Having A Hard Time, Can't Tell If I Suck

Please read this......and let us know which you want.....

https://fineartamerica.com/showmessages.php?messageid=803037

Critique. Not looking for a pat on the back, that's useless.

I liked "clouds of white". Not the other clouds. The one I mention has purpose, even drama. The others...mmm.

The piano shot I like a lot, but what the writing on the cup has to do with it seems a little vague. It says to me, I'm not that good, get over it. Haha. I'd try a different cups or other prop.

Otherwise, I think you're doing fine. Keep shooting, you'll decide which approach is best for you as you continue.

Thanks Edward.

What I mean to say about the cup, is it leaves a big question mark. What's he saying there. I was just using one example of what it could say to someone.

Yeah, that makes sense. I know what I'm saying but that isn't easily communicated.

your kind of all over the place.


if you kept to the same themes and styles it would look more complete. you need descriptions and keywords on these.


a lot of these "abstracts" just look lazy to me. like you were in a museum and said - i can do that. i'll put something in the center and make up some odd description.

if you could tell us what your goal is. because right now it looks like a garage sale. its a bit of everything but randomly dumped together. i never like it when a person jumps from painting, digital art, photography etc, especially since you have so few things.

you have to ask - what is your main goal? to sell? that will be hard... to be an artist? that has no definition. but it does though, as they usually have a consistent style and theme.


this isn't bad, but it has a snap shot look, its a looking down angle (get on its level). blown out greens, too much light at the top, shadows a bit strong. it could use more color in the vases, but mostly those buckets are really ugly. as a documentary of random plants in a green house, its ok. as art, it lacks color and placement. i'd find an angle that doesn't have those buckets, use plants to hide chunks of it for example. that's also not a geranium, google lens called it a prunus, not sure if that's right either.


and this one should be your own work, it appears a number of times on google, its also a copyright because its superman


same with these clouds, also nabbed. unless they took it from you.

and those beach kids are also taken from the net.

how many are actually yours?


----Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

Patriel,

Welcome! I think you're talented and you probably already know that. The issue you probably REALLY asking, are you "competitive"....can you SELL STUFF here over the existing artists that sell stuff here? You probably could, but would require a LOT of work on your part, some direction in your artwork path, rather than here and there, some focus in your artwork.

Do some research here on the "recently Sold" page and look over a few pages and then see if you SEE anything that looks like your work and maybe more than once.

https://fineartamerica.com/art/recently+sold

Hope this helps and remember, FAA does NOTHING for individual artists, just provide a shelf to store your stuff, and then it's up to YOU to find customers and bring them to your shelf.....

Rich

i just don't get why you would ask for a critique when a lot of these are reverse traceable found in google, and that beach scene above isn't on some wallpaper site. and even if it was you couldn't just use it outright for sale.

take your own work, then come back.


----Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

Mike I'll address your concerns first: The rose, cloud and superkid pieces are based on royalty-free photos I pulled from pixabay and are described as such. The beach kids piece is based on a photo I took of my children. Posted on Instagram, which is why you may be able to find it on the web.

Criticism of the flower garden piece is solid, I'll take it. I'm no photographer.

Solid advice Rich. I've split my time between painting and marketing since I started. Marketing's a drag. Trying to make it work.

first, it might not be free. anyone can upload to those and they may not be free. i only used them heavily modified. once it looks like stuff was taken, the rest will always be scanned.

but you asked us to critique your work and if its not yours, how valid is it?


----Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

Are photo studies not allowed, I'm confused? This kind of exchange is why I tend to be misanthropic but I digress. If I did the photo study is it not mine? What are the rules here?

the site is about selling your own work that you took. the TOS on places like pixabay says you can't use it outright. basically to be safe you want to mash it enough so it can't easily be found. i'm not sure what a photo study is, since you did ask for a critique.

its like entering a pie contest with a pie you got at the store and claiming it was yours. or adding a cherry on it and calling it a pie study. also there are names of the uploader on those sites, that would be the person who actually shot it. i don't want to sound anal about it, but it is what it is.


----Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

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No worries, Mike I started in August so I clearly don't know what I'm doing. A photo study is when you paint a picture based on a photo. It's usually how you get paintings of musicians and the like. Not all of the photos had artists' names. The rose was taken by Sirounian Armen, so his name is included in the description.

when it comes to painting from a photo, don't. it would have to be from your own imagination or you can take pieces from the original. because like i was able to reverse trace it, lawyers do that too. and if the original person uploaded it to pixabay and then it was used, you could get in trouble too. so i like to warn new people.

the other problem with taking other people's work is - people expect that level of work over your whole site. its like you just learned to cook dinner, but one of the dishes clearly came from a restaurant. the people eating will know right away which dish isn't yours. and the ones that don't, expect you to cook at the level of that dish. so its best to have it all done yourself, so its either equally bad or equally good but on the same level. and then you will know what to improve on down the line.

considering you said you are having hard time and you can't tell if you suck, i think the first thing you need to do is to be able to look at your work critically and answer your own question. figure out what you don't like, what you do, know when to stop or toss it out. know what to improve on. only you know what your direction is. that's the first step in improving. many people will forgive themselves to the point that they never improve.

for me, i'm never really satisfied, always finding a new way to get better.


----Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

I hate all my work, so all of the pieces look unfinished to me. But that's untenable too. I'd be forever working on them. Wondering if others see what I did. Of course, others see what they see, which sums up the human experience, really. It's also the reason I asked.

The flower garden was washed out, unbalanced and shot on an old Android. The hearts piece didn't come out like I wanted. And so on

Patriel, my question to you would be, why wouldn't you want EVERYTHING to be your own work. If you are a true artist/photographer in every sense of the word, you are just cheating yourself by doing simple derivatives of others works. Why, just to make money? This should be the primary question you ask yourself. This should be based on passion for creativity.

I'm confused, if you "Hate" your work, why upload it? Find some of your own work that you at least "like" and try that here.

Great gallery, you dont suck at all

you'll have to figure out what like to do. mess with something, then push it aside and try something else. i've tossed plenty of work in the past.


----Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

also how much time are you putting into each work? an hour? a day, a week?


----Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

Some thoughts:

* Think of this as a store. If you opened your store in your downtown, you would not just have 20 things for sale. And like a store:
* offer something that people want to buy
* make them proud: to own your work, that they happened upon your work, that it is special
* make sure you dazzle them with your goods
* while specialties aren't always necessary, they help (you don't go shopping for silverware in a feed store for instance, although some unusual feed stores might decide to carry something that kind of goes with what they are selling, silverware with animals on them, for instance

* Take the role of artist:
* You make art that is high quality that people want to buy
* You are educated in your chosen line of art and are regarded as an expert
* You have a clear path of original art work that you want to make

Appreciating the comments, will address them in time. Mike, I'm spending roughly eight to ten hours a day as circumstances permit. Breaking that down per piece will differ, of course. I just finished a study that took me roughly two weeks to finish. I did the hearts in an afternoon. Superkid took 2 hours because I wanted it to be "rough".

spend at least a day on each image. that should be a min. it sound like on some of them your rushing to get it done. when i did a reverse search on the clouds, it was made exactly the same as the photo, instead of using the cloud word for word as it were, add your own flourishes to make it your own. any one of my photos will take around 3-5 hours to process, or 5-10 for an hdr.

colorized takes a few days to a week.

work on it until your satisfied its done. be happy with it before moving on to the next one. then focus all your energy into that next piece, totally forgetting about the last thing you just made. that's how i do my work. this way your focused. and don't think about the next piece, only work on this one. and don't be afraid to experiment.


----Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

I'm laughing because I just started to experiment with photo studies...

best to just photograph your own things then work on that. that's what other artists do.


----Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

Patriel,

One thing I must say, you are certainly holding your own, here........Most run away, by this time

I don't scare Roger. I have nothing to lose in a conversation.

Paintings of things I photograph, in rural southern California no less (and, no not the sexy part) would be terrible, regardless of their quality. I'll work it out.

"Critique. Not looking for a pat on the back, that's useless."

My critique IS a pat on the back. It's not useless. Lots of people think about doing something in the arts and never do it. You're out there, doing it. When you find something that works, do more of it, but make sure it's something that YOU like.

Doug, you sound like a friend of mine. Thanks.

Ditto to what Doug said. I would really like to add that I am attracted to artistry where the work is edgy, almost as if the artist didn't know what they were doing and went with it anyway. Keep going, stop hating your work. I am a lot like you, psychologocally.


I always ♥ like Mike's advice too.

You don't totally suck compared to stuff on FAA that does totally suck - you need 100's more images that have a high commercial value quotient if you expect to sell anything. When I look back on some of my early artwork I think to myself: "Wow this stuff totally sucks, what the heck I was thinking!" If you are truly sincere, you will keep working at it and grow.

If you only have 20 pieces they should be cohesive. Twenty random images scream "amateur hour" to the potential buyer. It's like walking into a jewelry store and seeing clothing, coffee pots and potted plants for sale.

As artist it doesn't matter if you suck or not because there is no rules in art. What matter is you to be able to express your thoughts and feelings on something to be materialized in the physical world and how relieved such expression makes you feel. With practice you learn how best you express your feelings and motions.

Picasso learned how to better express it by painting like a child. If he cared about others thinking he sucks he would keep doing his realistic drawing and painting forever.

But you may suck at marketing, brading and advertising. But it has nothing to do with art itself other the the art of making money.

You have a certain eye, underdeveloped, but it'll
come along! Just persevere, and like any fine wine
it will get better with age!

Hi, Patriel! I admire you for letting yourself be vulnerable. I love the "Coffee and Jazz" photo! The composition is perfect. The colors are harmonious and the perspective is a good and interesting angle. The cropping works nicely with the placement of the cup and balances really well.

As an art student, these are some things I've learned so far that I hope you might find helpful. When it comes to using photography as a reference for a painting, drawing etc., using a royalty free image is generally fine. However, it's encouraged to alter the photo some way (e.g. photoshop) to make it more unique and less like the original photo.

That being said, its highly, highly encouraged to use your own photography as often as possible. But whenever that isn't possible, the above guidelines are what I've been taught as an acceptable practice for artists to insure your work is as original as possible and doesn't violate copyrights.

The other thing I've learned since I began selling online, is you have to circulate on social media if you really want to get views. Pinterest and facebook would be my suggestions. Keep sharing your work as much as possible. (:

Patriel... I'm going on an early light Art Walk around your gallery & make some comments...
I really like your profile photo... I don't see a collection w/ this type of your artwork uploaded yet!
S... Stay in your bliss! Working it around the clock, GJ

Other than the flower garden, I enjoy the clean simplicity of your images, I feel that is your style.
The inside of the spray booth, the clouds, tree lighting, the hearts....all wonderfully simple, clean, easy on the eyes.

Nothing wrong with practicing using a "free" image to get ideas, but DO NOT trust that image isn't stolen! Don't upload images that aren't 100 % yours.
Many of my own images are stolen by scam sites & offered as "Free" to download. Too many to go after with Take Down notices.

After you Practice, upload your OWN work! You will be proud it's your own :)

I think you have a style that will sell with marketing, descriptions & keywords.

Take your own cloud photo & add a square. Photo whatever & do your digital work to it. You can do your own!

Patriel,

If you recolored those images or touched them up in some way there is a technical issue in most of them. You have a lot of banding.

Regardless of art having no rules, there is image quality v lack of quality.

The image quality is terrible.

Dave