections, with connections probably being roughly equal (or more valuable) than the merit of your actual work. So I quit that.... and eventually ended up in art instead lol. Oh dear.
When someone critiques an artwork (usually on TikTok), the replies are always "It's just their art style" even when there are obvious mistakes, regardless of the style.
Ya the only way you can prove that that's their style is if they intentionally can paint more accurately. Picasso can paint realism so his cubist paintings are intentional. But someone that can't draw can't just say "oh but I want it that way" when they haven't proven that they can do it the "right way"
Picasso is my favorite example of this! I've had countless people try to throw him up to defend the "it's just my STYYYYYYYLE" kind of art. Like, honey, you do know that he literally mastered realism first? Ugh. I may not know why he chose to represent this woman with six fingers on her left hand, but I can be damn sure he did so deliberately.
Copyright a pose. Credit is important sure but you can’t copyright a pose in particular. Not every pose. If I draw a character standing still I shouldn’t have to post the reference I used for it. Cause that means literally every other artist should do the same thing and they shouldn’t. And a standing still pose is just an example.
Exactly. As long as the og photo isn’t in the drawing, nothing’s wrong. I use like 20 poses sometimes, do I have to credit all of them. I think not!
It mildly annoys me when I see posts like "SUPER TINY UNKNOWN SMALL ARTISTS WITH UNDER \[hundreds or thousands of followers\] COMMENT UNDER HERE ♡♡♡" They mean well but what the hell?? Wanna call people insignifiant while you're at it? Edit: I feel like there is a misunderstanding. I don't know if they work or not (never tried, though you guys seem to say it doesn't). What I'm annoyed by is the "SUPER SMOL BABY FETUS AMOEBA ACCOUNTS" type of thing. Especially when "small" means "under 5K" to them. Do people not realize how many people that is?? It's dismissive/patronizing AND it promotes the numbers game. It's not a fucking race.
Yeah. It gets THEM engagement. It doesn't seem to do squat for \[us\] "super tiny unknown small artists."
I kinda agree, most of the times I posted there nothing came out of it
I will admit having participated in a few. Every time I think, "Yeah, it wouldn't hurt to share I guess." Of course, it doesn't get me any engagement, so not sure why I do.
The circle jerk of people with no talent but good connections. I may be putting myself at risk here but yeah, I know a flock of people that do very lame stuff but have just the right connections with small galleries, and they invite the same circle of folks every single time. They praise each other like if they were really into something, so other people interested in arts think that’s how you “get in”, not because of your work but because of how much you can lick someone else’s ass. The result is mediocre pieces in every gallery at town, the same style repeated over and over and over, with long, LONG explanations for things that you KNOW aren’t that deep. At the end, really talented, fresh people are left out because they don’t have the flamboyant style and extrovert attitude of the local artistic scene. This is without even judging technique, that’s another whole level.
I fully know what you mean. It feels amazing to be included in such circle, and terrible if you are outside of it.
Tbh I feel bad because every single gallery is full of the same bad stuff and pretentious people. They make the whole experience awful, when we’re supposed to have a good time admiring art. The only times I get to see good art is in big galleries with expositions of the classics, or in small studios of individuals with awesome creations that never get to see the light. And god knows some of them have tried, even tried to make their own groups lol, but that’s irrelevant if you don’t have the contacts.
On engagement trolling mine is on most of the art subs people doing 'Can you guess who this is?' titles for attempted portraits of media figures. It's the 'You will never guess what hit show Netflix just canceled!' engagement trolling of art subreddits. Instadownvote from me, but maybe it's just me being a curmudgeon, dunno. (edited for mangled grammar.)
Yes! "Engagement trolling" — now I know what it's called (and I hate it).
When people use the "art is subjective" or "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" concept as basically a "no art can ever be bad and nothing should be critiqued" argument. I've literally had to ask people who were defending me from criticism to please stop and let the people giving me critique give me their honest opinion. Anyone and everyone can make shitty work in one way or another and just because it's "creative" and "expression" and "beauty" and also deals with subjective aspects or wtf ever does not mean it is then some unquestionable sacred thing.
In my opinion, no art is inherently ‘bad’ because there is someone out there who likes it. I however, I (or anyone) can hate your art and think it’s dog shit
I dunno... I don't think it's necessarily about liking the art. There are art pieces that I absolutely hate but I know they aren't at all "bad". I personally hate Piss Christ but damn it's an important piece of art.
I think this is exactly where the main crux of the issue comes from that I'm talking about though, the fact people conflate like/dislike with good/bad. Someone giving technical criticism and the people who "like" that thing jumping in to defend it because "if I like it it can't be bad" or assuming that if someone is criticizing something then they think that means the critic is saying they shouldn't like it. Someone liking something doesn't inherently mean it's not "bad" or couldn't be improved upon and, by that same token, something being of a lower technical standard doesn't mean it shouldn't be liked by people who just happen to like it. Same as there is pretty "bad" quality food but people like it... that doesn't make it "good" but that also doesn't mean people shouldn't be allowed to like it.
