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Critiques.... some pointers.

I found this article a while ago and have been meaning to post it for a while, so a new semester is a good place.

Feedback improvement.

Critique is a very important part of learning. No one is born with godlike skills in any field, and improvement happens both through passion and constructive feedback given by other people. The majority of amateur artists do not have a well-developed capacity to objectively view their work and on their own understand and fix any mistakes or improve a more or less good piece of work - this is when the outsider opinion comes to help. Looking at one’s work through another person’s eyes can literally do wonders.

A truly outstanding comment is always hard to compose, always hard to receive, and always hard to come by. For an artist however, a comment is of the greatest importance. It provides feedback on an artwork that will continue to remain unmatched by that of a single word or emoticon. To an artist, a comment is the difference between progression and refinement of ones skills, and continuity of an undeveloped style.

The unique situation that online art communities are in, is that they are composed of artists, therefore, each member should be somewhat qualified to give feedback to others and expect others to give advice to him. In a real art gallery it’s not so easy since most observers are not in any way qualified to give constructive critique, but even then, there are guestbooks where people write to the artist their thoughts and emotions left after being in the gallery.

Thesis: while not many are able to give thorough, technical advanced critique, anyone is able and is qualified to give feedback.

Many people think that they are not qualified or respected well enough to comment on a work of art because their own art isn’t up to the standard. They think that the artist will jump on them or dismiss their opinion. But it’s not so – if the opinion is given in a decent manner, is logical and makes sense, it can never be dismissed. More so, it would be cherished by the artist even if it’s negative and in the future, all the good you have done and shown your interest would return to you.

Thesis: The opposite of love is not hate, but indifference.

Some people, and here too, think that it’s an artists job is to provide visually appealing material and that he should be grateful just for someone looking at his art. Like, what more would you want, I looked and you should be happy.
People show their art to other people to gain recognition and share a bit of their inner self, emotions and ideas. They want it to be discussed and shared. It’s natural. Those who don’t want to do it, put their art in the table’s drawer and never take it out.

What a Critique is NOT
1. Critiques are not something that can be rushed. You must take time when writing them, or they will come out haphazard and of no benefit at all.
2. Critiques are not written in chatspeak or leetspeak. An example of a bad critique would be: “OMG!!!!111 FYI, I <3 ur art! C I BTDT, and u r0x0rz imho!”
3. Critiques do not use emoticons solely to express feeling as these do not explain why the work is desirable or undesirable.
4. A critique is not a summary. A summary reports what the art piece is about. A critique, on the other hand, analyzes, interprets, and evaluates the art, and searches with the goal of answering the questions why? what? and how well?
5. Critiques are not just limited to positive or negative words. Critiques are a synthesis of positive and negative points.
6. Although they may run contrary to the thousands of other comments you get, critiques are not a form of flaming. Flaming is destructive; critiques are designed for the improvement of art.
7. Critiques will not always be agreed upon by everyone. Art is very much a matter of taste and not everybody likes everything.

Discouraging critique/feedback:

QUOTE
“That looks awesome/is a nice work/pretty good job”



QUOTE
“This just sucks!/is uninteresting/I don’t like it”



These types of feedback are useless and discouraging because they do not specify why the product is good or bad. If the product is okay, what’s good about it and what could the author change? Without specifying they are more likely to change the wrong thing. Your comment basically constitutes to nothing.

The first quote on a first glance, isn’t discouraging as it won’t hurt the artist’s feelings. But it’s only on the first glance, and is still useless. You should specify WHY you think the work is good. On a deeper level, what happens is this – the artist feels cheated. With all our fragile egos, a person can think “well yes, I know it’s good, but why? Is my work so soulless and dull that nothing can be said about it apart from it being nice?” Such feedback just states: “I didn’t really like your work, but left a generalized comment so you’d do the same for me”.


The second quote is discouraging because it knocks down the author’s self esteem. There is no encouragement for the artist to keep on trying, it as well might say “you suck, give up”. Yet again, the comment constitutes to nothing. It doesn’t tell the person how to improve, guide him to techniques or sources that might help him in his future works, etc. It’s completely useless and downgrading. This kind of malicious feedback is something that still is rampant in online art communities.
This doesn’t mean you need to sugar-coat your opinion – just that while pointing out the negatives, give solution to how improve the situation.


Thus the goal of a critique is to determine the significance and artistic merit of an artwork through careful appraisal and study of its merits and demerits.

