Baptism by Fire: Your art will be thoroughly broiled before gently sauteed.
Part 8 of 9
With this post’s title, I bet you’re wondering if this is anything positive… well, that depends on your initiative and perspective. First, if you’ve just started on your sketches, congratulate yourself on getting to this point. Celebrate your accomplishment. These are your first steps to becoming a great artist.
For each work you make, decide who gets to view it. You can keep it to yourself as a practice work or one you think is too controversial for public view, or you can share it with everyone on social media (unless you’re too nasty for Twitter’s standards rules filters preferences). If you do show it to anyone, remember that everyone’s a critic and may not get your vision. There are also haters out there, and bullies will unfairly judge you and your art just from you liking what they don’t like. Pathetic, huh?
You ain’t seeing these.
Also, don’t be discouraged if your art doesn’t get a lot of views or sells right away. It takes time to build an audience, and you’re going to be developing a lot of back catalog before you blow up. We can’t all have the riches and fame Vincent Van Gogh had after all the paintings he sold in his life! (That last sentence was a complete lie, by the way. Go research the exact number it’s believed he sold.)
It’s an artist’s job to move past all that with dignity. Recognize your self-worth and the possibilities that come with it, and request constructive criticism and critiques from your viewers. I’m leaving this tutorial at this point because even though I may not know you or ever meet you, I believe you can create some great works (in the field of art or otherwise). Whether you choose art as a hobby or for a professional career, keep pushing to improve your style and adapt others. But never EVER claim someone else’s work as your own. One piece of advice I’m sure you’ve heard is to draw every day to get better.
Screw that.
The best thing you can ever do to become a great artist is to….
(If you can’t tell, it’s a cliffhanger for next time. Yeah, I’m doing that.)
Adapted from DeForrest: Volume One, 2015