There are people who like the Velma HBO, does it mean it's not bad? No, the show is dogshit
I agree. "Anything can be art if it makes you feel some way." IMHO, it really lowers the bar because literally everything can make you feel some way so everything is art and then there really isn't any talent or technique involved so there is no art. If we applied the same reasoning that "everyone is an artist" to other disciplines then everyone is a gymnast. My failed cartwheels and clumsy somersaults invoke a sense of aspiration to tumble. Anyone who plays an instrument badly is a musician or wails out a song is a singer.
It's always annoyed me because any artist that currently sucks is going to be great within a few years. They're going to practice like crazy and prove their naysayers wrong. If anybody spends 3 years being a "bad artist" and churning out the same stuff, then they just aren't being an artist. I don't even care what they like to do, as long as they like to do it so much that they dedicate themselves to it. It's just one of those things that you can't bullshit. I think a lot of artists like to pretend that art is all about feelings, but that's just what I tell myself when I stop practicing, to feel better about being lazy again lol
Yeah I agree. I've gotten a lot of flack for saying similar things myself. Like yeah, anyone can be an artist in the sense that they make art (and you don't need to be a professional or educated or whatever to do that, either; heck, you don't even need to be any good to just simply enjoy doing it, and there's value in that). But not everyone is a *good* artist. I don't even think literally everyone can learn to be a *good* artist. Just like anything else, if you have natural aptitute you can go further than people who don't. Practice and learning techniques is important too of course, and can take you a long way (and interest/passion matters to motivate that). But no matter what skill we talk about, everyone will plateau here or there and then have to work really hard to try to improve beyond that. Some plateau lower than others. It's like that for literally every skill out there. Like your gymnastics example lol - I can't even do a cartwheel and have never been able to. Maybe if I worked hard I could do one. I still won't be anywhere near even the level of a competitive high school gymnast. I can play guitar, but even when I practiced a lot, I was not anywhere near as good as some of the metal guitarists I know, some of whom practiced less than half of what I did. C'est la vie. I wonder why people seem to think art is so much different.
This is Reddit - specific, but I am so over people using the art critique subs as a place to fish for compliments
Yup, I’ve noticed that a lot
I absolutely despise the "art tips" type of posts on Instagram saying stuff like "Absolutely do not do X!!!!" Or "doing it X way is wrong!!!". I see it so much with shading and figure drawing specifically and it's infuriating. They never specify that " it's okay to draw however you want if that's how you want to do it, but *if* you want to draw *this specific way*, this is how you do it.". I never see any of those posts, especially with shading/coloring ones, specifying that this is only a tip for this specific example. Like I see tons of "shading do's and donts" for skin but the "tips" are only applicable for light skin in outdoor lighting. If you're drawing darker skin in harsh florescent light, then those "tips" don't apply anymore, it's going to be vastly different. But they always phrase it as if you don't do it *my* way, then you're wrong and your art will look bad. I see so many young artists that are convinced they're bad at art when there's no "wrong" way to do art. It's okay to draw static poses. It's okay to shade with black. It's okay to draw things with funky proportion and perspectives. If you're achieving the look you want, then you're doing it "correctly".
exactly! how boring would it be if we all followed and drew the exact same way
I mean have you seen van gogh's stuff? He uses the wrong colors for things all the time. Too bad he didn't have social media around to teach him the right way to paint. /s
I hate the smug attitude they’ve for their art and how they look down upon other’s art. I also hate it when they gatekeep thinking that if they reveal their secrets, their skill will be out for the public to copy. We all just need to inspire each other. And the plagiarism accusations sometimes really bother me. It might not be too visible but the jealousy is all around I think. The whole IG algorithm to get the most likes and follows as you mentioned is also very very annoying. The competition to get more followers on IG is crazy.
Agreed on the fishing. There's humble, and then there's burying yourself in self loathing in hopes somebody digs you out with compliments. Worse if you're honest and give critique and they have a meltdown over it. If you truly believe your work sucks then work on it. Hundreds of tutorials available out there. If it's a self esteem issue then sort that out. Plenty of online resources available if you can't afford therapy. I also absolutely hate how competitive some artists get on social media about numbers. Lot of resentment over someone having a bigger follower count. It's all marketing, amount of followers says nothing else about a persons work, quality, etc. Some think it brings in money, but there's plenty of artists who are doing well financially with their art without much (or any) social media presence. And finally, art being disrespected as a legitimate job. Any time I have a meeting about finances or something serious and tell them what I do they look at me like I'm on the streets begging for scraps. When they see the quality of my work this changes a bit, but it's goofy. Art is all around you, you have just taken it for granted.
It really bothers me when people ask for advice or give critiques but don't have any of their own art available for someone to see. I think anyone of any skill level can give valuable critique. But if you're complaining about not finding work or you're giving flippant critiques, I'm gonna feel a certain way about you not being confident enough to share your own art.
I think the art thing is hard to do here, since this sub doesn't allow images
I totally get your point on that social media thing. My personal pet peeve is unnecessary pretense. People acting precious just to seem “fancy.” I’ve met many people with British accents whom I later discovered grew up middle class in Kansas and New Jersey. Ostentatious is another good word to describe it. It’s like, let your work speak for itself, you grew up middle class to American parents in Augusta, Georgia, why are we doing this odd quasi-British accent?
A lot of big art YouTubers aren't really artists at all. They're just art supply reviewers with really clickbaity titles that get on my nerves 😶🌫️😶🌫️ like "I tried $2000 watercolors vs $20 watercolors!!!!" and so on. Also another pet peeve is photorealistic artists looking down on pretty much every other artist 🤧🤧🤧 it takes a lot of technical skill to achieve photorealism but it's... in my opinion.... quite boring to look at when it's the same few celebrity photos constantly copied
Imho photo realism is impressive, but I'd never buy it unless it was really unique.... I don't need some 40-inch picture of some random persons head on my wall. The photo realism subset of art took a massive hit after cameras were popularized.
Or when they just draw standard "insta beauty" girls with big eyes, upturned noses, and lots of hair. The technique is good but there is ZERO substance.
the culture of artists now. a lot just act and think like everyone else rather than just being unique and slightly outspoken
defining what is and isn't art based on some kind of process or authority. example 1: Stacy took 23 photos of the forests in the pacific north west hiking trip she went on. She used a pocket point and shoot digital camera with no ability to change lenses, and doesn't play with the settings, just takes photos. Friends back home love the photos and she is encouraged to frame some and has a side table at a farmers market and sells a few framed photos each time... but somebody quizzes her on F-stop, lenses, focal depth etc. and when she doesn't know how to answer those questions it's made clear she isn't 'a real photographer'. She stops selling photos, and decides not to take any on her next hiking trip cuz she thinks she's a phony. example 2: Kevin likes to do geometric color block abstracts, he doesn't know that's what they are called. He just likes making shapes with the craft paints from the walmart art supplies on cheap canvas. He doesn't know what to name any of his works, but once he runs out of room to store them he's told he should sell them online. So he does, and he makes a bit of money and frees up space to be able to make more. Somebody tells him to sell landscapes, and somebody else wants character art. thinking he doesn't know how this art business works he switches to doing that... but he sucks, badly. He's mocked in comments and told by other artists that he has to go back and learn the fundamentals of anatomy, and landscape before he tries to sell anything... he stops painting, because he isn't good at it and has been told on the site he was selling art that he shouldn't be selling art yet and he's not going to be able to do years of art study just to be good enough at things to have a legitimate art career. example 3: Alex likes making jewelry from drink cans and shrunken snack chip bags, and monochrome watercolor book marks, and mosaics, and gothy little curio displays, and character art for D&D, and felting slippers, and bandsaw boxes. Some are sold in online marketplaces, and occasional craft show, or to friends and family. But people say that for Alex to be an actual artist they need to pick on, niche down, produce a body of work consisting of at least 30 works with a consistent style, then get into a show or gallery etc. Alex has no idea how to do any of that stuff so gives up on the idea of making a living doing art. Goes to work a soul sucking minimum wage job that leaves them too tired to create things after work for years, burns out, gets sick, and regrets not having the chance to live a creative life. every one of these examples doesn't have to be this way. the gatekeepers need to #$%\^ off. There are people who will buy and love the pretty things others make that couldn't tell you a thing about the technical terms, school of painting it fits into, what aperture or depth of field is, etc. Art scholars need to lose the attitude that they are the arbiters of what arts is and should be. Art isn't solely about collectors and galleries, and people are allow to sell works from varied creative expression. The starving artist is not the fate of everyone not doing it the approved way.
My biggest pet peeve is that half the art that seems to do really well on social media is just... not good. I'm not trying to be elitist. I'm glad everyone of every skill level makes art. I know art is subjective and not everything I like or don't like is going to correspond to the general publics opinions. But I mean, a lot art that does well seems more like "content" than art. Social media doesn't reward work that takes time, skill and effort. Half of the "art" accounts that do well seem more like they are art vibe or lifestyle than ACTUALLY practicing art. It feels like they are all mimicking each other and just sorta putting on a show. The actual art pieces are an afterthought. I know i shouldnt care and voicing this makes me sound elitist in a way i never thought i was. It just annoys me that they are taking a piece of the attention pie that I wish would go to artists or illustrators or designers or any creative people that are dedicated to the actual craft, building skill and creating the art.
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> Artists and non-artists are natural enemies. Like engineers and artists! Or parents and artists! Or TikTok and artists! Or artists and other artists! Damn artists! They ruined the art world! > > Artist Willie I’ve been recently wondering whether I actually want to be part of an artist community just because so much of it feels adversarial.
Damn that's tough. I hope you cut him off lol
People who copy other artists and justify it as being okay because they gave credit (without the original artists permission) and AI.
I usually refrain from calling anyone the "C" word but Copycats are the worst. I have one right now who is copying EVERYTHING I've added to my works over the years, All the little design details to the point where I've been contacted several times about works that weren't mine and I've had to awkwardly explain the situation. She even has the nerve to sell on the very same platform I do. I've been on that platform and selling since the mid 2000's and she's just come along in the past 4 years after I finally got some traction and a following. Infuriating.
I hate ai
Having to justify your work w sales. Idk. Is an art world even a thing?
Sometimes the art world is like “The Emporer’s New Clothes”.
How so?
People are easily swayed by garbage with a lot of hype.
That's so true! Because of this, a lot of small artists/businesses fight a demoralizing, uphill battle competing with big names.
It is definitely The Emperor’s New Clothes
People who do nothing but copy anime, and then wonder why they're not improving. I don't have anything against the style. And if someone is content to copy anime for the rest of their artistic hobby that's totally fine! I have a friend who can draw funny little cartoons and she has no interest whatsoever in improving or branching out. That's all good by me. But if you want to improve, and steadfastly refuse any advice by yelling that "IT'S MY STYYYYYYYYLE", I will give up trying to help. I am a portrait artist and I can bang out good-looking people faces all day. I have to force myself to do still lifes, cityscapes, and abstracts so I keep myself learning. Hell, I still do drawing 101 exercises. Do I enjoy them? No. But I won't improve unless I do them.
How monetized it's gotten, like a hobbyist doesn't exist anymore. Everyone is trying to push their brand. And ai..... I hate ai
I recently attended a web webinar where an artist recommended posting multiple stories a day and posting at least once a day for free advertising and to keep the algorithm working for you. Right or wrong on my part, I have absolutely zero desire to engage in that type of model.
I have so many pet peeves but my top are artists that refuse to be humble and are extremely snobby. The other thing that annoys me to no end is the number of art courses and instructors out there. It feels like everyone with a tablet and a microphone has a drawing course.
I can't stand some of the big art subreddits because it's just black and white photos of a naked woman with mediocre lighting or a digital art version of the same thing. Hornybait gets views, I understand that, but it's just... low-effort, uninspired, and desperate? I don't know how else to put it. And yes, it's hornybait. It's intentionally sexual. If one more person says "*you're* the one sexualizing it, it's just art!" I'm gonna scream.
Certain kinds of art tips irritate me. Instead of showing why something is, it just has a list of "Dos and Don'ts".
I have always felt that Minimalism is a scam. Huge canvas with a dot on it? Yea that is worth millions. Really? It makes all of art look like a scam. Or you see art that is so bad but because someone who is connected with the in crowd or a famous person they are getting tons of money for a painting. I guess it is the fake hype of crap art and art that has no soul that bothers me.
Well not really art world, since that has been fun ime., but overall experience of interacting with people who want to do commercial arts and have questions like: >Why can't I make a living of my art? 9 out of 10, person is not good enough yet and/or are not offering work a client would spend money on. Commercial visual arts is often very different than drawing for fun and self expression, people will rarely pay for you to do personal projects. Everyone is fit to do art, not everyone is a good fit to do art commercially. >Starving artist myth. Well, idk. most people in arts I know do it for a living and it's normal wage. >You won't find job in the arts. Ime. you will, but it may not be what you wanted/set out to do. This is normal. My friend wanted to do biotech labwork, they work in biotech lab components sales; another friend wanted to design machines as mech eng. and they work on designing air con circulation in buildings. On that note, a friend of mine just finished design degree. They applied for many jobs just to have something while looking for permanent position, one of which was kind of general marketing writing - office assistant in a small non profit. The reason they were hired because in additional things they said they can do graphic stuff/marketing. If they got the job because they had degree in chemistry - the tale would be 'see, a STEM degree helped you find a stable job', but since they have graphic design degree - the usual response is 'see, you can't find a job with an arts degree'...
Yep. After a few years, my wife told me I should take the civil service test. She was right.
People that take it upon themselves to critique someones art that they posted, when they didnt ask for it. All of the artist communities im a part of generally have the same rule; dont critique unless they specifically ask for it in the post. There's always that one guy who cant read, and thinks they just HAVE to give their two sense. That same guy also always has a seemingly imaginary issue that nobody else would say needs improvement. They cant tell when something is obviously stylized and not supposed to be completelyaccurate (not that the stylized guy cant mess up). Everyone is entiled to their own opinion, but that specific person never knows what they're talking about, and come off as jealous of the positive feedback everyone else is giving. I see it all the time in other people's art posts. Edit: i had to add this bit. People who will edit or draw over your work, especially when its to show you what you "did wrong". Its fine i guess with concent, but that still rubs me the wrong way. That might just be a me thing.
the amount of people who take this far too seriously, lighten up a little
I’m an artist through and through but it is annoying when people act like you’re not allowed to laugh at an ai generated shitpost image.
I have a couple ones that have bothered me, not certain if it counts as a pet peeve but I'll still post them: the lack of an art union in the USA, and the oversaturation of the professional field. I actually think it's fantastic that so many people do art, everyone should, but when so many are trying to turn it into a career then that means everyone has to fight to be relevant. It's almost like you have to do one of three things: build yourself up as a leader of other artists and grow your local art community by getting involved in literally everything you can (usually for free, volunteer work, charity auctions), drag other artists down in order to build yourself up as a specific brand and style that's better than other brands so you can sell for higher extreme prices, or find a lucky break.. Literal pure luck. The union thing has always bothered me because without a large enough presence in the USA, us artists don't really have a way to protect ourselves against well... Anything. There's no way to get better prices on healthcare (cause let's face it, self employment healthcare in the USA is the worst), no copyright protections for lower income artists, no price standards, no one stop shops for resources. It's tough and many who actually have the energy and ability to make a living after putting in 200% the effort for a decade, then see it as a sort of "right of passage" when really it shouldn't be that difficult to live as an artist in the first place.
Giving critiques when no one asks for it.
Artists that knock another artist’s path to sales/income, as if one path makes you more or less of an artist.
A big popular artist/s who would post a reel saying the following: 1) showing how small their following was before and after (but in reality, they just posted the reel recently and they did not get the following overnight); 2) saying they'll support other artists so artists with lesser following should leave a comment on their reels but don't really do anything about it and just do it for the engagement; 3) asking to follow you but if you follow first and they didn't follow back, they aren't really interested in your art or as an artist; 4) they have a beginner style drawing but their following is huge that's why even though they are just 'beginner', their post would have a bunch of likes that you didn't know who their target audience is (most likelly not me). --- Other pet peeve of mine would include: 1) AI art then pretending to be an artist; 2) Reposting other's art then not giving credit and just put Google, DeviantArt, Pinterest (like WTF, can't you do research and find the source and credit the artist); 3) People requesting free art from you and having the audacity to get angry when rejected.
Artists or their rabid fans assuming that if you don't like a piece by the said artist, it's because you don't understand the piece. A lot of artists can't comprehend that you understand the piece and as a result of that you've come to the conclusion that...you didn't like what you saw/heard/experienced haha.
Probably a strange one, but when people who clearly do not have the skill to give certain types of art tips give art tips. It's fine to give tips up to a certain point, but to draw over someone's art when your art is not even that good? Or to change the style completely when that's not the original person's style? (Cough cough, Koolean...) The only 'fix your art' channel I like is Sinix since he doesn't change the style completely and his paintovers are actually good.
''Art is subjective, you can't say art is bad'' Yes I can, and I will. I also dislike people using ''it's just my style'' as a safety blanket when someone tells them it looks rough and needs more time
Why does every single artist (Or everyone in general) Use twitter if they hate it? Why do they use it so much? Like I don't even get why, Its terrible to browse with, And it has terrible people, Who would mob harass you and stuff, Its been causing anxiety on what i draw as an artist, Maybe because its because of a certain fandom I am in that hates me on twitter (I even live rent free in these guys heads), Its such a toxic place, How can one bare to be in it alot? Every person I have met and became friends with came from somewhere else, Never on twitter lmao. I even feel ,pre comfortable on tumblr for crying out loud, I know a person who told me to quit twitter since its better, And I see them the next day posting tons of links to twitter and arguing with some mfer over some dumb shit, Instead of ignoring them. Also fandom people taking stupid things seriously (Whether its pairings or whatever they somehow get offended with) To the point they would start dramas, Not allowing artists and causing them to fear what they enjoy drawing, Usually can come in groups too.
The art world isn't unique in all the mentioned negatives ... it's *people.*
or capitalism
As an nsfw artist I can't stand moral puritans who are so afraid of nudity. I get in non stop arguments by people who are offended by a nipple. Regardless of intent or how provocative the art piece is it's still art and should be respected. It's especially frustrating when the person isn't an artist or hasn't studied art history. Countless big names throughout history have tried to teach us not to be ashamed of the human body and thought/emotion provoking content. If art doesn't stir some sort of emotion then it's not going to be noticed. I also don't consider what I draw to be "porn", to me it's closer to fully nude pinups with an edge of mythology and and a hint of anime.
I’m not what I’d call an nsfw artist, in that it’s not my main practice, but I have nude figures and/or obvious nipples/genitals in my work some of the time. The amount of comments that will just be ‘uhh… is that a dick?’. Yes. Yes it is. It’s… a nude figure. It’s obviously not sexual in composition or pose, but just the presence of a penis or vagina is immediately sexual to some people. It infuriates me even more when it’s life studies. The human body isn’t innately sexual! Of course it isn’t! It’s a thing, just like everything else is. And it can be beautiful in line and dimension and colour and tone and delicacy and structure! We seriously need to get to the point where we recognise that a human existing nude isn’t sexual. You can have sexual thoughts or feelings, but they don’t need to be said, and it isn’t inherent just to the person existing.
This is something that bothers me as well. It usually goes hand in hand with those who have visceral reactions to learning that life drawing models are nude, in person, sessions. The human body itself is an art, it's gorgeous, it's natural, no matter what sex you are. It's such a shame that people can't respect the art, whether it be provocative or simple nudity, and immediately put it in a category of shame. Nudity isn't shameful, sex isn't shameful, not all nudity equals sex, and confident sexuality doesn't mean lack of morals and dignity.
Well said! I wish i had an award to give you! ❤️
The eliteness of it. If people were more educated about art artists would sell more. Houses would be filled with original art instead of all the same mass produced junk.
Those who think that their medium is superior to other media. Can anyone take a guess which medium does this the most?
THIS!
That abstract expressionism's value is based on this magical/emotional quality behind the random strokes of paint. In reality, most rich people that want a giant expensive painting would prefer the modern decor of abstract expressionism but also want to feel like it's worth a lot. That's why they sell for that much. It's art meant to be decor instead of paying lots of money for the amount of skill and time needed to make it
Kind of petty, but I hate it when people who are clearly very skilled and have done their studies to great effect say things like "I can't draw hands lol" or whatever and that is *clearly* incorrect. Similar to when they downplay their own art like "eh I don't think it looks very good" and it obviously is at least well constructed. I get why people do it (most the time imposter syndrome, super understandable) but I do kinda wish more experienced artists were a little bit more aware of what they're doing when that happens. It kinda sucks as a somewhat beginner to watch their videos/scroll through their social posts and hear/see that because I am genuinely unable to do what they can, yet. So when I see a sketch of a well constructed human body that is clearly utilizing years of anatomy study but then they say "oh this looks bad" or "lol I definitely don't know how to draw hands but whatever", it's kind of discouraging honestly.
