Why do you do art?

[Reality Forge]

I'm a creature designer myself, and draw not for love of art itself [I find it frustrating alot of the time, and havn't been in the so called 'zone' much], but because I love designing alien life, and making [or trying to make] biologically and scientifically sound creatures. I actually hate art theory, life drawing etc. and find it rather uninteresting.

My question is, who here likes art for art's sake, and who enjoys designing and working out new concepts more than the execution? Does anyone else not enjoy art theory and practise?

If you don't like the theory, what drives you onwards anyway?

[sciboy]

Life and everything that mimics it is what inspires me,
I enjoy drawing the things around me, and animating them when i get back home.
I am curious enough to be inquisitive about the theory and history of art but i'd never study it.

[Kian]

I'm a creature designer myself, and draw not for love of art itself [I find it frustrating alot of the time, and havn't been in the so called 'zone' much], but because I love designing alien life, and making [or trying to make] biologically and scientifically sound creatures. I actually hate art theory, life drawing etc. and find it rather uninteresting.

My question is, who here likes art for art's sake, and who enjoys designing and working out new concepts more than the execution? Does anyone else not enjoy art theory and practise?

If you don't like the theory, what drives you onwards anyway?

Thats a helluva quote to post here dude. I for one, love art theory and life drawing. Gaining insight into the mind of nature is an amazing feeling. And yeah, designing scientlifically sound creatures is what most of here are all about. But without knowledge of how to render, draw or paint light, texture, form, etc.. be it 3D or 2D, how the hell are you gonna present and communicate an effective design that is clearly understood by people?

[Reality Forge]

Thats why i posted this - I was never really that into art itself, but rather science. At school i would try to distance myself from the imprecise world of art by saying I was a 'designer' - rubbish of course!

Now, I have left school and are discovering if I want to be really good, I will have to face the hours of drawing hands, chairs and other objects so that I actually know how to render fictional creatures.

It was quite a disturbing revalation to me, but I will do it, because I love drawin' aliens!

So now i have started drawing from images of any animal I can get my hands on, with a pencil and paper.

I don't want to offend anyone, I just find it hard to reconcile my scientific interests with the art world.

[lavhoes]

It gets me up at 5:30 in the morning, it keeps me up until midnight.

It walks me to school, it drives me to work, it leads me to parks, it sits me down on buses.

It introduces me to people, it takes me to parties, it studies with me in libraries, it goes out with me to movies, it reads books with me, it buys me CDs.

It wakes with me, it sleeps with me, it showers with me, it eats with me.

It moves my hand, it directs my eyes, it supports my thoughts, it inspires my emotions.

In short, it is the best lover one could have. It is a rare and constructive passion that moves me through life and has given me much, much more than the many hours I have put into it.

It is a good companion to have, as it is always present no matter where I go but obscures nothing in its residence and in fact enhances everything I experience.

I used to question my involvement in the creation of art, until I started pushing myself to involve art as much as possible. I pushed my habits, I pushed my knowledge, and I pushed my artistic growth. And then, just like that, it was no longer me pushing art, but art pushing me. You hit a point where you don't need to push or fight, art compels you to do things, it pushes you to try new things, it motivates you in everything you do. After working to bring it into your life, it stops being work and becomes a passion. You will be controlled by your desire to create, and you will live better because of it.

[Ilaekae]

I'm too stupid to be a rocket scientist, too ethical to be a lawyer, and too smart to be a politician, and if art didn't exist for me, I'd have to invent the concept just to keep myself from forming an army and conquering the known world...there are just too many possibilities for boredom otherwise...

[Reality Forge]

I'm too stupid to be a rocket scientist, too ethical to be a lawyer, and too smart to be a politician, and if art didn't exist for me, I'd have to invent the concept just to keep myself from forming an army and conquering the known world...there are just too many possibilities for boredom otherwise...

Dude, thats a good answer :P

[dogfood]

I enjoy doing the art, but the laughing and pointing afterward is annoying.

