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What makes good art?
17 years ago
So I was just rejected from the Anthro Sketch Exchange on lj and it got me thinking (and somewhat disgruntled). Answer me this unanswerable question: What makes good art?
I've found that the furry community is much more "pin-up" or illustration based. There are some painterly folks out there. This makes sense, since people have their personal characters and whatnot that they want portrayed in a simple, easy to look at manner. There is no such thing as abstract furry art. Surrealism is pushing it. And then there is your level of popularity/how many people watch you. I'd say that I am at the "unpopular" level.
Which brings me to the thought: do you create art to be well known or do you make art because you can? I'd guess that most people would answer with the latter, but isn't that desire for recognition lurking about in the back of your head? Pageviews and watches...
Skipping to another subject, let's compare the furry art community and style to the outside world of art. What makes your art good enough to be in a museum, say... the SFMOMA (or MOMA for you east-coasters)? Or what can you do to get your art to sell for millions of dollars? If any furry artist has sold something at more than $100,000, please alert me. What makes artists like Kiki Smith and Jeff Koons so popular?
There are so many questions to be asked and no easy way of explaining them. Sometimes I get depressed with this little niche that I feel like I've sunk into. If I change my furry style to one that is more abstract and less 'pin-up' based, people seem to care less. But if I introduce furry art into my 'fine' art it makes it... 'kitschy' or 'fandomy' or something that just isn't as accepted.
Please please please, let me know your thoughts.
Edit: if you're bored and want to look at art that's going on in the world outside of TEH FURRY, you should check out this site: http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/index.html
Current things to work on:
Trade + watercolor commission with
xilian - trade is sketched!
Trade with
fishyboner - coloring
Commission info here, not that anyone cares: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/551191/
I've found that the furry community is much more "pin-up" or illustration based. There are some painterly folks out there. This makes sense, since people have their personal characters and whatnot that they want portrayed in a simple, easy to look at manner. There is no such thing as abstract furry art. Surrealism is pushing it. And then there is your level of popularity/how many people watch you. I'd say that I am at the "unpopular" level.
Which brings me to the thought: do you create art to be well known or do you make art because you can? I'd guess that most people would answer with the latter, but isn't that desire for recognition lurking about in the back of your head? Pageviews and watches...
Skipping to another subject, let's compare the furry art community and style to the outside world of art. What makes your art good enough to be in a museum, say... the SFMOMA (or MOMA for you east-coasters)? Or what can you do to get your art to sell for millions of dollars? If any furry artist has sold something at more than $100,000, please alert me. What makes artists like Kiki Smith and Jeff Koons so popular?
There are so many questions to be asked and no easy way of explaining them. Sometimes I get depressed with this little niche that I feel like I've sunk into. If I change my furry style to one that is more abstract and less 'pin-up' based, people seem to care less. But if I introduce furry art into my 'fine' art it makes it... 'kitschy' or 'fandomy' or something that just isn't as accepted.
Please please please, let me know your thoughts.
Edit: if you're bored and want to look at art that's going on in the world outside of TEH FURRY, you should check out this site: http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/index.html
Current things to work on:
Trade + watercolor commission with
xilian - trade is sketched!Trade with
fishyboner - coloringCommission info here, not that anyone cares: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/551191/
And you tell me what you think :3
I think it all depends on taste. There are artists considered to be prime examples of fine art and they don't always appeal to me. I recognize thier skill level, of course. But I don't always like how it looks.
I always wonder this myself. And I've decided that it doesn't matter how 'skilled' you are, if you enjoy creating it, hell, that's awesome. Not everyone looks at it this way though. I do know uniqueness is generally very valued.
I actually do furry art on the side and reserve that style for furries only. It never intermingles with my other work, because for some reason I couldn't combine them if I wanted to. Besides, furries as subject matter kinda bore me in the sense that there's only so much you can do with them. If I had to pick between drawing a furry and drawing whatever the hell I wanted - well, I'm sure you know which I'd pick.
I'd say furry art is just 'for fun' but generally artmaking is fun for me, so bleh P:
Popularity? It'd be cool and I enjoy this commission dealio I've got going. But I have to say I create art because it is something my soul both needs and tells me to do. It's like a primal desire within myself. Regardless of becoming recognized or making money off it.
Also, I agree idea about keeping furry art more of a 'for fun' thing. It is so much more rewarding to know that you can draw things that aren't just furry.
Who is to judge who's writing is notworthy of publishing? Often i've read books where the author can barely paint a picture in my mind, yet some authors can make my mouth hang open, make me skip meals, and make me lose sleep, yet they are not "main stream".
The answer i have found to that question, and this answer may be the same for art.
the only difference beween "good" art and "money winning" art is... money.
Art directors who hire people to throw out paintings make millions from selling them. People do not know "good art", its only when someone TELLS them its good, does it truely become so. Take Jackson Pollock, he was an angry, bent over, chain smoker who decided to drip paint onto a huge peice of his floor in his garage, then one day he decided it was making too much of a mess. So he threw it onto a peice of canvas, hung it outside his house, and a guy bought it for 300 bucks... After that, people saw this fairly rich guy with a painting and decided "i MUST have one!", thus began the 40,000,000 dollars worth of sold Pollock paintings.
a lot of it is luck. You do great art, but something everyone needs to do is paint your emotion more than a picture.
thats the best answer i have... i hope it helped.