#205 - A Useful Definition Of The Word Art
Announcement: we started a ‘100 portraits challenge’ on our Discord! We just started this week, and you can do it at your own pace, of course. Go on our Discord server, search for the #100-portraits-challenge channel under the Challenges category , and join us!
Lots of different people have different ideas of what ‘art’ really is. There is no one definition everyone agrees on.
If you say something is a work of Art, you are just saying something about your definition of that word; you are saying that your definition of the word Art is such that that object is an element of a group of things that are all objects of Art.
Such a statement says something about your definition of the word Art. It doesn’t say something about the object. That object just ‘is,’ irrespective of how you choose to describe it.
I have been prone to burning out on my drawing journey, and recently, I started to pay notice to how I felt about things, and I tried to figure out why. I discovered that when I was working on things designed to be posted online, such as YouTube videos, for example, the activity would burn me out. And when I spent a day just drawing, writing, or programming, the day would end on a high note if I managed to finish something.
I came to realize that when I create things to please myself, I can keep going and going if the results are satisfying enough to give me a dopamine hit. If I make something to be published, the response—number of likes and comments, for example—is never going to be enough, so I miss the dopamine hit.
The former is about internal motivation, enjoying the feeling of productivity that day. The latter, creating things to post for others to see and engage with, is about external motivation.
For me, it has been far more satisfying to go with internal motivation for most of my life. I’ve only been trying to post online for the past seven years, and I’ve learned a lot, but the creation of content is getting in the way of my art-creation process.
This week, I was a bit tense because there was so much on my to-do list to do for Practice Drawing This. I decided to clean up my to-do list by moving some items to the list of things to do later. I had been planning to make a YouTube video, and as soon as I put that on the To Do Later list, the feeling of stress lifted!
I’ve been drawing, writing—articles like this one right now—and programming, and getting dopamine hits from the satisfaction of seeing the results.
Internal versus external motivation.
Is that a useful separation between the words ‘art’ and ‘content’? It’s by no means a complete definition because I would not consider code as Art—according to my idea of Art, anyway.
However, it is helpful to distinguish between the work you create for intrinsic motivation and the work you produce for extrinsic motivation and to assign them different names.
The former could be called ‘art,’ and the latter ‘content.’
You make Art because you feel an inner urge to do so.
Content is different. You make it to elicit a response from an audience, and this has one crucial corollary.
When I was still working at a product company, the head of marketing, who was designing the packaging for a product, once said, “Better to steal well than to invent poorly.” We then proceeded to use the design of another company, a design that, to be fair, offered a great out-of-the-box experience.
If you’ve read the book “Save the Cat!”, then you’re familiar with the different types of movies and their formulaic structure, where each new film re-uses the structure of previous ones. ‘Story’ itself, in any form, has this same rigid structure.
That is content. It is designed to elicit a response from an audience. To achieve this, it is helpful to replicate structures that others have already proven to be effective. You see this with posts on platforms; many creators copy the successful approaches of other creators to receive the same response from their audience.
This is different for ‘art,’ at least my idea of it. There, you search inside for a solution that would please you. It’s not about copying what already exists but about creating something new from your imagination simply because that is more rewarding than copying.
Creators create content designed to elicit a response from an audience, which is external validation. Copying successful formulas is fine. Artists, on the other hand, make Art that is driven by an inner motivation to create and express themselves uniquely.
Should Artists Make ‘Content’?
The problem with external validation, which is the goal of posting ‘content,’ is that you don’t control it. Will that editor like your manuscript? Maybe, maybe not. You don’t have control over that.
Will ‘the algorithm’ like your post? Maybe, maybe not. You don’t control that either. It can even feel like what I imagine a toxic relationship feels like: one moment, the algorithm thinks you are the bee’s knees, and the next, you get ghosted by the algorithm.
You do have control over inner validation. You should make Art if you feel that it enriches your life.
But ‘Content’?