Where Is Critique Appropriate?

The golden rule of critique is always to ask yourself "is it appropriate to this work?" There are many examples of work here where it is not necessary to give a massive comment, or where it is impossible to sit and analyze a piece of work for techniques. On the contrary, giving a one-liner comment to a work that obviously is complex and rich, may too be inappropriate Make sure you ask yourself that question before you start to comment and save yourself wasted time.

How To Give A Good Comment

A good comment is almost always composed of three important key topics. These are:

Techniques
Effects
Improvements

A good comment will always touch on one or more elements contained in these three areas, and will be highly beneficial to the receiving artist.

Techniques

To most people, this is the element of commenting that is hardest to perfect and understand, and is often the reason why both givers and receivers of good critique are often confused.

The key step to this part of a comment is to look before you write. It is always tempting as a artist to jump in and comment right away, but a good comment requires more than just a quick glance at an artwork.

Look at the work and ask yourself the following questions, which all refer to techniques the composer has used deliberately:

What are the colours like?
Do the colours blend together, or do they stick out? Is the piece comprised of a small number of colours, or does it utilize many?


How are the elements of the piece arranged? (This is called composition)
Where does your eye first move to? From what angle does the scene appear to be portrayed from? How light or dark is the picture?

How big or small is the subject of the picture?
Is it very far zoomed in or a great distance zoomed out?

Is the picture warped or realistic?
Are there lots of definite shapes in the piece, or is it very indefinite (often a technique of surreal or abstract art)?

What sort of focus does the piece use?
Does the composer use intricate detail, or is the picture very blurry? Does the shot highlight a small part of the scene, or does it capture a vast area?

Does the work contain textures?
If you were to touch the texture, how would it feel? Rough? Soft? Sandy?

These are six questions you should ask yourself every time you look at a work. Make sure you take an appropriate amount of time to inspect the piece for these techniques.

You could go even more specific along these lines:

Objectivity
Do you like what it’s of? Do you like how it is being depicted? Why?

Subjectivity
Do you like what it’s about? Why?

Rhythm
Are there patterns present? Do you like them? Do they add to the feel of the image successfully? How?

Movement
How did your eyes move over the image? How do they travel over it after you’ve taken it in? Is the movement too divided? Does it match the image’s theme? Why?

Shape
Does the image contain overall interesting shapes? How do these shapes affect the image? Could shapes be added/subtracted? Which ones and why?

Attention
What is the centre of attention for you? Why? What is it supposed to be?

Refinement
Did they work long enough on the image? Did they work too long on it? Did they go overboard with what they were trying to say? Could the message/forms be refined? How? Why? Could it do with/without a border of some kind?

Details
Are there hidden packets of detail that make you want to come back for more? Do you enjoy the detail of the image or is it too busy to look at? Is the image perhaps too sharp or too soft? Is it supposed to be?

Figures (animals):

Body Language
What can you read of the body language of the character? Was it done well? Does it make you feel better/worse about the image? Why?

Expression
What does the expression of the character tell you? How does this make you feel? How does this alter your perception of the image? Why?

Balance (body)
Are the characters in balance? How does this affect the feel of the image? How does this change your disposition towards the character?

Appeal
Do you actually like the character’s appearance/personality? Why? What do you think of the character in regards to appearance and/or personality?

Accuracy
Are the details of the character how the artist wants them? For example, do they match the style the artist was attempting? If not, what can be improved? Why?

Association
Are you able to connect with the character? Why? Are you supposed to be able to? Is there a way to improve the intended connection?

Background (non-figures):

Detail
Is the background busy/calm enough to suit the mood of the image? Is it too distracting/plain? Why? What could be improved?

Realism
Does the background look accurate to life? If it is supposed to but doesn’t, what could be improved?

Emotion
What does the background make you feel? Which parts make you feel this way? Why?

Figures
If the image has no figures, could it do with some? Why? If it has some, could it do without? Why? How would this affect the theme of the image?

Connection
Do you feel an affinity for the depicted scenery/background? Does it affect how you feel about the image? How?

Effects

This part of a comment is perhaps the easiest, and surely the most practiced part of commenting around the online art community.

Describing the effects of the techniques upon you is as easy as saying how the piece makes you feel as the viewer.

Next, consider your perspective first.
1. What emotions and feelings well up when you look at a certain artwork?
2. Why do you feel those particular emotions?
Write down your perspective, and the emotions you felt on your paper, and the reasons why you feel them.

