Hey there! Yesterday I took a shot in the dark and applied to the Hawaii Volcanoes AIR program. I’ve never applied to a residency and only started working on my portfolio more intentionally this year but have been artistic my whole life (separate subject on best ways to showcase your portfolio later…).

I’ve seen some old Reddit post about this program but not too much info otherwise; I think the latest post was from 2y ago.

From my research on the past artists, I want to learn more about people actually spend their time day to day. I’m curious if any of you have done this recently or know someone who would be open to sharing their experience? Aside from how you spend your time, I’m especially curious to learn more about people’s public presentation aspect (did it go as you proposed? What challenges did you have around the event logistics? Etc).

For context, the application required the following:

• creative CV
• personal biography
• project proposal
• sample work

It seems like there’s an opportunity to make edits to the application submission within a few days of the deadline (which was yesterday). Wondering if there’s tips out there on successful public presentations, how to stand out in your project proposal, examples of creative CVs, etc. Again, mine are pretty basic but maybe there’s a chance to add more color (pun intended).

I have a robot character, and I have the shape of all of his parts in mind. However, things like the corners of his head and the side of his torso are stumping me

I can’t figure out how these parts would look from different angles, and I need to be able to just make the parts I know in 3D, then see what shapes would connect them so I know how it looks at all angles

Any tips for how to do this? Learning 3D modeling just for this would suck, so I’d prefer a much more physical method I’ve considered clay but, he is very geometric so with clay it’d be incredibly difficult to make the actually corners, edges, and outline

I put the image in, crank the handle, and…. nothing. The plastic feeds through without picking up the image. Is there anyway to troubleshoot this?

So I've been trying to learn how to draw for a while. I try to draw every few days, say 2-3. Just today I spent about 2 hours doing a few studies, which is around my average study time. Bit everyvtime I see someone's art i feel like I should be practicing as well.

Am I taking learning to draw seriously? I know it's easy to say that "serious" is diffrent for everyone, but I really do want to learn to draw and maybe that feeling i get when I see other peoples work is a sign I'm n9t going about it right.

I am not quitting art but right now I am choosing to not take criticism from humans I realize I can just let AI criticism my art they can find all the small part and plus it actually worked and I am improving by little it's just my opinion no hard feelings The way artists explain art it just complex they may cause theory boring anatomy boring complex complex and more complex they don't never give out the guide or maybe step by step baby bits they're always choose hard so yeah I've been improving like they said people find their ways to improve their stuff there's nothing wrong about it it's just life I found something for me that works better and I'm happy And plus GPT chat criticism my art very nicely without being so mean

Hi, so basically I have this problem when I spend more than 2h on a drawing and if I manage to finish it I suddenly can't draw anymore. If I try to draw something else, start a new project etc. it just feels like all my skills regress to a complete low level, like all my knowledge just disintegrates the moment I finish one project. Then I don't draw for a month or two, get some inspiration, draw something and then can't draw again and the loop continues.

I want to improve, and drawing basically just a few drawings per year is not enough for that. How do I fix that?

I'm researching art installations, exhibitions, and artworks that include live people as an integral part of the artwork. However, I don't know the specific term I should look into. What is this type of artwork called?

Also if you know of any artists, installations, or exhibitions like this I’d love to hear your suggestions!

Thanks in advance for your help!

Since the untimely death of PS Sketch, I have been forever searching for any app or brush that replicates the thick acrylic effect from PS Sketch.

Any help would be appreciated. I can't tell you that if it is a default brush the answer is most likely no. I have checked almost every single default app out there. Including paid apps.

The closest I have gotten to making it myself is in autodesk sketch. But it still looks bad lol.

https://ibb.co/jG4d9GZ

1 = easy to master (< 100 hours)

10 = very hard to master (15,000 + hours)

1. perspective (e.g. draw a cathedral in perfect perspective from any angle, draw perfect cylinders, draw a machine perfectly in perspective)

2. anatomy (e.g. human anatomy at any angle, doing any activity, male and female, various builds, and drawing a likeness if needed)

3. composition (placement of objects in a piece of artwork)

4. value (e.g. plaster cast drawing)

5. color (theory and application of, including at least one medium such as oil paint, markers, etc)

6. texturing (ability to depict skin, textiles, organic items, metallic items, ceramics, etc)

7. drapery (clothing, cloth, textures of cloth)

8. landscapes

9. building interiors

what do you think? are they all equal? are some easier than others?

