there is no such thing as talent , all there is is passion

i am an ambidextrist , mostly a left hander however i was born a right hander and before 2008 i was simply a right hander , i practiced until i became fluent enough to write and paint easily with my left hand which was 3 years ago ( a high dose LSD experience helped me realize the creative potential of such a thing )

if you have the passion anything is possible

edit: crazy people will do crazy things no matter what

i also understand holding a paintbrush and painting from the tip just like a pencil requires great skill and a lot of shoulder pain , however with determination anything is possible

I agree with most of this, but some people seem to have heritable traits which exhibit exceptional skills, yet they may or may not choose to pursue them; call it talent, knack, or what you will.

the same applies to other aspects of academic/professional career paths...not everyone who went on to pursue Ph.Ds or other postgraduate degrees were "talented", most have to have determination; though there are the few that inherited some advantageous traits.

“Great art is horseshit, buy tacos.”

― Charles Bukowski

The bottom line, IMO, is that no piece of software can create the idea, the composition, the concept. Technique can often be secondary to these things- many great pieces of art are technically raw but speak loudly. And some people might be fooled, at least on the surface, by technically smooth but conceptually empty art. These folks are the ones who will listen to a new band because of hype rather than because the music speaks to them. To anyone who looks a little deeper and pays any attention, though, it's the idea behind the piece that really speaks. As far as the ones who don't or can't or won't see the difference, who cares if we get their attention?

There are a few kinds of art apps these days. So e, like weavesilk, can empower anyone to make something attractive. But because of this, the enormous quantity of attractive but empty weavesilk output can seem overwhelming. But I really don't think anyone is fooled.

There is no such thing as talent? I beg to differ.

For instance:
Being a passioned guitarist I noticed that Guitarists are unequally gifted with musical talent. I try to teach someone a chord scheme or bass-line and find that different people learn it at different rates. Vastly different rates. Some learn so much faster than others. Some have the hardest time learning it. Some don't seem to learn it at all, no matter how long and fanatically they try.

What you spoke of, what you called passion, I guess I would call perseverance.
And yes it is vital to become better, but some people seem to have so little talent for music/guitar that they can have all the perseverance in the world and yet they seem to be making no progress whatsoever.


Why then not conclude you aren't (very)musically talented and should seek your talents elsewhere? If you have a talent for something, it makes sense to invest your time and effort into that talent as it is most likely to lead to success.

Sure you could be stubborn and say "One day I WILL paint like Robert Venosa!" or "One day I'll play guitar like Paco Peña!", but if you're not musically or graphically talented, why waste so much time & effort on music/graphical art, when it would be much better spent dedicated to whatever it is that you ARE talented in?



Also I very much agree with what Guyomech just said: You can have all the fancy graphical/musical computer programs in the world or spend as much time painting/playing musical instruments as you possibly can to improve your technique.....

None of that has very much to do with Creativity at all. Even if you have the best of painting skills...If you have a blank canvas.... What are you going to paint on it?
Not everyone has a creative mind. Not everyone can come up with something.
Some people see amazing artworks in their mind's eye on a dayly basis,
some less so and some not at all.

Same goes for music.
So you pick up a guitar and practice for months and years to improve your technique...
You may even master the level of Technique akin to Harry Saksioni or Paco Peña...
But what are you going to play? This too requires a Creative Mind. Some people hear music in their minds all the time, some much less so and others not at all.

on a funny note , the things i have submitted till now reek of no talent , yet something cool is coming up people

also what about people who are not talented at anything , for example before i became an ambdextrist , i was living life in a very sad way , no passion , no art , i had not much interests in life until i choose to go on this higher educational path for myself and decided to do some offbeat education in to various subjects both intellectual and metaphysical

sometimes passion is a wonderful gift to those who have no inborn talent , its like making a choice , perhaps nature did'nt give you what you want ,

and with enough passion great things can happen ,

also sometimes talents and desires might not be same in that case a person might need to develop skill for other activities as well

also DMT changes all this drastically , for example i can learn anything i want faster now since DMT , before my mind was like hazy and lazy comparitively and i could hardly learn anything new

passion can help those without talent to develop skill , technique and craft

if i remember the story correctly michelangelo critisised giorgione for his craftsmanship which forced giorgione to start painting in layers thus overcoming craftsmanship with technique and now everyone paints in layers

edit : the story of Michelangelo and giorgione could be something else alltogether

*high fives*

ambidextrism is something i observe. passion is optional,

Art is merely a copy of a copy of a copy...

BURN it all!

