Man, I suuuuck at drawing and painting. But (up until the last couple weeks I guess) I’ve been making and posting my shitty ass, MS Paintesque paintings and collages. Why?
Because you and I are humans and creative expression is our fucking right.
Because you don’t get better at anything unless you keep doing it.
Because people, at least here, prefer a technically shitty artistic effort to a better looking image made by a insanely thirsty software architecture owned by greedy technocrats.
Lol, here is just fine. I usually put my crap on Art Share (originals using few/no collage elements), or Low Effort Memes (a blissfully permissive community that hasn’t given me too much shit for my collage stuff yet).
I’m a firm believer that it’s OK to be a beginner in public. Yes, you might get downvotes/people saying you suck/whatever. You might also get tips to improve, or encouragement to keep going. At very least you can point at something publically and say “Hey, I made this!”. Maybe someone else points at it and says “I can do better than this”, then picks up a tool to try and prove it. Bam - you just made another artist.
This is a good start! Hell, this is what 90% of my drawings looked like when I was a young guy. At a certain point I stopped, and didn’t approach art of any kind for decades. An old friend of mine at pretty close the same skill level kept doing it, sharing the results with interested folks, kept honing their craft, and now they’re a professional animator with credits in award-winning shows. Thank you for sharing!!
I consider myself to be alright by hobbyist standards, at least, but here’s a watercolor and watercolor crayon painting of a pair of bunnies skating on a frozen pond at night.
And yeah, I kinda love watercolor crayons as a medium, at least in combination with watercolors, and I’m a newbie to watercolor crayons.
Plus, here’s an acrylic painting of a mouse building a snowman at night for a bonus pic, and yeah, I know the snow and mouse are supposed to be white, but I gave that whole scene a pink/purple tint for the sake of cuteness.
Also, I very, very much have a preference for traditional media over digital tools mainly because traditional media have always been fun for me to play with, painting in particular I tend to get lost in for hours at a time.
Finally, I’m adding a wax crayon drawing to this post because why not, but here’s a wax crayon drawing of Pichu and Dedenne building a snowman, and I’ll stop here before this post gets too spammy. And just like with the mouse painting above, I gave this scene a pink/purple tint because that’s cute, also, wax crayons are one of my fave drawing media currently alongside oil pastels and chalk in any order.
These are cute as fuck and I love them! Definitely understand the appeal of traditional media over digital (my stuff’s digital mostly because of accessibility).
Thanks! And I’d argue that traditional is more accessible on some metrics than digital, eg. having a lower entry fee because you can just get a box of crayons and a pad of paper for a pittance and go to town, vs. three figures at minimum for a usable PC to do digital stuff on, for example.
You can even get a set of paints and some brushes for pretty cheap if you’re interested in that as well; craft paints will do just fine for acrylics, for example, although you’ll want some heavy watercolor paper or at the very least construction paper for a working surface that can handle wet media reliably, plus paints in general can get kinda messy for something else to be aware of, but that’s a big part of why they’re fun.
Good point, and I understand where you’re coming from. My counterpoint is basically “the best tools to start making art are the ones you already have”.
In my case, I had a phone and the ability to download Pocket Paint (think OSS MS Paint), and that’s what got me started. For others, it might be basic paints and paper/cheap canvas from a dollar store. For others, it might be crude pigments made from old coffee grounds and charcoal remnants from a hobo fire they came across, applied to junk mail newspaper with kitchen utensils. For still others, it could be a rock and another, harder rock for etching.
You can always explore different techniques and materials as your interests develop and/or budget allows, but for the person who just wants to start making something, whatever you have on hand that captures your fancy is the best first choice IMO.
One quickly learns that drawings don’t have to be detailed or experienced to be appreciated. Sure, it absolutely helps, learn what techniques make art more beautiful so you can punch above your weight, but I’ve received compliments from quick minimal doodles just by having fun with it.
In the song, Badger is a monotone repetition, hence being the X axis. When Mushroom comes in, it pitches up, hence being the Y axis. Then, when Snake comes in it fluctuates in pitch with an overall rise.
