Friday 26 March 2010

Death Sex

Ok, so today i'm going to perhaps blabber on a little, and in all honesty I couldn't care if no one reads this. But this blog entry shall be one of those 'ranty' type of blogs.
Before you continue onwards with reading this, I want to stress that this is MY rant, if you don't agree with it, then fine. I honestly couldn't care if you disagree with what i'm about to rant.

Anyway, onwards. I'm concentrating today on two particular questions I seem to be getting more and more often. Two particular questions that truelly irritate me. And the same particular questions that I give the same answers to EVERYONE (ok, small lie there. As it excludes my closest friends and people I have great trust in perhaps). Both questions are related to my artwork.
'What are those two questions, Vicki?' I hear you ask! Well:
1: 'What technique do you use to get that effect?'
2: 'What type/make/brand of material(s) do you use to get that effect?'

Why do these annoy me? Here is why:

For starters, i'm not an art teacher, for some reason people seem to think I am to some extent.
I personally find art teachers irritating, perhaps this is because through out my school life I never got along with my art teacher. I couldn't stand the woman, she hated me, I hated her, it was a pretty even relatonship in that aspect. Ok, some art teachers can be good at what they do, but from my experience, most are a pile of bunk!

I've been drawing and painting for as far back as I care to remember, some of my earliest memories in life are of me drawing, painting and creating. Everything I know about art, whether it's how to get a certain texture with a certain material, what materials are best to use for a certain piece or any art history and other random knowledge I know is pretty much self taught!
Yes, I went to study Art at university, (I was there for the grand total of 1 year!) and in all honesty I didn't feel I really learnt anything. All the classes and tips we where given where thngs I already knew, things i'd already taught myself. This being the main reason why I didn't cntinue to study further in the field. I found I learnt more working on my own than being 'taught' by a bunch of teachers and lecturers.

The last point is the main reason why the 'two question' royally piss me off... I've spent my life learning everything I know about art. All off my own back, and just continuing to practice and experiment with techniques, various styles, and studying art. I'm not going to throw that away and tell you straight up how the hell to 'get that texture'. Work it out for yourself! I've had to, and it's the only true way to learn how to draw/paint etc etc in my opinion. I'm not willing to tell the whole world everything I know about art, just so some slimey arsed motherfucker can go and use my methods/techniques and copy what i'm doing! It's also the more fun to work it out for yourself, and I think you'll find you'll learn far more new things. After all, mistakes are there to be learnt from.

Like i've said, art teachers can be handy for very small pointers (so i've been told) i'm not against anyone picking up the odd tip every blue moon. It's all part of a learning curv though.
Art is a subject where you can never stop learning, you can never stop improving, and thats what makes it enjoyable!

So in future, if you're going to ask me 'Can you tell me what make of materials you used and what you did to gain that texture in your painting?', prepare for me to tell you to 'Fuck off'.

Ah, thats better. Death is happy now.
Hope you all have a good weekend?! Over and out!

8 comments:

Charon said...

I guess it's probably a different world for painters. Generally I'm happy to share just about all of my maille knowledge. I can understand not giving everything away though, especially if it's a self-developed technique.

James C. Sugrue said...

I have to agree with you. As a musician who builds his own instruments and effects, I'm frequently asked how I create a certain sound. It's not that I'm worried about being copied, it's just that I have no interest in sharing the intimate process that I use to create something. You wouldn't walk up to a woman and say "Your baby is adorable, show me how he was conceived" right? I think art should work the same way.

Christina Nabity said...

Truly gorgeous rant! And to think you told me you weren't good at writing.
I can relate on a lot of levels. Most of my skill has been self-taught too with a smattering of art classes thrown in.
Though I don't get questions like that, the questions I get are of a asking me to do free art for them nature and asking me to design a tattoo for them(again implied that they want it done for free). Then there's the ever popular "You drew that?!"
At any rate I have tons more to say on the matter so I think I'll end up doing a response blog entry for it.
I'll let you know when it's up.

Vicki Death said...

Wow, nice mixture of opinions here. Fantabulous! :D
Charon: Reasons mainly being you've worked hard all your life to learn your skill, why throw it away by giving it to others for free? Doesn't make sense to me.
James: Hahaha, I like what you're saying, it is an intimate thing, I find it invasive (perhspa I should have written that in the blog too? Oh well).
And Aurey, I look forward to reading that greatly :)

BluBella said...

i agree with everything you've said here! art teachers tend to come off as pompous asses that think they know all the great secrets of the universe. while my ability in the art world is just digital scrapbooking it's seriously limited. what 1 digi scrapper is doing all of us are doing the same damn thing. kudos to you! end the copycats

Unknown said...

As a total....non artist, I do not have an artistic bone in my body, other than the appreciation of what i think is good art I have to agree with your points about learning your own way, whatever works for you. Some people get a lot from their art teachers others get nothing, you have talent and however you got there is great all i can say is just keep practising it.

Christina Nabity said...

I'll send you the link when it goes up, Vicki.
Sadly my art teachers while nice didn't teach me much. I took an art correspondence course. It taught me a bit, but again it was me studying art sans teacher, I learned more from just looking at comic books photographs random books with art in them, and the occasional book that discussed art techniques.

Christina Nabity said...

Some two weeks later my post is now up I called it Adepts, Dabblers & Chocolaty Death I managed to put in a plug for your custom tattoo design service since it was relevant to something I said. Hope ya like it. http://artistical.bentrealm.com/2010/04/adepts-dabblers-chocolaty-death.html