[waronmars]

I don't do art, I just sit here and read posts in the lounge all day.





Srs though, I do art because I love that you can create an entire world in a painting, glimpses of a reality that exists only in your mind. You can make a huge palace or a character or an animal with a piece of paper and a pencil. You can draw anything at all that you feel like, you can show emotion with the stroke of a pen, movement with the tilt of a line, anything at all is possible... I think you get the picture. I also love similar aspects of writing and music, creating worlds with words and moods with music...art kicks ass, man. Why would you want to do anything else?



*points and laughs at dogfood*

[Hyperion]

Hi there :)

I am a complete "SCI-FI" fanatic myself, and being such I also like all the things that are dubiously associated with the scene of Science Fiction, Modern Technology, Countries Space Programs, Military Technology and Advances in it, Scienctific advances etc you get my meaning I hope anyways.

So having said that I think I can explain to people better why I have a "love affair" going with "ART" and my "Imagination" :)

I have always been facinated with visual Art forms, not so much sculpture but more painting, drawing and also the previosuly stated being done in a digital environment also.

For me Art lets me express my imagiantion to its maximum, and I can get out of my head all my "sci-fi" dreams and fantasies and express them to the full.

Digital art makes it even more expressible these days, and it really is a thrill for me to create my imagining's or for that matter to view others creations.

One of my favourite artists is "Chriss Foss" and I think, if I am honest, it was the viewing of one of his books at an early age that got my creative juices flowing and my imagination running riot.

I can still to this day look at his creations and find new things in them that I never new were there before heh - even though I have viewed them before a thousand times heh.

So for me art is all about my imagiantion and art being a medium for me to express it :)

Hope that makes sense.

Hyperion

[Reality Forge]

I don't do art, I just sit here and read posts in the lounge all day.





Srs though, I do art because I love that you can create an entire world in a painting, glimpses of a reality that exists only in your mind. You can make a huge palace or a character or an animal with a piece of paper and a pencil. You can draw anything at all that you feel like, you can show emotion with the stroke of a pen, movement with the tilt of a line, anything at all is possible... I think you get the picture. I also love similar aspects of writing and music, creating worlds with words and moods with music...art kicks ass, man. Why would you want to do anything else?



*points and laughs at dogfood*

Because art is so based in emotion I guess I have trouble with it. Because alot of art is 'feel'. I guess i'm not that comfortable with that side of it, so that when I draw something I illustrate every little bit [or used to] rather than suggest it with clever lighting/colour etc.

The other reason is that I [like many here] am terrified of failing :\

[Helzon]

The other reason is that I [like many here] am terrified of failing :\

Holy shit man...face the fear...embrace it...Fail..then get up and try again, be open enough to ask for help, be trusting enough then to fix those mistakes...fail again, get more help, fix other mistakes and then...try again,....it's all about the evolution of your work and correcting as you go along. Don't get sucked into the hole of self pity or dejection. I mean do you think you just come out the womb with the skills ready to go? (Well other than artistic savants..but that's not germain to the discussion here). By the by... work that has little passion behind it..has a tendency to stand out as such..but hey that's just my two rusty pennies. :shrug:

[Reality Forge]

Holy shit man...face the fear...embrace it...Fail..then get up and try again, be open enough to ask for help, be trusting enough then to fix those mistakes...fail again, get more help, fix other mistakes and then...try again,....it's all about the evolution of your work and correcting as you go along. Don't get sucked into the hole of self pity or dejection. I mean do you think you just come out the womb with the skills ready to go? (Well other than artistic savants..but that's not germain to the discussion here). By the by... work that has little passion behind it..has a tendency to stand out as such..but hey that's just my two rusty pennies. :shrug:

You are entirely correct, of course.

Through all the doubt I have never given up, and I've been drawing since I was a little kid. I will never give up either, but the fear is there still. And as regards to passion, I think about nothing else really, hence the obsessive forum posting :p. I also draw most of the day.

