Been getting back into being creative. Tell me about some of your creative outlets
I’m gonna say that it depends. Are you self-taught? Then you’re doing great, keep going!
Serious critique and suggestions:
spoiler
The work you’re doing is pretty basic, fairly competent. You’re getting a rough feel for what you’re depicting, but not really finishing the impression. The color is okay, but the water and sky feel flat. It’s an idea of a mountain landscape, but not yet fully fleshed out in form or feeling. It’s more a quick sketch than a finished piece. This isn’t meant to be cruel or mean; if you’re a relative novice, then this is fantastic work, and you should be proud of your progress.
My suggestion is to take some drawing classes at your local CC, really learn to look at and see things, and then try to reproduce them on paper. Start with still lives, and work up to life drawing. (The schools I’ve been to had drawing I & II as prerequisites for painting classes; both were 3 credit studio classes. They end up being a little cheaper if you’re auditing rather than working towards a degree.) One of the things that you pay for when you take college level art classes is brutally honest criticism, with the intent of helping you find ways to improve and be more true to your subject, and to your vision of that subject. That’s hard to replicate outside of school, since friends and family usually aren’t going to really critique work for fear of hurting a relationship. (I had one teacher–German–that ended up making about a quarter of her students cry at one time or another because she was so blunt in her critiques.)
And hey!, you can ignore everything I’ve said, and keep painting the way you want to because it makes you happy, and that’s okay! It’s absolutely fine to do a thing just because you enjoy doing it! You don’t have to be an expert in order to enjoy doing something.
For myself, it’s taken me over a decade to get back into trying to make anything since I burned out so hard at art school. I’m slow, but I’m gradually working on patterning new apparel pieces. I might even have something finished by the end of the year. School pushed me to make fashion that was artistic, and I’ve realized that my own aesthetic is more utilitarian; I’m never going to need a mood board to create work.
I’m self taught- besides a few YouTube tutorials here and there, I like trying to figure things out.
I really enjoy creating. I’ve never been good at drawing and only half good at painting. But I’m realising not everything I have to create needs to be good- sometimes it’s about the process.
Burn out is so real. It’s important to enjoy what you’re doing.
I create for me- so I don’t care if my paintings aren’t all there. I enjoyed painting, and I’m proud of myself for sitting down and doing it.
Thank you for your advice- it comes from a good place.
It’s important to enjoy what you’re doing.
I totally agree. I loved drawing and designing before I went to school. Now I don’t. I’m much, much better at it than I was, but I’m also apathetic about it. I think that being happy with what you’re doing, and getting joy out of the process, is more important than any kind of technical prowess.
I was also in a position where I burnt out and didn’t want to create anything for about a year. I’ve been starting back up again slow- first with gardening, now with paints, music and punch needling.
All good things. It def. feels better to be doing something creative and generative than just, I dunno, watching Netflix mindlessly. IMO :)
Love those twin peaks. The painting is nice too
Some of the finest I’ve seen.
You flatter me
I really like the brushwork on for the mountains! The direction of the light source is a little confusing to me, but otherwise I do love the colors you were able to tease together for the sunset and think they’re really well done. Thanks for sharing yourself and your art!
Oh! I’m so so bad when it comes to light sources. I get carried away and then think no one will notice ☺️
Light is SUPER tough, but it can be the difference between awesome and extraordinary! I think taking down the intensity of the bright colors of the water on the left to add maybe a hint of reflection and a mild glow to the treetops on both sides would have taken the piece to another level! In that case it would have given a clear view that the sun had dipped just below the right mountain peak maybe 30 minutes prior.
I know this sounds critical but I want to stress that I still really like it!
The tree by the water’s edge that’s angled over adds a sense of realism to the painting for me. Well done!
Thank you. I’m alright at painting trees
Bob Ross was a bad-assed motherfucker.
I fish.
Most memorable catch? Go’
She was a beautiful 7-plus pound rainbow trout that I caught from a fairly small creek beside my house, on a little ultralight setup I had as a teenager. (Very light line, very small baits. Very under-strength for a fish that size. ) Hands down the best fight I’ve ever had with a fish my whole damn life. Unbeknownst to me it was during the off-season… (A two-week span at the end of winter when trout were off limits at the time.) My Dad flipped out when I came home carrying that monster! Being off-season, I couldn’t get her certified of course. But I’ll never forget the long, delicate struggle with getting that fish landed! It was fucking thrilling! Most active, acrobatic fish I’ve ever tangled with. Guess I’ve been chasing that battle ever since. I’ve caught bigger and many many more, since then, but nothing compares to the fight she gave me that cold winter day on that little rig.
There’s something so special about it being off season. Like… the fact that you caught this beautiful creature and it had to be kept secret.
I didn’t know it was the off-season! Didn’t have a secret… Fuck, still don’t. I Didn’t fuckin know!
Maybe I’d have a better story if I had. Not that I don’t have some trespassing, poaching, shitty-fisher stories…
Because, I do.
When young; only the art of the catch mattered… Later in life, the quality creeps in… and it fucks shit up… And it seems that the investment should represent the yield… (it doesn’t) So much fuckin bullshit… It really doesn’t in fishing.
…
That trout…
She’d already hit me, earlier that day…
Even before I’d caught that fish that day… She had hit a different lure… I threw at her, she took that fucking little bait… She bowed me over, breached, and threw that lure a long ways away from her…
But… She HIT!
She was hungry!
Fuckin Knew I had her ass, then!!
And I had the worst case of The Fever I’ve ever had! Fucking shaking with anticipation! Having been soo fucking close and then she threw my bait…
Getting crushed and sticking with it means something in fishing…
I knew I had something aggressive in my pocket, though… Excessive vibration… Excessive movement… Plenty of fucking hooks… So I strapped that shit on and threw it just out of her reach… Reeling it in before she could get to it…
And then did that again… but just a fucking tad closer…
And again…
And again.
And again
But, finally, just close enough.
…
She attacked…
Her…, nor I, let up…
That fight was ON!
Wish that day in my life was every single fuckin day of my life.
…
But, the secret of an illegal fish on an illegal day? That has never crossed my mind, until you just mentioned it…
But, there’s somethin in it, maybe…
I was just fishing. Fuck, I still am.
When that Fever hits you. You’ll do shit you wouldn’t normally do.
I understand that.
I’d say your mom did a good job
Sweet