Of course, you want your work to be discovered. But connections in the real world, for example, might provide better opportunities than posting ‘content’ on social media.
If you do create content designed to be published, ensure it doesn’t take too much time away from creating Art, and make sure it is predictable in some way.
For example, Instagram has never been a predictable platform. I suspect that there were management meetings where it was decided which groups would receive engagement, regardless of the quality of their work. That meant you had no control over it.
But something like Pinterest can still do well. I post 3D models there, and they do well. Art students pin them on boards as inspiration for use in later drawing sessions. There is some variability in how well these posts perform, but if I post a few, some will do exceptionally well over time as the algorithm discovers their audience. These images are linked to a web page. Precious few click on it, but some manage to find my newsletter.
So, posting content can work. But it is by no means a must-have. Several famous European comics artists don’t have an online presence at all. Imagine all the time that saves them, all that time they can pour into drawing comic pages instead.
Make sure you don’t spend too much time creating content, and make sure you get something out of it.
For me, following my inner motivation has always been way more satisfying. Over the past seven years, social media has distracted me somewhat with the potential for external validation. That was not why I dove in. I wanted to understand it, but now I think I do, and I should return to my sketchbook.
The reason social media still keeps tugging at me is the potential to draw people to the Practice Drawing This website. But it also has the potential to take away far too much time from drawing.
I want to experiment with this form of writing, where I share my ‘thought of the week’ and describe my journey to arrive at the insight, making it more personal. I’m just an art student like you. We’re all just figuring it out.
This Week
I am working on adding more warm-ups. They can be great short, quick drills for practicing drawing 3D forms in any orientation from imagination. As I make these, I realize I need more 3D models to support these warm-ups. And it’s fun to code! So here are two more models that I will base two warm-ups on.These were inspired by sketchbook pages someone shared on Discord.
Is this Art? Well, I don’t know, but I do know making these is very rewarding. I ask you, does it have to be anything more than that?
Improvements To Flashcards
I’m a big believer in using the software you created for others to use to find out what works and what doesn’t. In this data-driven world, it’s still the only way to find out how it feels to use software.
I use my flashcards system , which is perfect, as ‘testing’ requires me to draw a lot. And I find things I want to improve.
I discovered that after doing a few flashcards, I tended to get bored and had an irresistible urge to visit Pinterest for additional references to draw from. So, I added a step after every flashcard: based on the flashcard you just drew, use your imagination to modify it in some way: change proportions or rotation, add or remove details, or combine it with another reference. And it works! That inserts the right amount of fun into the process for me to keep going through the flashcards.
When you open the flashcards, it starts with the daily warm-up. There’s a system behind the warm-ups system: there are four groups of warm-ups, which unlock one after the other as you warm up longer. The total warm-up program is 32 hours, but you should only do a warm-up for a few minutes each day, from five to half an hour, and then do something from a reference. The warm-ups progress from dexterity exercises to primitive forms, rotating them, moving them through space, and deforming them to improve your ability to place objects in space.
I knew this system was in place, but I couldn’t see where I was along the road, and I wanted to know where I was. It’s one of those ‘feeling’ things data would never have told me. So, I added a progress bar above the warm-ups.
My drawing routine currently consists of going on my phone to line up some YouTube videos to listen to while drawing. I have wanted to change that for a long time, and I created a podcast player specifically for that purpose. You press the play button, and it just starts playing, with fresh new playlists prepared each day.
I re-added it to the flashcards system, but for some reason, it isn’t working for me yet. I still go to YouTube for my fix. It’s a ‘feeling’ thing, again. I think I’m addicted to listening to certain types of videos, but it’s there. You can listen to a podcast while doing the flashcards. By default, the category is ambient sounds, but you can also choose from various talk-related categories that are related to art in some way.
I need to figure out how to make listening to these podcasts addictive, another one of those ‘feel’ things.
Yours sincerely,
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