NOTE: Each level of rating adds about 1655 hours to the difficulty to master. Obviously everyone is different and some people take longer than others.

I'm building a collection of artworks to study and practice with pen drawings, specifically focusing on compositions that blend human figures with landscapes/scenery.

What are some of your favorite paintings that beautifully integrate figures into landscapes? I'm particularly interested in works that:

• Create compelling relationships between the figures and their environment
• Use interesting compositional techniques to guide the eye

I'll be studying these through pen drawings to better understand their compositional choices. Would love to see both Western and non-Western art suggestions, any era welcome!

Please share specific pieces rather than just artist names - I'd love to hear why you find each piece particularly strong from a compositional standpoint!"

I’m very new to pastels so bear with me… I finished the bottom layer of my piece and was preparing to spray it with Krylon Workable Fixatif when I read that high humidity is bad for this. Problem is, the piece is a Christmas gift I need to finish before I leave town in a couple days and it’s been raining constantly and will continue to rain until I leave. When it’s not raining it’s about 89% humidity outside. I know it’s harmful to spray inside so I’m trying to figure out a workaround. Any suggestions would be appreciated!

For me it’s faces. I cannot get them to look right

So I really only got into art almost 2 years ago. And I wasn’t enjoying my last major so I decided to switch into an art major. I’ve been drawing everyday for the past 2 years and I’ve definitely made progress. I’m also taking some of Proko’s classes aswell.

I currently have around 2 and a half years left of college before I graduate. And I’m honestly really scared that I won’t be good enough to find a job by the time I graduate. My dream job is to become an illustrator/character designer/concept artist for a video game studio.

I love art and have been practicing A LOT recently so I can hopefully be good enough, but seeing all of my classmate’s art and how they all started so much earlier in life than I did. It just makes me wish I started learning earlier.

I’m guessing the answer is just to keep practicing a lot every day. But if anyone has any other advice or just helpful words, it would be great :)

I’m disabled and because of that it’s impossible for me to draw good lines, with or without a stabilizer tool. I’ve tried doing pixel art but I’ve decided I’d much rather be doing normal digital art. The easiest way I’ve found for me to do art is by using tools like IbisPaintX’s Bézier curve tool and Clip Studio Paint’s vector layer tools where I can draw an ugly line and then manually adjust bits and pieces of it until it’s perfect. My main problem with both of those is that Ibis’ tool is just a single tool and I can’t go back and edit the line once I stop editing it, which makes it a slow and painful nightmare to do full pieces with, and Clip Studio Paint is cool, but their mobile app is not very accessible and doing art on my iPad is so much easier for me than doing art on a computer. Are there any tools out there that have in depth tools like those that are accessible and available on iOS? Having the in depth tools is the important part, accessibility and availability on iOS are just big bonuses.

I've tried searching for some ideas on youtube but they're all geared towards people with little to no artistic skills. Cheap and easy DIYs, the dollar tree hacks etc.

I want to make something that isn't a marbled resin coaster or a ceramic plate with glue dots. It doesn't need to take artisan levels of skill, and cheap supplies are okay, but something that actually looks nice being able to apply my skills to.

It's okay if it takes a bit of time to make.

Feel free to suggest anything, but I'm good with painting and illustration. Making a painting is a little iffy since it might look nice but not go with someone's personal taste or decor.

Hello, I have an animation project where I need to make a custom animation of choice, Whilst researching style, I looked more into what kind of style I would want my animation to be in and one that has really piqued my interest are the ones which use a sort of rough brush for their lineart

I would've asked this in r/animation but I'm not sure if this question would be appropriate there since this is about brushes

How would I achieve a brush texture similar to what can be seen in animations such as Super Turbo Atomic Ninja Rabbit (The Line) and Sunburn's / This Short (Studio Meala) Animations? (I'm specifically looking at the lineart) There are a few others but these two seem to have the best examples of what i'm looking for. I think it's a pencil brush but my attempts of replicating a pencil brush in krita haven't been the best, I asked a friend who is also an animator and we were experimenting with jitter and whilst this gets some of that effect across i still feel like something's missing from it, so I ask here.

am i going in the right direction to approach this style or am I missing something? I'm not really too smart when it comes to making custom brushes but i've been meaning to approach it sooner or later.

