Developing Art

I've been finding myself creating more and more art based on personal experience. Much of my previous work as been of things of interest. It seems natural that I would do this, but that this is merely a way of distancing one's self from the art work. When the art becomes personal, the artist is laying all of their flaws and weakness out for people to see. This is probably why most create art of interest over personal art.

When I was in high school I was very interested in drawing anime and comic book art. I was very involved in drawing classes in high school, partly because it was an hour where I could draw and get credit for it and partly because I wanted to become a better artist. My teacher was constantly trying to push me away from comic art. I never drew much that I was interested in, but instead spent most of my time drawing still lifes. This was always a constant battle between my teacher and I.

It wasn't until later that I realized that it is impossible to grow as an artist creating the same type of work over and over. I have always loved comic art, but in order for me to grow as an artist, I needed to be able to draw from life as well. My teacher had my class create two self portraits, one at the beginning of class and one at the end. On the last day of class she showed us our original drawings and they were ridiculous. You never realize how much you grow unless you see it like that.

I think it can be the same with the type of art we make as well. If you get caught up in making art about one type of idea, technique or method, you limit yourself as an artist. Even if your good at what you do, the reason you do it over and over again because you feel comfortable doing it. By creating personal art, I find that the rest of my art develops as well. The art means something. The only problem is that it took eight years of art classes to figure this out.