Next, consider the perspective from the artist’s viewpoint.
1. What might they have been thinking and feeling at the time? It sometimes helps to read the artist's comments at this time as this can occasionally enlighten this question.
2. Get to know the artist. Check some of the other works to see if you can isolate the common theme that this artist focuses on. Do any other pieces this artist has shed light on the feelings in the work you are critiquing?
3. Do the emotions and feelings that I felt match those of the artist? Or are they different? In this way you can determine whether you are able to relate to the art.

There is nothing hard about listing your emotions. However there are some questions you can use to make sure what you are saying is relevant:

How does the piece make you feel?
Does it make you feel happy or sad? Does it make you want to cry or burst out laughing?

Does the piece remind you of something?
Does anything in the scene remind you of something from your childhood? Do the objects look similar to something you’ve seen somewhere before?

What do you like about the picture?
Is there a colour that you like? Do you like how the piece is arranged? (Refer to the techniques you’ve already listed). Be careful not to focus on a really minor element only, but try to speak also of general themes/tendencies.

Make sure your passionate about what you write in this part. If the piece does not make you happy, try not to come across too nasty or unappreciative.

Improvements

This is where the comment can get personal and often get an artist off side with you. It is important to remember that the artist spent their time making this piece. However tempting it is to be nasty, don’t ever just write that you “hate the piece” or “dislike it” without having some evidence to back it up.

The purpose of providing the techniques and effects in parts one and two of the comment is to provide this evidence, and if done correctly, it should accurately reflect you attitude to this part of the comment. If it doesn’t, go back and rethink the questions we asked ourselves earlier on.

Offering improvements to an artist is often going to end up with a sad receiver. Everybody adapts to their own style after a while, and it often hurts to be told that it’s not that great. On the same token, offering improvements to an artist can be the greatest gift you can ever give.

Here are two questions to ask yourself while giving improvements:

What would make this piece even better?
Always refer to the techniques you used in part one. This will make your comment sound much more professional, and come across as helpful rather than forceful. Find techniques that you think could have been done better, and if possible, post links to another work that examples what you’re referring to. This can be inspiring to the author and give them a great example to bounce ideas off.

Why do I think you’re a good artist and why do I like your work?
All this time we’ve been professional and offering tips and examples. This is the part where you get to give some real praise. Leaving a comment ending with just improvements would leave the artist feeling down. A kind word never goes astray, so tell them why you liked their work, and why you think they deserve your help! Don’t shy up, nothing will make an artist happier to hear how much you appreciate their input to the community!

Writing the Critique
Now, it's time to organize your notes and get around to writing the advanced critique.
Some tips to follow when doing this:
1. Organize your thoughts so that when speaking about a particular element you cover all the things you have written about that element.
2. Try to give your critique a introduction, middle, and closing. The introduction can be a summary statement or paragraph and this summary can be repeated at the end as the closing statement. The middle should be where the comments on your in-depth appraisal and study of the deviation are. The ending should provide a polite summary of your thoughts with a closing statement so that the critique is wrapped up and complete.
3. Use complete sentences, punctuation, and good grammar.

Next, look for a few negatives. Write down a few elements of the deviation that you feel could use improvement. and include specific explanations that cover the following questions:
1. WHAT can be improved
2. WHY you didn't like it.
3. Suggestions on HOW to improve that element
4. Only aim for a few areas in this. It's easier to be negative than positive, but an advanced critique does not concentrate solely on the weak points, but tempers constructive criticism with acknowledgment of a works good features. If you have more negative than positive notes written down, consider organizing the negatives by their severity (what you feel needs the most attention) and cross out the low-ranking problems

Never forget to revise what you've written! The best comments are not only honest and well written, but they actually make sense!

Spelling and grammar may not be your thing, but you can at least do the artist the favour of making it legible. They'll love you even more.


Remember, don’t be shy, don’t be indifferent and that when you write a good feedback comment or critique you’re helping not only the artist, but yourself too)

I can't credit the original author because I think it has done the rounds with possible additions and edits, it was certainly on Deviant however I found it elsewhere. Hopefully it will prove a useful read.


Simon

Comments

  1. This is an interesting article. Really did make me think about things i say. I always said what i thought but never thought about how it might affect the artist or his work.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great Simon - thanks for posting :-)

    ReplyDelete

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