Thirty CuratorPrompts Studies

[rowyn]

I'd planned to do a collage of all the long studies I'd done for #CuratorPrompts when I hit a month. (CuratorPrompts groups of four CC 0 images posted daily by the mastodon.art's Curator account: https://mastodon.art/@Curator. I mentioned in them in my monthly recap). Instead, I compiled it when I reached 30 studies -- that took 29 days because I did two sets of prompts on June 14th. But my layout turned out to fit the 30 pretty well, so I figured I'd just post it.

These are from CuratorPrompts44-71, plus 1 & 2.

I broke down the paintings by my choice of subject matter, and then marked whether or not I liked my end result. For pics that fit multiple categories, I picked the one I spent the most time on. So the building in the bottom middle is Spite Architecture even though the landscape dominates the image.

“Spite Architecture” got its name because architecture was perhaps my least favorite thing to draw. So the first time I picked a street scene as my long study, it was to spite myself.

My subject matter was always picked from one of four photos from the day’s prompts, so the subject matter reflects the intersection of three things:

• What Curator felt like posting today
• Which photo I liked (sometimes)
• What I figured I needed practice on (sometimes)

Category	Total	I liked	Percent I liked
Landscapes	12	6	50%
People	4	1	25%
Animals	2	0	0%
Spite Architecture	8	3	38%
Close-ups	4	2	50%

Liking the photo reference for the picture is neither necessary nor sufficient. But in most cases, I only like my painting if I also like the photo. There were several photos that I like but I don't like my paintings -- pretty much all landscapes.

I have a strong preference for Dramatic Lighting. There were a few references that didn't have dramatic lighting but I liked them and/or my painting of them. But of my four Very Favorites, three had strong or interesting lighting effects.

I'm enjoying doing the Curator Prompts and plan to continue. I can't tell yet if I'm getting any better. The range of subjects is diverse and the amount of time I devote to the longer studies is variable. But perhaps in time I will notice a difference.

The thing where I don't like my pictures of animals or people has emerged as surprising and troubling. Those are the subjects I care about and the ones I've spent the most time drawing, over the course of my life. I'm pretty sure the reason I dislike my paintings of animals and people is because I care about those subjects most. That is, I don't think my ability to render Spite Architecture is objectively better. I think I care less when I mess up architecture, so the flaws don't bother me.

But like most humans, I am more inclined to do something when I enjoy the results of doing it in the short-term. So my inclination will be "paint landscapes and architecture that have dramatic lighting." If I want to get better at people, I'll need to make a conscious effort.

The question that keeps coming back to my mind is “what am I trying to accomplish?” AI art is growing increasingly competent and looks much less like “several pictures stolen via image search and badly photoshopped together.” Computers will learn how to create great art faster than I will, even if AI art may always feel like a copyright violation. I know artists who spend all their time on art, ten or more hours a day, often studying to improve -- and yet still lament the skills they lack.

I’m spending, like, an hour or an hour and a half a day on illustrating. I do not want to devote every waking hour to it. My body would not tolerate it even if I did: my fingers cramp around the stylus after an hour or so. My technique and my results may improve over time, but I will never be great. I know this.

The last several days, I haven’t done much writing, or editing. I like to think that illustrating takes a different kind of creativity, but does it really? Am I taking a break from writing because I am at difficult spots in my WIPs? Or is illustrating crowding out writing?

Even now, I’d rather be drawing than writing this post about drawing. (I spent an hour and a half drawing earlier today. It is time to write).

I don’t have answers for any of this. I am dissatisfied with all of my paintings this month, even my favorites. Yet I am also proud of them: proud enough that I wanted to make this collage, and this post. Maybe I’ll even make another collage in 30 days!

I don’t know what I’m trying to accomplish, other than “get better at this.” Why? I don’t know. Do I love doing it? That would be reason enough.

Maybe? You’d think that was an easy question to answer, but it isn’t.

Comments

[alltoseek]

Art isn't about the craft of the image (that's part of it, but that's craft, not art). So AI's won't get there, unless they do actually develop a soul. Even then, I think their art would be for other AI's, and that humans wouldn't necessarily get much out of it, except may some insight into our hypothetical souled AI.

So in your human and animal art, maybe look for the soul you put in there, if you're concerned your craft isn't where you want it to be. I like the grace of the kneeling woman on the dock, and the easy relationship of the woman with her pony. Also, the red panda(?) who's looking back at you more than letting itself be looked at...

(I do also like the street scenes, and the especially the dramatic lighting! And the fuzzy light on the hanging fruit :-)

[rowyn]

Thank you! ♥

[(Anonymous)]

There's a thing that the creators at sisterclaire.com do with their Missing Moments, where they lightly illustrate chapters of text story.
Liking doing it is a good enough reason to continue, but if you need a potential business reason to feel more ok with continuing, above and beyond the book covers you've been doing, perhaps that could be it.