Or shove some yarn in your vag. and knit a scarf-
http://www.brobible.com/...ll-of-yarn-knits-with-it

I'm gonna repost my thoughts on this. First off I just wanna say I agree with what you're saying Orion. You've brought a lot of key problems that reside within the digital medium to the surface. I'm going to go into detail of why I believe art is becoming the way it is..

Digital art is becoming more accessible to a younger generation of artists. More have access to a computer and with that comes a vast range of tools that are powerful and harness the energy of electricity. The realm of digital stretches far beyond just drawing, it also includes: Photography, video, music, 3D modeling/printing, animation etc. Someone who uses a program like Photoshop to edit their photos, might also be intrigued to try out the same program for its drawing capabilities. With this ease of access, brings a new wave of beginner artists to the spotlight. With it also brings work that to most, may not be viewed as "Quality" art and it may appear to be lacking appropriate amounts of "Craftsmanship," and "Effort."

This in some sense is partly true, because individuals are just beginning to learn these programs and fumble with a tablet. It's a bit of a learning curve. One might take a sketch they have done, drop it in a rendering program and create something that excites but also mesmerizes them. They generate their first fractal or kaleidescope, and to them it's absolutely wonderful because this is a new experience. They've never been able to generate something so quickly that dances with perfect symmetrical magic.

This isn't the problem. The problem is that some stop there and don't advance their work any further. They go astray from the traditional style of drawing and become distracted by all of the new eye candy tools. This is something I've witnessed happen with my own work, and I see it in others as well. Some never learn, and they continue the same pattern of over manipulated work always which can be sad to watch. You can so easily fall into a habit of relying too much on the software. Doing so brings a very "Mechanical" or "Soul-less" feel to your work. If over processed, it becomes harder for others to resonate with, partly because it's made by the mind of a computer. It loses depth. It loses messy emotion. It loses the raw brush strokes and subtle mistakes made by the hand. These qualities are what give a drawing emotion and character. It gives a clearer window into the soul of the artist.

We as humans aren't perfect, and I don't think our art should be either. There might be a direct correlation between our psyche and seeing flaws in a painting. Perhaps a painting acts as a mirror into our mind or soul. For some it might be cracked or broken and for others it could be completely shattered. Everyone is born broken, so it would make sense.

To put this in lamen terms, we're all noobs in the digital medium. Even the big artists you think have it all figured out have yet to even scratch the surface. It's as though Aliens came down from the cosmos of space and gave us all these technologically advanced painting tools and said, "Here, have fun with these!" And we're just looking at each other like "Wait, there's no instructions manual!?" So we just make it all up as we go. The digital realm is this big giant ever expanding universe of limitless artistic possibilities, and the crazy part is that a lot of talented artists are denying its existence as a respectable form or are too stubborn to claim it as an "Art form" altogether.

For me personally, I believe the only reason my work has had any success at all is because a lot of individuals don't want to learn this new medium, and honestly, I don't blame them. If I had spent most of my years learning a particular medium and then been told "Well, the new artists are doing it this way now." I would have been infuriated. Part of me feels sad though, because I really do wonder what someone like Alex Grey, or other big artists would have been like today had they been introduced to the tools that are currently available. In my opinion, their work would have been even more of an unstoppable force that pushed boundaries none can even fathom.

Art is on the verge of taking a new transitional step, and in the process it's going to leave a lot of traditional artists angered, resentful and confused. Art will never be the same. You can't take it the wrong way though, because this very age of newborn digital artists will soon be left behind ourselves in the future by the next generation. New tools will emerge, newer possibilities of artistic growth. It appears to be a vicious cycle for the greater good.

Once a traditional painting is scanned and uploaded to the computer for printing purposes or to share online along side digital drawings, there becomes no difference between the two. Only how it was made. The digital drawing will always have an advantage of higher quality though because it was produced in its original form and there is no loss between the transfer of mediums. In the same respect, a traditional drawing in its original form will always have an advantage of higher quality when compared to a print out of a digital drawing because of the same reason.

Anyways, this post is ridiculously long. Not sure if anyone will read this but I just wanted to give my opinion on the subject. I don't think it matters how art is made, just that the response it gets from the eye of the beholder is positive and blossoms creativity within them.

It was a good post SalviaDroid, and I agree about this inevitable transition phase.

It's funny, back when I posted this topic, I was 100% traditional. Now I have a graphics tablet and photoshop and have not touched a brush in a while. It's an evolution for me, I can simply do MORE. People still have the same problem though, and the whole 'but that's not art!' comes up again. As if learning to paint digitally is easy or something. It's more convenient in a lot of ways, sure, but if you know nothing about colour theory, form, light, etc, then what good is it?