The humor is clever enough on its own, but the roughly sketched chart with clipart sells the fact that the joke is in the delivery and being sent quickly without being overly refined to the point that it looks polished. The rough rounding of the background makes it even more funny for me, because it was like an attempt was made.
Peak artistic humor by looking like an idea was thrown together to get the joke out as fast as possible. Maybe it was quick, maybe it took time to do for the end result, but the look comes through.
“Uh, should I label the axes «good» and «gooder»? «Good» and «better»? Nah. Oh look the line I drew looks like a snake. Snaaake, snaaaake… wait, there’s a song like this, right? Ah, the badger song! This works: badger, mushroom, snake. Done.”
One would hope, but most people prefer convenience over creation and sadly GenAI, for as much of a ripoff as it is, fills that niche for those people, It shouldn’t, I don’t support that in the slightest (seriously, if you want fast, easy art, just play with construction paper cutouts, that’s still worlds better than typing in a prompt to get something, and it’s also kinda fun on its own merits), and I hate GenAI with a passion, but it’s what it is.
That said, you can still resist it by just continuing to handmake stuff like you’ve probably been doing since you could hold a crayon and make marks with it.
I’m a beginner at drawing, but I’d wager people would choose that over AI.
Right?
Man, I suuuuck at drawing and painting. But (up until the last couple weeks I guess) I’ve been making and posting my shitty ass, MS Paintesque paintings and collages. Why?
Because you and I are humans and creative expression is our fucking right.
Because you don’t get better at anything unless you keep doing it.
Because people, at least here, prefer a technically shitty artistic effort to a better looking image made by a insanely thirsty software architecture owned by greedy technocrats.
Because fuck it, we can.
Post those drawings homie.
Uh… Where, exactly?
(Rough drawing of a confused girl.)
I’m not very good… •_•
Lol, here is just fine. I usually put my crap on Art Share (originals using few/no collage elements), or Low Effort Memes (a blissfully permissive community that hasn’t given me too much shit for my collage stuff yet).
I’m a firm believer that it’s OK to be a beginner in public. Yes, you might get downvotes/people saying you suck/whatever. You might also get tips to improve, or encouragement to keep going. At very least you can point at something publically and say “Hey, I made this!”. Maybe someone else points at it and says “I can do better than this”, then picks up a tool to try and prove it. Bam - you just made another artist.
Quoting from noted philosopher Violent J: “If he knows what’s so dope he should make it himself, and quit fucking judging every-fucking-body else”
This is a good start! Hell, this is what 90% of my drawings looked like when I was a young guy. At a certain point I stopped, and didn’t approach art of any kind for decades. An old friend of mine at pretty close the same skill level kept doing it, sharing the results with interested folks, kept honing their craft, and now they’re a professional animator with credits in award-winning shows. Thank you for sharing!!
I consider myself to be alright by hobbyist standards, at least, but here’s a watercolor and watercolor crayon painting of a pair of bunnies skating on a frozen pond at night.
And yeah, I kinda love watercolor crayons as a medium, at least in combination with watercolors, and I’m a newbie to watercolor crayons.
Plus, here’s an acrylic painting of a mouse building a snowman at night for a bonus pic, and yeah, I know the snow and mouse are supposed to be white, but I gave that whole scene a pink/purple tint for the sake of cuteness.
Also, I very, very much have a preference for traditional media over digital tools mainly because traditional media have always been fun for me to play with, painting in particular I tend to get lost in for hours at a time.
Finally, I’m adding a wax crayon drawing to this post because why not, but here’s a wax crayon drawing of Pichu and Dedenne building a snowman, and I’ll stop here before this post gets too spammy. And just like with the mouse painting above, I gave this scene a pink/purple tint because that’s cute, also, wax crayons are one of my fave drawing media currently alongside oil pastels and chalk in any order.
These are cute as fuck and I love them! Definitely understand the appeal of traditional media over digital (my stuff’s digital mostly because of accessibility).
Thanks! And I’d argue that traditional is more accessible on some metrics than digital, eg. having a lower entry fee because you can just get a box of crayons and a pad of paper for a pittance and go to town, vs. three figures at minimum for a usable PC to do digital stuff on, for example.
You can even get a set of paints and some brushes for pretty cheap if you’re interested in that as well; craft paints will do just fine for acrylics, for example, although you’ll want some heavy watercolor paper or at the very least construction paper for a working surface that can handle wet media reliably, plus paints in general can get kinda messy for something else to be aware of, but that’s a big part of why they’re fun.
Good point, and I understand where you’re coming from. My counterpoint is basically “the best tools to start making art are the ones you already have”.
In my case, I had a phone and the ability to download Pocket Paint (think OSS MS Paint), and that’s what got me started. For others, it might be basic paints and paper/cheap canvas from a dollar store. For others, it might be crude pigments made from old coffee grounds and charcoal remnants from a hobo fire they came across, applied to junk mail newspaper with kitchen utensils. For still others, it could be a rock and another, harder rock for etching.
Shit, there’s people out there making paintings with Excel.
You can always explore different techniques and materials as your interests develop and/or budget allows, but for the person who just wants to start making something, whatever you have on hand that captures your fancy is the best first choice IMO.
This energy is peak! 💯
I’ve got people praising my poorly drawn graphs, of all things. 5min stuff like this:
So yes, odds are they’ll like your drawings better over mass produced AI slop.
One quickly learns that drawings don’t have to be detailed or experienced to be appreciated. Sure, it absolutely helps, learn what techniques make art more beautiful so you can punch above your weight, but I’ve received compliments from quick minimal doodles just by having fun with it.
you’ve inspired me to make my own pie chart about a parody for badgers lol
Except that honey badger don’t care 🦡
I understood this and now my back hurts!
Oh!? Its a snake?
Mind to eli5? Or link a video?.
I feel like this references an old meme… But I can’t remember what it is.
Edit: badger badger badger badger https://youtu.be/NL6CDFn2i3I
How I read the image:
In the song, Badger is a monotone repetition, hence being the X axis. When Mushroom comes in, it pitches up, hence being the Y axis. Then, when Snake comes in it fluctuates in pitch with an overall rise.
The humor is clever enough on its own, but the roughly sketched chart with clipart sells the fact that the joke is in the delivery and being sent quickly without being overly refined to the point that it looks polished. The rough rounding of the background makes it even more funny for me, because it was like an attempt was made.
Peak artistic humor by looking like an idea was thrown together to get the joke out as fast as possible. Maybe it was quick, maybe it took time to do for the end result, but the look comes through.
Perfection
In the meantime, artist intention be like:
“Uh, should I label the axes «good» and «gooder»? «Good» and «better»? Nah. Oh look the line I drew looks like a snake. Snaaake, snaaaake… wait, there’s a song like this, right? Ah, the badger song! This works: badger, mushroom, snake. Done.”
(Glad you liked my 5min example!)
I love this!
In the beginning, people used simple programs like ms paint with a mouse to draw. I use my phone’s editor to draw stuff. Have a cat
Without the ears and with broad paws, it nicely doubles as a sea lion.
I think I just understood what “abstract art” actually means. Holy hell.
I’d rather see absolutely nothing instead of AI
You want someone to look at your AI art? Simple. Just make an LLM look at it. If AI produces it, AI can be the one that has to look at it.
Exactly. I’d taoe funny concept crudely drawn stick figures over AI slop
I was a beginner until I tried this one weird trick: Draw an orgy scene with Sonichu, Shrek, Goku, and Spider-man.
You are welcome in advance.
Yes
If it’s funny enough, the art is secondary. If the at is perfect, the joke still needs to be at least passable.
Just because it’s human made, doesn’t mean it’s automatically good.
Sometimes the bad art becomes its own part of the joke (xkcd).
One would hope, but most people prefer convenience over creation and sadly GenAI, for as much of a ripoff as it is, fills that niche for those people, It shouldn’t, I don’t support that in the slightest (seriously, if you want fast, easy art, just play with construction paper cutouts, that’s still worlds better than typing in a prompt to get something, and it’s also kinda fun on its own merits), and I hate GenAI with a passion, but it’s what it is.
That said, you can still resist it by just continuing to handmake stuff like you’ve probably been doing since you could hold a crayon and make marks with it.