Any help is appreciated, thanks!
(I'd send examples of what i've tried but this subreddit doesn't allow direct images (?) )

Just curious if anyone has gone through the full Bargue course and what are your thoughts. I’ve done half a dozen of the plates over the years and enjoyed drawing them, but haven’t taken the time to go through them all or do any of the more advanced ones. Thinking about starting from plate 1 and going through one by one over the next few months…nay-next few years. Some plates do not look interesting enough and I know I’ll just have to grind it out (ex plates 5 and 6) while others I’m excited to do (ex plates 53 and 59).

I've been thinking about posting more of my art online but don't know what the potential dangers are. Will my art be stolen? Should I overlay watermarks on my art? Would people even care to steal a small artists work? Twitter vs Instagram vs Bluesky vs others?

If anybody has any insight it would be greatly appreciated! :)

I'm not a very artistic person. I can think of cool things, but generally, I lack the skill to execute or create that thing visually. But I've always wanted to at least try, because I like the thought of finally being able to create the things I think of.

The only things I've ever created is in code, and that felt so much more natural to me. I don't beat myself up over a single line of code as I do over a single line of digital ink, which is to say I basically kick myself for every single one because I think about it extremely consciously, like I would while programming
A huge part of me just wants to accept that I'm simply not the kind of person to do art, because I can feel how immensely unnatural this feels to me. My friend - who pushed me into at least trying - insists that I keep going because that mental barrier will go away, but how can it when I loathe every single movement I make with the pen?

I've never felt this way with any other attempt at a creative aspect before - knitting? Sure, it looked bad but at least I had fun. Learning the guitar? My mistakes were funny to me and made me wanna learn more. Woodworking? Didn't doubt myself for a second. But drawing? I am petrified, every wrong line makes me just wanna stop trying and stick to what feels more natural to me, but it also just feels wrong to drop it altogether without having done anything.

I know this is kinda doom-posting but I really just don't know how to overcome this mental barrier, if I even can.
Thank you for reading nonetheless!

As the title suggests, I have since forever struggled to envision coherent and comprehensive images of a scene I’m looking to depict, I almost always cannot come up with a compelling composition that draws the viewer in, none of my scene depiction attempts seem organic or easy on the eye, always some sort of flaw with spacing or dimensions, or just the general artistic direction I lead the piece with.

This semester at uni I an tasked to create a literary scene depiction, and I had begun drafting a sketch, and after refining it I took it to my instructors for feedback, and I received much required constructive criticism, but the general consensus was that I was doing a good job and needed to keep heading in that direction.

Today I looked back at the sketch and got so irritated with myself, I simply could not accept it. It is bland, juvenile, lacklustre and stale at best (as a final sketch). I got so frustrated and went up to my (also artist) sibling for help.

With her guidance and extensive input, in less than 10 minutes, I produced a thumbnail sketch of a more challenging scene that looked leagues more intriguing and engaging than the one I had come up with by myself.

While I am very grateful for her help, I cannot feel anything greater than anger with myself, in all honesty, for being this incapable, uncreative and simply unimaginative a person. It just shocks me how incompetent and incapable I am to conjure ideas and translate them effectively and coherently into drawings, while it seems that to others, it is something that flows as easily as simple thoughts.

It’s so upsetting to me and frankly embarrassing. What are things I can look into or practice to aid me with this critical lacking?

Preface: if this is not an appropriate post for the sub I will happily remove it.

Why do I get so frustrated/disheartened while drawing? Every time I want to draw something, I find I start out okay, but quickly get frustrated or discouraged and I never end up getting anywhere, just quitting. Even when I do manage to get a line work done, I can't finish anything. It leaves me not bothering to draw now because I know I'll just end up not making anything.

Anyone have any advice or another perspective on this? I think I want to draw, but maybe I should stop trying?

