Is There Such A Thing As Being Original?
It is in beta. I still want to change the design, and I do have to write the about page, and the terms and conditions pages need to be written, but functionally, it is complete. Hopefully, all is fine, and there are no known issues.
After you create an account, you have three critique credits (C.C.), which entitle you to post one image for critique.
I will try to do my best to give everyone a critique.
You can earn critique credits by critiquing other images. You get a C.C. also when the critique receiver likes your critique. Thus, you can post two images for critique if you wrote six bad or three good critiques.
If you worry about not being “good enough” to critique, don’t worry about that. Just note down five things you notice about the piece. You will discover that it is surprisingly useful to yourself as your ability to observe and analyze improves. You can apply this technique to your own work, to work by others, and to things you see around you. It also helps you slow down and enjoy the things around you more. I got this from Bianca Bosker’s excellent book “Get the Picture”. In addition, it is also bound to be useful to the person receiving the critique, as you are bound to notice things they have missed.
If you ever felt like helping me, you would be doing me a huge favor by trying out the Art Critique Server.
Let me know if you see anything that can or has to be improved. Also, let me know if there are reasons you wouldn’t use it.
I hope you give it a spin, and I hope to see you on the Art Critique Server! This is your chance to get a critique from me!
Something extraordinary is happening lately: after one of my newsletters goes out, a larger YouTube account happens to release a video on the same topic!
It’s almost as if they are silently reading my newsletter!
The interesting thing is that they never copy what I say about the subject. They always have their own unique take on it that is worth sharing.
So it’s not bad. It’s actually good.
I do it, too. I see something and think, “That is something worth pondering, something worth mentioning in the newsletter.” And I write a write-up about it, sharing my view and inviting you to think about it.
This very article is an example: just after a newsletter article went public, a major YouTube account happened to release a video on the same topic. Quelle coincidence! And this article is a response to that.
More generally, as artists, we work that way. We see something, experience something, or feel something, and our work reflects that, is a reflection of that. It represents our response to that.
Our output is a response to our input. The same is true for art, YouTube videos, novels, games, and anything you make. It’s a response to something you saw.
But it is a unique response! It is interesting because it is unique to your vision.
I participated in short screenplay contests around fifteen years ago. Each month, there was a prompt. It always amazed me how diverse the submitted screenplays were. None were ever even remotely alike. It was each writer’s unique response to the prompt.
Editorial cartoonists work like that. They read the news articles that will be published in the newspaper that day, and they respond to what’s in the newspaper with a cartoon that represents their unique view of the topic, their own response.
I saw a children’s drawing of a family by a boy with an older sister. He drew his family so that his sister’s arm reached out to him as he stood on the other side of his parents. Her arm was a huge, monstrous claw trying to grab him. I imagine that was his response to the prompt, “Draw your family.”
Perhaps that was what Picasso meant when he said, “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.” Children naturally respond to things uninhibitedly.
Yours sincerely,
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