Again it's the amount of true knowledge and craft that makes a decent work, you can't just gyrate a brush or a stylus and throw perfect tones and shapes down with depth and harmony. I struggle to do this with all of my knowledge, focus and attention.

Perhaps the ultimate evolution will be without medium, it will just be a mental projection of the mind, and 'good art' will be based on how detailed and imaginative your 'mind renderings' are. Composition via thought alone.

EDIT: Just saw Pharmer's post.... wtf...

Somehow double posted, my bad...

THAT is a wonderful statement.

.

First, when it comes to art, we can't equate money with actual intrinsic value. What happens in the art market is extreme, surreal, and totally in no way connected to how powerful or "valuable" a piece might be.

Jin: yes, passion can overcome almost any shortcoming, given enough time and work.

SD: I agree with all of your comments. I think that a creative meld between digital and analog media is often the most interesting place (your art being a great example). I like to create elaborate digital references which are then projected, hand-traced and painted by hand. It's all a matter of personal choice, where you want to blur those lines. Luke Brown is another great example: he creates elaborate digital compositions, prints them and then paints on the prints, giving the work an extra degree of life and interest. As far as I'm concerned, the doors are blown wide open. Only a plain jerk would disqualify a great piece of art because of how it was made (although this does happen a lot)

As far as Pharmer's comments go... I could dismiss them as plain ignorant but i'd rather give a more nuanced response. Yes, art involves a certain amount of repetition, even regurgitation. But along the way things happen... Ideas evolve, mutate, gain depth and understanding. This is, after all, how our species grows. Nobody is capable of creating something entirely new from nothing- it all has to come from somewhere. So we repeat, copy, try putting our own twist on things, and small degrees of newness are able to emerge.

And if somebody did burn it all... What a bleak, gray culture we would be left with.

Don't worry, he's talking about things like Poser and Daz3D. What you do is so far beyond what anyone could argue with artwise its stupefying.
What is happening here is that people are getting pissed off because of a very real problem, it isnt you, even if he did use your name in the title!
The problem is that what you do with ZBrush for example is use it as a tool like someone else would use a paintbrush, you do it with skill and intent.
What others do with things like Poser or Daz is use things that someone else made and bend it around a bit then claim they made it.
I have a reasonably good idea of WHAT you are doing and HOW you are doing it but even if I had all of the skill you have, and the ability to plan like you, do I couldn't do what you do. If I did do what you do it wouldn't be art, it would be.... something that sucks.
What gets me irritated like Orion is when someone looks at one of the people I have made and asks "What morphs did you use?". I didn't know what this meant for quite a while and when I found out I wasnt thrilled. Daz and Poser are programs that let anyone manipulate professionally created or scanned models and bend them about using what are called morph targets, these allow you to make the things smile, they are pre-made puppets, nothing more. Look on deviantart and you will see trillions of the same person, but claimed by thousands of different "artists". THAT is precisely what Orion is put out by.
I have trouble sometimes using matcaps made by other people (aside from the ones which came with ZBrush, which, for some reason, I seem to find exempt) and have to make my own, I make people from scratch, my anatomy is far from perfect but its my work, having someone assume that its the tripe that daz and poser cranks out like a playdoh factory gets on my nerves.
Art, I know what you do doesn't suck, its astonishing.
Its NOT what Orion was talking about, not even close.
You could switch to bronze if you had to.

And now I have a new tool!
WeaveSilk is neat and I think quite useful.
Im going to see how it does as something to help make textures for stuff.

I was thinking the same thing about eventually not having to use a medium, or at least having one that works closer to our conscious efforts. I believe Terence said something a long the lines of "When we have the kind of internet we want, there will no longer be an internet at all." The same goes for art; however, for the time being an artist has only enough potential as the tool he/she uses. This is why the advancement of technology is important in my opinion. <3



This is it exactly! So many limitless possibilities for exploration. So many new techniques just waiting to be discovered. Some artists may feel threatened by Digital art, but I don't believe those who work in the traditional medium should be worried. If anything there will be an emergence between the two mediums which will amplify traditional art to a whole new level of influential sophistication. This is just the beginning.

Very excited to see what you come up with in your paintings. You, me and Orion should collaborate together!?



I've also seen some talented artists sell vector tool kits of various brushes they create. They then appear all over the place in numerous artists work. It's a self destructive process. We should be pushing to generate new ideas and concepts. Behind the creation of a new idea or symbol requires intention, creativity, understanding and purpose. Using someone else's recycled material throws all of those out the window and sucks because the creative learning process is inadvertently denied.