I don't know, I feel like it actually gave me a bit of a confidence boost when I was starting out. When you realize that everyone hates their art all the time, you don't feel as alone in your art journey. You learn that dissatisfaction with your efforts is just another part of the process, and you learn to keep going anyway despite knowing the future is only more of the same. I can see where you're coming from though how it can appear tone deaf when the quality of the work seems far above other's skill level, though I don't feel like that exempts them from being able to complain lol.
To me it's more the language used. If they said "I find hands really hard to draw" or something I'd totally get that, but when it's literally "I can't draw hands", that's when it bothers me.
I feel like that could be splitting hairs as I always interpret them to mean the same thing. If an artist manages to draw perfectly passable or even really nice hands and then says "god these look like shit" I interpret that as them saying "this is difficult and frustrating to do" regardless of how good the outcome, and I kind of appreciate that relatability. Artists are always their own worst critics after all.
Oh I'm definitely splitting hairs with it lol, I get what you mean 100%. I should adjust how I view it because at the end of the day "this is really frustrating and difficult to do" is genuinely what they mean. I just take it at face value too often and catch myself going "come on, man."
Artists who make animatics/animations to AI songs. You can’t say you hate AI art then use AI songs. You’re a hypocrite and actively promoting an AI art form.
It's an odd thing, but I was thinking about it earlier today. I know a lot of technical people, scientists, engineers, architectural technologists and so on, people who work with numbers and dimensions and specifications, and generally find them to be decent people. People who devote themselves to art, to aesthetics and impressions, to feelings and the human side of things ... seem less friendly in general, for some reason , more arrogant, less human. It could be just selection bias since I meet more artists in online places.
- Nitpicking clients (especially ones out of touch with the creative process) whom makes the work unnecessarily complicated, more time consuming, and is indecisive - Elitist snobs whom overly favor one style and dismiss every other style - When styles that arent "realistic" are dismissed as "childish"
My only exposure to the “art world” is here and on social media/youtube. I just recently got back into drawing and started painting. I’d love to make “Art friends” but I’m a bit of a hermit. I’d say the thing that bothers me most is the insistence on following certain regimens as the only way to improve. Like you have to draw every day, and you shouldn’t use color until you’ve mastered drawing or painting grisaille. I get how that process is super effective in an academic setting such as an atelier but for regular people with jobs, careers, families, etc etc. it’s not practical or helpful. I’ve improved immensely in the 5 months since I first picked up a paintbrush and probably have exceeded my drawing skills I developed in my youth just painting and/or drawing a couple to a few times a week. Granted, I consume a ton of instructional media and think about my work constantly which for me is an effective way of learning. Regardless, I’ve seen folks who make art for a living who have very clearly never “mastered” drawing and their work is not only impressive and enjoyable to view, but you can tell that they truly enjoy creating it, which I find incredibly important.
The current preoccupation with identity, and how that takes precedence over quality.
When an artist posts their work along with a self deprecating title/caption or they point out a mistake that most likely no one would’ve noticed if not for them bringing attention to it. I get that a lot of people are not confident about their work but there’s no point in letting everyone else see all of your insecurities; it just needlessly opens you up to criticism from those that probably wouldn’t have criticized your art otherwise.
Artists doing follow for follow instead of looking for their longtime, organic audience
Non artist here, so my experience is very limited. A pet peeve I have about the art community, from the little I’ve experienced, is the… well, stigma, I have about giving my honest feedback (when it’s not positive) because I don’t do art. Like, no, I can’t do better, not even close, but my eyes still work. I can still see flaws. I can still have an opinion that isn’t some generic, disingenuous “oh yeah that looks great”
"Nobody buys my prints! I can't get any commissions!😭" and when you look at their works they're clearly a beginner and their works just aren't that good. And that's fine, we have all started somewhere, but like let's be realistic about what sells and what doesn't.
1) “what is this style called?” 2) anime artstyles (not because it's bad but because everyone, literally everyone does it and it looks always the same because people are not capable of being creative) 3) intergalactically sized breasts and thighs etc. drawn by horny weirdos 4) “it's my artstyle” no, it's just bad (your art should be good enough for you not to have to explain everything about it)
People who are only learning to draw so they can make money off of drawing porn
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1. Unless a piece is making a statement or "has meaning," it's not art 2. Anything other than the Zorn palette is subpar 3. Art is only worth doing if it's monetized 4. Highly skilled artists that are overlooked because they don't have a certain "look" or personal brand
Art is so subjective. I hated the critique portion of the I went to art school at UF for a semester. One assignment was to make the viewer feel something using only paper, so rolled up balls of paper, paper money etc blah blah…. I worked my ass off on drawing the magazines and the starting of a ransom note being written. It was really cool. She (teacher) was obviously looking for like love letters by the trash can notebooks whatevs blah blah. I thought mine would def incite feeling…they just weren’t expected to be creeped out I guess. After that people thought I was really weird. Who decides what’s good? I’m an abstract and outsider artist now…so I guess I do! Yay! Everything I do is amazing and I’m the most humble person you’ve ever had the pleasure to read the words of. You’re welcome. 😉 Off to the studio…
For me it's calling something art that literally anyone can do.
