B) Older Artists need to WAKE UP and Younger Artists… Sooner or later you’re going to have to wet your lips. “Young Orangutan - Cleveland Metroparks Zoo” The day the app… “Paper by 53” came out… I began working with it. But for the first month I was more or less using it just as a quick sketching tool… which I loved. However… very shortly I began to see its unique abilities that allowed me to create rather sophisticated images in a fraction of the time it would take using our traditional art mediums. And over this past year and a half or so… I’ve come to realize that what we artists are presently dealing with… is the emergence of a whole new “medium”. All of these new Art Apps are actually variations of sophisticated imaging technologies that are literally new in the history of mankind. I find that older artists like me… tend to be somewhat reluctant to jump into these new imaging technologies. While younger artists… especially those presently in high school or college… think nothing of it and jump in quite easily. However… I see a problem for both groups of artists… younger & older. Older artists… hesitating… or balking… at learning new skills in addition to the traditional ones they’ve grown up with… need to get over their hesitant reluctance and treat it just like they have when any new art medium appears. For that’s all this is… just another new way to create images of all kinds. It happened first with Photography… as we all had to adjust to the radical difference between “buying canisters of film” that we had to load into our cameras.. and that then needed to be “processed”… to Digital Cameras that need no film at all. Then… rather quickly… as we all began getting used to new digital cameras… and new ways of actually using these new digital images… it changed again. Now we take photos & video with tiny phones that everyone you see during the day… has in their pocket or purse! And we can send those photos right from our phones to Facebook… Twitter… etc etc. And… now there are a dozen cool apps where we can take photos and manipulate those images into “new kinds of images” that look more artful… as though they were created using “traditional mediums”… when in fact they didn’t come out of a tube of paint at all. It’s a bit bewildering for older artists. Younger artists on the other hand take to all of this new stuff as though it’s theirs already. No fear… no barriers… no restrictions… they just play with it, learn it, and create new stuff in new ways out of the box with ease. But this is not all cool & wonderful for younger artists who have grown up with these technologies… never having known a time when they didn’t surround them. To them… they’re not new… they’re just the way things are! And in this ease of application… what’s happened… is that they’ve by passed the traditional imaging skills that artists like me have grown up with. So now… just as older artists are reluctant to spend time learning these new skills in new digital mediums… Younger artists are reluctant to spend time actually learning how to draw & paint. They see little reason to actually learn how to design & compose… or learn color theory. They’d far rather just mess around in these new mediums… and hopefully they’ll come up with something cool. But in fact… in both groups… their reluctance is a large weakness that will cause severe problems as they proceed. Each group lacks valuable skills. And there will come a time… quite quickly in fact… when members of each group will hit a wall. And at that time… they’ll then need to halt future progress while they actually spend the time to make up for their short comings in their skill sets. It’s for this single reason that I spend time trying to explain artsy stuff here in my Facebook community. I want to encourage older artists to re-engage in the creative learning process by actually trying out these new imaging technologies… in this New Artistic Medium. And I strongly encourage Younger Artists to quit being so smug and cocky to think that you’re going to make huge progress… even though you don’t know how to draw or paint in any traditional way. Your lack of “Traditional Art Skills” is like learning how to kiss from a book. Sooner or later you’re going to have to wet your lips! https://facebook/photo.php?fbid=10152160687569303&l=fc45b63d7b
Posted on: Mon, 03 Feb 2014 16:05:58 +0000
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