kradeelav | (no subject)

snowflake_challenge #11: recommend a creative resource. ... halfway through, this turned out to be more of a life-advice list.

- Artificial limitations are excellent for lived-in wrinkles to art. Case in point, Photoshit CS2 + an old Intuos 3 tablet is all you need to make published art. (For a concrete example, one of the Korra comic artists still works on Opencanvas 1.1, and If I didn't have a pre-loaded copy of CS5, would go *back*.)

- Determine if you want to be a creator or consumer - optimize your life to reflect your chosen path if serious (while allowing a % of randomness). This includes time, what you put your eyeballs on in a weekly basis, the kinds of topics you research, and where you go in life. Books are a good source of randomness, and surprisingly portable deep dives into other walks of life. Good books are not trying to sell you shit.

- Hoard a private/offline collection of <200 works of art as your "vibe' inspiration. Do not go over this limit (not including specific projects that can have their own limited boards) - delete previous works if you find a new one. The pressure-washer hose of "consumerist feed art" is the death of Feeling.

- take it from a meatbag who came back from the dead: all internet arguments are worse than useless, and are more likely to come back to haunt you. Use a strict opt-in mental mode if you have to, instead of an opt-out. (Personally? I'd rather my lived life speak to the convincing more than anything. An open heart is necessary for change. And besides, you're wasting time on uselessness otherwise.)

- Get rid of feeds. (or put them on a reader like inoreader that can be saved, filtered, and not-manipulated by corporations). do you want to be the one following people, or be the interesting person they follow?

- Your time is your most precious value. Don't obsess over the hourglass and memento mori, but be mindful of it. What would you regret if you had news of a terminal illness tomorrow? Regret *not* doing? The best project kick-starter other than spite.

- Use what makes your heart sing as a north star. That includes spite and porn. Art is art, baby, anything goes.

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Here from the Snowflake challenge and whether Resource or Life Advice, your list speaks to me very eloquently.

Thanks so much!

thank *you* in turn, for the kind words! <3 I'm always so endeared at how genuine everyone is on here, and willing to explore other pages. :D

i think i might start that collection idea, with fic as well as art. good advice! and man, i've written so much out of spite...

ahaha, spite is almost fandom's universal motivator, isn't it? here's to more productive creation!

( and glad you appreciated it! <3 )

This is very useful stuff - thank you for sharing it. I am curious about the number of works in your vibe inspiration. Why 200?

Great question - and thanks for taking the time!

In a more general sense - I feel that number allows for a surprising mix of works across different genres, but also starts to force the curator to look beyond just what makes a "_pretty_ drawing/work" and start consistently asking what made them put it in that pile to begin with, over "other" pretty works of art. Out of that constant self-interrogation (hopefully) comes a more purified visual of what scratches your itch with art.

(As a concrete example, when I did the self-interrogation practice, found that a character must have tangible chemistry with either the viewer or other characters in an image. It was striking - and actually not something that was expected.)

(In a more specific sense, it's about roughly as much a private pinterest board can load for me in a long scroll without utterly kneecapping my 2010 laptop in a crash. :v 'artificial limitations' at practice, heh.

Thank you for writing all of this out - it's given my brain something to chew on.

Ah, okay. So deliberate aesthetic self-curation... alright, yeah I can see how that would be a valuable process. I tend towards the kitchen sink curation style myself - one of the foundational traits of blackbirds - but it's true that one loses the quality Shiny amidst the dross.

I like the idea of setting aside the fading influences - maybe sticking them into year folders/ boards - so you can see how the sense of what's aesthetically pleasing shifts over time.

[HA! Well, you have to set the weft *somewhere*. Tech-limits are as good a point to set the line as any.]

totally - I also imagine it's slightly different from a fanfic writer model of mind.

Love, love that idea of sectioning it out into years - speaking of, it's quite interesting to go back to previous 'art influence memes' that were popular on deviantart for a bit that were essentially that but writ much, much smaller (less than 12 images), and it's shocking how much has changed in less than a decade. You may well inspire me to start that habit, and I thank you in turn. :)

Most likely - I straddle the line, being both writer and artist. The artist part has been getting the bulk of the air time lately... which is also why I find the curated art board so fascinating.

Right!? Artistic influence/trends shift so quickly on the internet. While I've been watching the ebb and flow, I haven't been paying much attention to my own tidal shifts. So you've definitely given me a lot to think about and work on.

*offers fistbump of artistic solidarity*

*artistic solidarity fistbump back* live well, blackbird. :>