HI all!

title basically sums it up. this is a question mainly for those who use tumblr to post their art. i post fanart on tumblr and want to credit the ref since it inspired me to draw the characters like that in the first place. last time i did it though, i linked to the inspo on imgur (screenshot of a tumblr post i had stored on my computer for a long time) and noticed that that post did so badl compared to my other posts that have no links and didn't show in the tags unless i specifically search for it. i looked it up and it seems like it's a real problem with tumblr when you link to external sources (sometimes even internal) apparently the algorithm doesn't like that and will lower the possibility of your posts showing on other people's feeds even if they follow the tags you used.

so now i'm conflicted on how to go about it. what's the etiquette here without affecting my post's visibility?

and another question. what do you do when you've tried to track down the ref's original poster (especially for refs that you found on pinterest) but you are unsure if the final source or website you tracked it down to is the original/legit one? for example, i tracked a ref through reverse search and discovered it was posted twice on pinterest and one had a watermark to a website called ancientfaces.com (the ref was a photograph of a celebrity from 1950s). but i couldn't find this photograph anywhere else and it was not mentioned who took the photograph. so would linking to the ancientfaces website be correct in this case?

p.s: i only do fanart as a hobby. zero profit whatsoever.

thanks!

I need help finding a gift for an artist.

I want to gift my daughter’s “Meemaw” (family friend who took the role of nanny/caregiver during the pandemic and has since taken on a more grandmother type role) a nice handbag, but not a bag like I would normally like.

She’s quirky, an artist (paint and drawing), kinda cheap with herself, not a follower of styles, trends, or designers. She always compliments my bags and style but says she often thinks about up leveling her style but doesn’t.

People often end up gifting her kitschy things, art supplies, or character themed items but I really think she would like something more that’s a reflection of style, not the various things she enjoys watching or things she likes (i.e. not a Star Wars backpack or a cat ring).

What bag do YOU like as an artist? Any other gift ideas that you’d like more? Links appreciated!

I am mixed art artist , and I would like to do an art show. Majority of who I know I like or might like me lol definitely don’t live close to me and also I would reach more people this way. What is everyone’s thoughts on virtual art show? How would I even do it? Pros? Cons? I don’t even know what to ask

Random buttt what should I gift my artist friend?? they have everything I can think of... sooo any ideas?? (ps: they use graphite)

Both my wife and I are artists and we're always looking for fun new tactile mediums to explore. I'm thinking about getting her some new fun materials to experiment with, like Stuart Semple's black 2.0. Does anybody have any other ideas for what can go in a stocking stuffers like that?

The start of the week is upon us, and so grab your caffeine... and spill the tea. What has motivated you lately? What's made you moody? Share your art wins and art struggles here. Motivation and Moodiness can co-exist alongside one another; the balance between these two are integral to the art making process. We can't always be in a good place but we can't always be in a bad place, either. This is a place to discuss upward growth as an artist and the hurdles we must clear in order to get to the next level. Share tips, techniques, give a pat on the back, or a pat on the head to someone in need.

• Share an art win, followed by an art struggle you've had recently.
• How have your struggles helped you grow as an artist?
• Are there any hurdles you can't seem to get over and need tips?

Let's help each other out and get the motivation going!

I feel pretty terrible about it, I had good intentions and it really looked like ai to me. (There was a finger that was very wrong and a couple other things).

I thought being an artist would help in determining if something is artificial but instead I've just developed an eye for error.. leading to false conclusions. After speaking with them and doing more research into their work I realised I was incorrect in my accusation and retracted it by editing my comment, apologising and wishing them well. At first naturally they were defensive and displeased at my accusation but after realising my intentions they accepted my apology.

Going forward now, I don't want to falsely accuse anyone else and it's getting really hard to tell what's a stylistic choice/mistake and what's ai. If someone accused you would you take it poorly? Should I just keep my comments to myself?

I'm applyig for an introductory art and design course at Dundee and Angus College, but I'm struggling to even begin writing my personal statement. Any advice?

I have a horrible chronic cystitis condition that makes it hard for me to sit down anywhere other than my special chair with my donut pillow. Otherwise I either stand or lie down. I want to increase the amount of time I spend drawing (I currently can only do it at my special chair). I was thinking of getting an IPad and start drawing whenever I am lying down in bed or on the sofa.

I tried drawing on my sketchbook while lying down. It strained my arm muscles a bit, but I still seemed able to draw from my shoulder.

Has anyone tried this? Is it a done thing, or am I just straining my body? Thank you.