Sometimes, however, you think you are getting great, then glimpse how long the road is ahead.

But the only sure way to fail, is to never try.

[guggemmaneuver]

for the ladies, of course

[Reality Forge]

Hyperion,

Dude, I am so on your level! I love science and science fiction . As far as artists, Wayne Douglas Barlowe is my big hero, and as for\ writing Either David Brin or Peter F. Hamilton. I think it was the [I]Uplift Trilogy by Brin that really got me into sci-fi [after star trek :P]. Real science I find as, if not more interesting, and i've got a ton of books on biology and space science and all that geek stuff.

And as I post this, i'm drawing a big black bloody spider straight from observation and its more fun than i thought!

You never know a creature better than when you draw it.

[Elwell]

Reality Forge: I know you dislike theory, but this book might help put things in perpective for you.
Art and Fear (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0961454733)

[Reality Forge]

Reality Forge: I know you dislike theory, but this book might help put things in perpective for you.
Art and Fear (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0961454733)

Dude, that book looks fantastic!

I guess when you see the genius works of art on the web and in books, you forget/filter out the 'normal' artists making good art all around you.

Problem is, i'm in Melbourne, Australia and you meet so few sci-fi fans, let alone artists here :(, so its hard to get into the whole culture. The internet is like looking through a window to the U.S, that far away place where the great sci-fi artists are.

BTW I know that what I just said was, in actual fact, rubbish :P , I probably just need to get out more. Any Melbourne boys and girls here?

[Onir]

Srs though, I do art because I love that you can create an entire world in a painting, glimpses of a reality that exists only in your mind. You can make a huge palace or a character or an animal with a piece of paper and a pencil. You can draw anything at all that you feel like, you can show emotion with the stroke of a pen, movement with the tilt of a line, anything at all is possible... I think you get the picture. I also love similar aspects of writing and music, creating worlds with words and moods with music...art kicks ass, man. Why would you want to do anything else?


Couldn't put it any better :) the fact that you can express imaginative ideas and thoughts like this really is what has kept (and continues to keep) me loving art so much. the technical side is something I enjoy as well and can be necessary to illustrate what you imagine, and I'm completely fine with that. just to get to the point where I can show visually what I can imagine is just something I love and hope to achieve.

[Interceptor]

I drew all during school and got terrible marks. I have no other choice.
Plus I love it to death. It's fun, and it's a unique skill that not everyone in the world has.

[PHATandy]

Interceptor I think is sad to say i think im heading your way.
Atm all think about is my art orientated stuff (a little too much in games atm) and i just hate working in school.. i doodle on like all my empty spaces on sheets..

To be fair thats half of why i do art... it gets and takes me away.. and time flies which is great.. and i sink into drawing.. shutting stuff out.
The result is always dead satisfying.. if i pull off something i like it really impresses me and it makes more confident with doing art (aswell as choosing it for a carreer). War has described it so well.

Coming from someone not in the industry yet, but hoping to. The majority is still cus I love it guess.

[tongue-fu]

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h213/tongue-fu/dobbs.jpg

[JERI]

Religious fanatics have held my family hostage, I have to do art otherwise they will die.

[BlackGuy]

For me it's PURELY to tell stories. In terms of drawing and painting, it's usually just one of many means to an end. I also write pretty often (having a script sent over to NBC by my script writing teacher which I'm all giddy about), I'm reading about directing, (3D)CGing, all that. They're all just different tools to tell my stories with, and I want to explore as many of them as possible to experience the different results.

[evildisco]

I do art so I can answer in these insipid threads, with some retorted vitriolic comment.

[~Faust~]

Your view on science is not the view of most scientists I know.

Science is the art of theories, hypotheses and paradigms. If want to truely understand, you'll come after the fact that everything you think is certain is just something made up from other human beings who filter what they see around themselves and try to communicate it to the world. And you tell me that's not art?