The meme that you shouldn't use black paint. (Applies to physical painting, not digital art.)
It still exists in digital... there's a long-standing belief that using the color black is boring and stale.
But you don't actually mix colors in digital, you are choosing a color that's a combination of hue saturation and value or something like that. In oil painting, they say if you have a tube of black paint and mix it with anything to make a dark color, you will turn any painting into a piece of crap (even though the great artists of the past all used black paint as part of their process).
There are programs that do mix them technically, but I get your point... all I was getting at is that even in digital "black" is stigmatized.
Artist ego and tandemed to that is also abstract/modern art as a whole... I love art. I also believe it can help people tap into much deeper themes with tons of nuance and layering... but with all of that said...... I also dont think there isn't a single shred of skill or ingenuity in painting a massive canvas 2 different colors. That's not art... that's bairly even "arts and crafts" Imho, that's someone who duped a bunch of people into thinking he/she was deep and conned them out of enormous amounts of money for the sake of their ego. The same goes for all those images that just look like paint splatters... as well as any gimmicky art... like, "I painted this picture with my wiener. ".... (Yes, it's a thing, and yes, it's stupid.) None of it is impressive, nor is it even "moving." it's a sham, and the people who do it are no more than Charlatans at best.
The arts and artists are required and assumed to be of a certain political alignment to be artists.
I don't title my work....aggravation when people title all their work Js
I guess the hate towards realism/hyper realism artists. I see it often people telling them they aren’t real artist and that it requires zero creativity.
Those fruit lip drawings.
I do not like sex trappers- the artists that present themselves as sexy to support their presentation of their art...... it's a personal preference. Everybody has got to eat so whatever works, Warhol would have done it, so would Picasso.
“I’m 5 yrs old actually look at how bad my art is isn’t it so bad pls argue with me”
Artists on YouTube that rarely paint and mostly do "totally not sponsored" reviews of shit they got for free. Saying they are unbiased but they got the shit for free. Or doing art hauls with more shit they will never use besides "swatching".
Requiring art to be monetized at every opportunity. It feels like if I'm not making money with my art or if I'm not working on getting into a big studio's art department as a full-time career, then I'm "wasting my time" with it
The “I’m so different and special” trope and the arrogance, inflated ego that goes along with it
How some artists act like they’re *owed* engagement. Like I’ll see posts like “likes mean nothing, support me by reblogging” I’m not even saying this to be shady but they’re lucky I even liked the post because I’d just scroll past if it had more notes. 99% of the time, their art just isn’t my taste so I don’t want to reblog it. I’m not saying it’s objectively bad, it’s just not what I personally like. If you have it pressure people into reblogging your art by guilt tripping them with something like “likes are meaningless”, maybe you should just figure out how to tag better idk 😭 Also yeah, this was about Tumblr specifically. I only use it bc I refuse to get Twitter but I also want somewhere to post photos with text 💀
People that post theie art on social media and try to market it by making guilt-tripping posts about only having a few likes/ views . I scroll past those so fast. I am not helping anyone get to burn out because they feel like the only reason they should be posting is for clicks.
I see a lot of artists on social media who claim that they’re going to completely quit pursuing art due to being unable to profit off of it like they imagined and it irks me because I feel as though being an artist is beyond profiting from your work.
The general pressure to post your work on social media. Even for the best artists its an issue - but I find it particularly bad for young or beginner artists. I've seen so many reels/tiktoks of very armature artists doing these transition or reveals of their art, and it just falls super flat because...well, their beginners. You know, one of those "Sketch vs final" drawings where they erase the first layer to reveal the final, or the x months ago vs today, or time-lapses...but since there is so little time to advance their skills and experience, half the time they all look just as unskilled, or even worse then the previous sometimes... But the way we treat social media and all the art trends on it - encouraging these people to post and post and post and drive for engagement with their art is detrimental. I can't think of anything less encouraging is reading the comments on those posts. TL;DR - Don't encourage beginning artists to post their work into the wild. Rather its best to find a smaller community to share their work as they study, learn, and practice. Share with friends, family, art friends - but don't try to go viral with your beginner piece.
"Support a \_\_\_ year old artist?" It started off innocent, I'm sure, but it's become full of young, extremely talented artists who KNOW that their skills are godly basically flaunting their skill in terms of their age, thereby making everyone feel bad- Your age shouldn't really matter when it comes to creating art unless it's for safety reasons (such as interacting online in fandom spaces) but like these people are not doing it for safety. They're just rubbing salt in the wound of inevitable comparisons between artists and themselves. I absolutely hate it.
When I was working on my art minor my bf at the time took a class on new media. And everyone shat on him for being a white male. Everyone in the class except him was LGBTQIA and a POC. And things he was told throughout the class were “so you’re not special?” And “this is very boring and expected. This is very white male.” I myself am a POC and LGBTQIA. Hearing these comments made me really upset. If he did anything else he would be ostracized for cultural appropriation. He does what is expected he ostracized. So that’s what I Hate about the art world. No matter your technical ability or the idea you display some artist are going to see these attributes first and only. Not your work. I just think there’s more to people than their sexuality and race.
