I really hope you’re wrong. I spent a long time at one level, and about a year ago did an Inktober and broke through to the next level. It could be having consciously improved my process, but it could also just be age. Not sure.
I spent 2 years drawing a comic, did basically nothing else most days (stopped due to health issues, desperate to continue). I definitely improved SO MUCH (without setting out to do so), it’s hard to look at the early pages now. I am also not exactly young.
The notion that doing something, anything, a lot and often would not improve your skill is wild to me.
Agreed on the skill aspect. But if we’re talking about artists either having good taste or not, that’s an inherent trait I could see dividing successful and unsuccessful artists. I’m pretty sure good taste is based on some inner quality, probably empathy… Which can be treated as a skill, but rarely is.
You’d get better, but there has to be something underneath. Like sports, I’ll never be as fast as Ben Johnson or Usain Bolt - no matter how much effort I put in - my physiology and muscle twitch fiber is not what they were born with.
Arts are similar, there has to be underlying ability to nurture.
Practise won’t make a top artist out of someone that doesn’t have an eye for it.
Yeah, I’m not saying practising a craft doesn’t improve use of a medium, more that a person has to have some underlying ability.
Don’t let my comment discourage you.
For example, I’m OK. Art all through young years, HS, Uni, and did some neat conceptual stuff. But at Uni you’d see people draw a photo perfect picture of a person from memory. Not only did they have an amazing memory, their fine motor skills let them capture things exact. I will never reach that because my hand doesn’t quite do what my minds eye imagines.
But if you follow young peoples art like a 7 year old draws different than 11, 11 to 16, etc. Mental changes seem to have a large impact on emerging abiluty
What I’d say, is don’t worry and don’t get discouraged. I’m sure there must be photographic memory artists, but a question is what you want to achieve. You can still be a great artist without photographic memory, there were, are, and will be many. For sure not every artist has photographic memory. Also, with training you will start unblocking skills and talents in your brain that you didn’t expect before you might have. I couldn’t sing well, I was unable to match a tone, but I loved singing (uh) and started learning and gradually got to a level where I could lead a voice or sing it alone in a church choir and heard compliments from various singers. Now I’m learning to paint watercolors since 2 years, and unexpectedly to me my line drawing also starts improving. Often I am frustrated by my drawings or paintings but sometimes I am surprised how this or that one somehow looks so good! Sometimes feeling not under my control if ends up good or bad 🤷♂️ I went into it with the same attitude as you: let’s just keep practicing, with time it must start slowly improving. Well, it does! Annoyingly glacially slowly (at least in my perception), but definitely does. There will be always “better” artists; but you start discovering that you have a different voice, a different eye, and there are people who honestly resonate with your artworks, even if you feel yours are “worse”. Not everyone, but some do. And not every piece, but some. (I literally had a friend single out one drawing as something she really liked, completely unprompted, when before a “learned artist” grilled me over it so much that I lost desire to draw for half a year.) This also gives some validation, and helps persevere through those who complain or say nothing, or who say nice but only to be nice.
I really hope you’re wrong. I spent a long time at one level, and about a year ago did an Inktober and broke through to the next level. It could be having consciously improved my process, but it could also just be age. Not sure.
I spent 2 years drawing a comic, did basically nothing else most days (stopped due to health issues, desperate to continue). I definitely improved SO MUCH (without setting out to do so), it’s hard to look at the early pages now. I am also not exactly young.
The notion that doing something, anything, a lot and often would not improve your skill is wild to me.
Agreed on the skill aspect. But if we’re talking about artists either having good taste or not, that’s an inherent trait I could see dividing successful and unsuccessful artists. I’m pretty sure good taste is based on some inner quality, probably empathy… Which can be treated as a skill, but rarely is.
You’d get better, but there has to be something underneath. Like sports, I’ll never be as fast as Ben Johnson or Usain Bolt - no matter how much effort I put in - my physiology and muscle twitch fiber is not what they were born with.
Arts are similar, there has to be underlying ability to nurture. Practise won’t make a top artist out of someone that doesn’t have an eye for it.
Yeah, I’m not saying practising a craft doesn’t improve use of a medium, more that a person has to have some underlying ability.
Don’t let my comment discourage you.
For example, I’m OK. Art all through young years, HS, Uni, and did some neat conceptual stuff. But at Uni you’d see people draw a photo perfect picture of a person from memory. Not only did they have an amazing memory, their fine motor skills let them capture things exact. I will never reach that because my hand doesn’t quite do what my minds eye imagines.
But if you follow young peoples art like a 7 year old draws different than 11, 11 to 16, etc. Mental changes seem to have a large impact on emerging abiluty
I can take that onboard!
What I’d say, is don’t worry and don’t get discouraged. I’m sure there must be photographic memory artists, but a question is what you want to achieve. You can still be a great artist without photographic memory, there were, are, and will be many. For sure not every artist has photographic memory. Also, with training you will start unblocking skills and talents in your brain that you didn’t expect before you might have. I couldn’t sing well, I was unable to match a tone, but I loved singing (uh) and started learning and gradually got to a level where I could lead a voice or sing it alone in a church choir and heard compliments from various singers. Now I’m learning to paint watercolors since 2 years, and unexpectedly to me my line drawing also starts improving. Often I am frustrated by my drawings or paintings but sometimes I am surprised how this or that one somehow looks so good! Sometimes feeling not under my control if ends up good or bad 🤷♂️ I went into it with the same attitude as you: let’s just keep practicing, with time it must start slowly improving. Well, it does! Annoyingly glacially slowly (at least in my perception), but definitely does. There will be always “better” artists; but you start discovering that you have a different voice, a different eye, and there are people who honestly resonate with your artworks, even if you feel yours are “worse”. Not everyone, but some do. And not every piece, but some. (I literally had a friend single out one drawing as something she really liked, completely unprompted, when before a “learned artist” grilled me over it so much that I lost desire to draw for half a year.) This also gives some validation, and helps persevere through those who complain or say nothing, or who say nice but only to be nice.