Your point of view is that from an engineer. He implies what other people tell him, physics, mathematics, without him having to ask where his tools come from. Do you have a slight idea what infinity is? What it truly means? And yet, you use integrals for optimisation processes.

The more I think of this, the more I feel you are insulting the scientist. Know what others don't know, thinking about what others didn't think before, can you tell me something that's more creative?

[Lusvell]

I do art...because I can.

[QSeptember5]

Don't know why I do. I know it's useless. Can't eat it, it's not shelter, it won't keep you warm, and it's not an indispensable skill. But I feel compelled and I'm a slave to my compulsions.

[Reality Forge]

Your view on science is not the view of most scientists I know.

Science is the art of theories, hypotheses and paradigms. If want to truely understand, you'll come after the fact that everything you think is certain is just something made up from other human beings who filter what they see around themselves and try to communicate it to the world. And you tell me that's not art?

Your point of view is that from an engineer. He implies what other people tell him, physics, mathematics, without him having to ask where his tools come from. Do you have a slight idea what infinity is? What it truly means? And yet, you use integrals for optimisation processes.

The more I think of this, the more I feel you are insulting the scientist. Know what others don't know, thinking about what others didn't think before, can you tell me something that's more creative?

Creativity is not at issue here. Do not make the mistake and think that I am so naive as to think science does not require it. I am not setting out to insult scientists, or artists. Why do you assume I'm on the offensive? I enjoy elements of both.

What is at issue is me having a little trouble with the imprecise nature of art, and me trying to justify my choice going into it.

[tongue-fu]

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h213/tongue-fu/dobbs.jpg

[Reality Forge]

Thanks, Tongue-fu!

~Faust~ did kind of take some liberties there :P

Plus I don't know what and integral is :(

[~Faust~]

I was moody, I'm sorry.

[Reality Forge]

I was moody, I'm sorry.

Thats cool, I still luv ya :tihi:

[John]

Every technical design you invent is an aesthetic design as well. Chances are, if it looks good, it works well and the other way around. You'll find that art theory is not as abstract as it sounds at first. So yeah, no reason to worry here. It takes up your drawing time. But it's good to think about stuff like that.

[tongue-fu]

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h213/tongue-fu/dobbs.jpg

[Reality Forge]

Oh that's ok, I was just teasing him. But in the same line... you want to draw, you want to create, but you seem a bit unwilling to put in the effort to do the things all artists have to do. There is a fine line between art and science, design and engineering. Concept is an idea, and to bring the idea to fruition you have to have the skills and knowledge to create it. And to do that means alot of boring practice and reading dry books, but the more you do it the better you get at it. I do not believe any great artist was born so talented they did not have to practice and learn from others ;-)

Yeah, its true, and you are right there. I'm going back to fundamentals, pen and paper and colour studies.

Its actually kind of fun, I am discovering.

As for written theory, I guess all careers/skills have their drier side.

[Snuggles]

Because I do. I'll never be able to stop doodling characters and building worlds around them. It's what keeps me going. And the more I do it, the better I get.

The whole execution, rendering, fancy thing...never have been much into it, but lately I've really grown a taste for sitting down with an image and slowly bringing all these details to life. Fun stuff. I do art because it's something I have to do. But I also can't help but think of it as a way to communicate things with more reality and weight than reality ever could. I mean, what evokes a greater viewer response? A picture of a smiling child, or a representation of one that's been composed, lovingly rendered, and embued with the artists memories of what it means to be young? That's what I love about concept art...a really serious designer can learn about emphasis and theory to the point where we can, instead of just making ubercoolswordguylol, create someone who evokes all the right responses to turn them into an uberbeing in the eyes of the viewer.

...Anyway...

[Sady]

To get rich!


No, wait... oh, I just like it.

[liam.c]

demiurge maby .. dnno cant stop my self ..

[Forge]

damn, a true version of me :yayca: