The point is, you must hold yourself up to the highest measure and accept the harshest criticism and you must always come back for more. And you better come back with something new every time.
Yes.
This is why I keep going back to my stuff and saying, while it might not be really, really awful, it is nowhere near what I would call good. High standards. Middleton level standards. If I could draw half as well as that ... guy, then maybe I would have reason to be happy. Until then, I am sticking to the position that I suck.
That's kind of the reason why I hesitate to comment on artists' blogs sometimes. The blogs I visit are generally good, but, you know, sometimes I find myself thinking how they could be better. It's not my place to tell these people what I don't like on their blogs, especially since I suck so much more badly than any of them, but I still end up thinking it. A lot of these blogs end up with a lot of compliments. Deserved compliments, yes, but I often can't join in. I don't want to sound like a goddamn wet rag and pretentious twit criticizing his betters, and I'm sure these people get lots of frank criticism elsewhere (most of them do art for a living, after all).
Cruise on over to Joshua Middleton's site and see some real skill. Jaw dropping skill. I want those clear lines and smooth colors, dammit. I don't want to be messy all the time! (But I know that right now, if I tried, I would take three thousand years to produce a boring, stiff picture, and the colors would still suck.)
Oh yeah, I also want to be able to paint like J. C. Leyendecker. Is that asking a lot?
The point is, I suck now, so that means I can keep getting better, right?
Bloody optimists.
2 comments:
Yeah, that's pretty much how I approach it.
I try to do the best I can, and also try to improve over what I've done in the past. OTOH, I don't worry about standards too much.
I'm probably a bit too blunt with my criticism, but then again, some bloggers find it useful.
Post a Comment