A Beautiful Failure

Last evening I started the painting I'll be sharing with you now, but about halfway into the process I began listening to something titled "Why Your Drawings Suck" on YouTube. Let me just say that it was more than illuminating. Before I get into the details though, I'm going to let you see the image I was working on. Check it out!

In the interest of full disclosure I did kind of give up on this about three quarters of the way through, but there's a reason behind that! And that reason is; this sucks. It sucks. This is sucky art. I don't expect everyone that might be reading this also has the time to watch a twenty six minute long video, so let me summarize it to qualify my previous statement. The artist that created that video listed several factors that contribute to "art that sucks," I'm gonna put those below.

• Line Dependency
• Lack of References
• Technique
• Confidence
• Not Drawing Enough
• Community

Now, let me go ahead and use these bullet points to tell you why this piece sucks. I didn't use any references, I haven't been drawing enough, and I have no real community around me to critique my work. I think I can say with confidence that I have some confidence in my ability (technique), and I've never used lines as a crutch, so that checks three out of six off that list. I feel like I'd be in a much worse situation if I were struggling in other areas, so if these are the problems I have, I'm not to bummed about it.

It's really kind of crazy but I included this in my blog yesterday, and this was before I started listening to that video, "It's impossible to draw what you imagine to if you can't realize what's in front of you". That's my problem in a nutshell, and listening to Istebrak (the creator of that video) confirmed that for me. I really need to start doing more studies, use references when I have a solid concept that I want to realize, and get involved with more artists.

I find it easy for me to forget that when you're at a computer you have access to almost all of the information in the world, along with the people that share it. I so frequently use it to browse the same websites, talk to the same people through social media, and do the same stuff! For that reason I think it's time to do something different, to start being really serious about turning my passion into a career. So that's what I intend to do.

That's all for this post, check back tomorrow for something new!