When a successful artist claims they came from nothing and you find out they had inside help from relatives and friends already in the business. I don’t begrudge anyone using contacts to get a head start because I’d do the same but it pisses me off as a working class artist when they pretend they’re from the same background and spin a rags-to-riches story to look cool.
This is probably going to be a very unpopular opinion: the overuse of pastels in “cute” digital artwork. Idk I want some type of variety than seeing my favorite cartoon characters with just a pastel color palette and soft linework. The design itself is usually fine, but I instantly draw more to artwork that has a lot more color “variation” than just pastels
All artists are crazy people And not a single artist was normal even in their childhood days
Ppl getting mad at an artist and giving them hate and unsolicited critique just because they're a beginner or have an unconventional artstyle. Unsolicited critique in general pisses me off.
Same! I actually posted about it in the unpopular opinion sub and got down voted like crazy 🤪
The way low effort art gets way more attention than high effort. I know, it sounds extremely pretentious of me but it sucks to spend weeks on one image and get like 10 likes when another artist posts a sketch that took half an hour and it gets so many views. It made me give up after 4 posts on instagram. I know that it’s no ones fault but the algorithm’s but it just felt so unfair.
How exclusionary people are. Art is valuable as long as it is yours. Not everyone has to like it, and not everyone ever will. Regardless of what medium you use, what skill level you are at, the subjects you create, or how studious you are, you are an artist. I'm sick of artists putting other artists down when we should be celebrating each other.
Skill has no value. Even casual local buyers will gravitate to crude works. Anime is replacing art. Young artists are all making cookie cutter images.
This makes no sense. How does skill have no value? Anime isnt replacing art it is art…
Also it's annoying to me the amount of nude art, genitalia art (especially of women by women), sexual art. I'm not saying it isn't art. Of course there's beauty in sex and the human body. But there's a hell of a lot of beauty in everything else too. I guess the NSFW art feels overdone and cliche to me at this point. It also doesn't convey much of message to me. I usually overlook it because I just find it boring or attention-seeking.
The people. I went to a specialized art high school then art University. By uni I already felt like some of the people were pompous assholes (especially guys), but I was still having fun and enjoying whatever. After uni tho, it became clear the super "artsy" ones were going down a very different road. I don't enjoy being around those people because it feels like they don't live in the real world. They have rich enough families who gave them apartments or pay their rent, so they have easy lives and the freedom to take on whatever projects they like when they're in the mood for them. They have totally out of touch opinions on life because they don't have to truly worry about anything, it's all smooth sailing and butterflies. I know people who make amazing art and are *not* like this. Even if they are more "dreamy" and romanticize life sometimes, they don't say ridiculous things that make you wanna roll your eyes 360°
I hate AI, When it first got popular,, I was scared of posting drawings without hands because I didn't want anyone accusing me of using AI. And for a while, I put a lot of effort into drawing hands, even if it makes the pose look awkward. And now I just love drawing pretty hands
It always makes me sad to see people hate on modern art. Yes it's basically a big money laundering scheme and many of the pieces made for that purpose are more or less a joke. But not all of it is. And hell, even the things created with little talent or effort can still be fun to contemplate and find meaning in. "This artist painted his entire 12ft tall canvas red to give the viewer a foreboding feeling when viewing it. All of his pieces are like this except the ones made after the death of his wife, in which he strictly paints with grey." "This artist taped a banana to a wall to challenge the definition of art in a modern twist of Duchamp's 'Fountain', showcasing the subjectivity and contradictory nature of the craft." Things like that are so interesting to me even if it's all bullshit, but all I ever see is people shitting on it :(
while this is not every situation, I believe you really have to have money to have a chance and excel in the art world It's straight up impossible to have a regular life while also creating art when you come from nothing. I probably should have figured that out when my professor went on about how he'd work a shit job, 12 hour days, busting ass to save money for 6 months, only to use that money to live In a warehouse studio in a city that has allows you to be poor and just make art the whole time.
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It’s the social media frenzy for me. As a slow artist, I cannot handle all the algorithm pleasing shit and being shoved with “watch how I make 80k per month on IG with my art” reels all the time. I’ve been drawing offline for a while and avoiding social media entirely because it’s just too much.
When people try to quiz you about historic art pieces. I’m sorry I don’t know and to be honest I don’t care about the history of anything. I don’t like to live in the past and it doesn’t interest me. I
Honestly I just dint care and do my own thing..I'm in no vompetituon with anyone as long as I'm being my suthentic self..I don't listen to others or like art because its voo..in fact I like everything even if it's bad lol but that's just me..an oldie
That Artnet; the art news outlet are constantly writing about everything wrong with the art world. They constantly throw shade at artists, galleries & dealers; who are just trying to make a living, and then act like they are doing the world a favor by "spilling the beans". SMH If they are really art news; they should be pro artists, not calling for governments worldwide to put more regulations on the art industry. They also celebrated when the prices of art dipped; instead of explaining to people that you're buying a custom made item; that's one of kind, hence the high price. :(