Art-rocious Art
Updated: Jul 8, 2019
Oh god, here we go again. It's blog time again people; brace yourselves for another 3 minutes of badly spelt typo filled nonsense from me.
If writing a blog is an art then truly mine are art-rocious… get it?
Oh, you think that even I wouldn't so desperately force in a pun that clumsily.
Clearly you haven't read my other blogs.
Okay, on this occasion you may be right. The subject of the day is bad art.
What?
Did you think I was gonna pick some other poor soul's art and mock it?
Maybe critique some artwork that doesn't float my metaphorical boat?
That, sir/madam, is not my style.
You wanna do art then all the better for you. You're still pretty awful at it?
Even better!
You have a whole journey of discovery ahead of you.
Today is all about me. Or more specifically that monstrosity you just saw a moment ago.
It's an oil painting by the way (before somebody tries for the old "she's no oil painting" gag) and as some of you may be aware, I am not a good painter.
I hate that.
Being bad at something. It bothers me. Particularly when it comes to art. And I look at both of these pictures with the absolute knowledge that I should be ashamed of myself for not achieving at least the bare minimum of what I am capable of.
Should be ashamed.
But I'm really not.
And neither should you be. I mean look at it.
It's a disaster; the mouth is in the wrong place, the eyes are wonkey (technical term), the skin tones are awful and oh dear god what was I thinking with that background colour.
Back on track though.
Okay, not quite back on track. But it's not my best work. I did a bad thing and produced a substandard piece of art.
What should I do about it?
The temptation is to never paint again.
You've all been there I'm sure.
You try something and it's a complete failure (insert DCEU joke here).
After hours, maybe days of work you find yourself reading a terrible short story, looking at a hideous painting (don't make me show you again!) or maybe you've just finished singing what you're sure will be your first hit single only to discover you've mumbled your way through it and for some reason can't pronounce the word "sandwich" correctly.
And so ends all hope of artistic and creative success.
But what if you didn't?
Give up I mean.
There's no shame for being bad at something. Everyone is bad at something. Your absolute favourite artist in the whole world is bad at something. Not art. But certainly something.
Maybe they suck at tennis.
But even with art, I promise you that they have godawful days where it's all just terrible and nothing comes out right. There'll be pictures hidden in their cupboards and their PC folders that are complete disasters.
But, I hear you say, despite this clearly being written in both a different time and space, "I can clearly see that mine is truly awful".
So you can see it's bad?
And you can look at it and pick out all those little faults that make it bad?
So you can fix it then?
You can fix it.
Seriously you can.
Half the battle is even seeing that there's something wrong in the first place.
Your ability to look at art and say "that is good" or "that is bad" is the cornerstone of your abilities as an artist.
Where your taste goes, your skills follow.
So you can fix it.
Think of all those X Factor or talent show contestants who are awful and have no idea that they are. It's not a coincidence.
They are stuck where they are because they cannot grasp that what they do could be better.
That awful picture is not the end of the line and it is most certainly not a failure. If you want to know the one trick that'll make you a better artist then this is it;
Sometimes it all goes wrong but that's okay.
You can learn from your mistakes.
Take what you learned by going wrong and make the next picture better.
But that's not all!
That supposed failure, you can see those mistakes?
Why not fix them?
Why not just treat that disaster just like an unfinished work?
If it's bad then it's just not finished.
Okay, you got me...
But that's still awful I hear you say! (you thought it, I know you did)
That's okay, it's just another work in progress!
What do mean "it's not the same picture"?
I fixed it.
The last one was just an accumulation of mistakes and I methodically went through them fixing each one with an almost a complete paintover.
Fixed the anatomy (mostly, perfection is sadly elusive), fixed the skin tones, gave her better hair and a less vomity background colour.
And that's the point.
You can fix it, you can learn from it.
If you find yourself looking at your art thinking that you've failed or you're rubbish and you should just give up, don't.
Don't be so unkind to yourself. You aren't rubbish, you haven't failed.
You're just not finished yet.
Here's a nice serene landscape to close the blog.
Let's try this again...
That's 3 minutes, right?
Until the next time ;)