February 2024 Submissions - How To Fix Your Art

[Fey Realme]

Imagine a world, where How To Fix Your Art monthly livestream evolved into
dun dun duuuuun

HAVE You Fixed Your Art!?

Imagine if they began the live stream by reciting the artist's prayer, found in the holy text of SVS curriculum, the mantra every excellent self-aware artist follows:

(In the name of the Lee, the Will, and the Parker, amen)

And then imagine, they go through the submissions for the month's prompt (mostly in order of submission like what they did for the Flight prompt and the Rock fortress prompt) with the artist's prayer pulled up on the screen and they paused at each one for a moment and said what stages they conquered

I can hear it now, "Well Timmy, I find your concept and your characters very intriguing, very well done! That is the hardest part, the next rung on the ladder is a stronger composition and lay out. so, you keep taking those svs classes and studying that HTFYA handbook, and come back next time to hear us ask "HAVE YOU FIXED YOUR ART next month!
Now on to Fey-- Ooo it looks like you started with the rendering--trying to go up the ladder backwards eh? very beautiful, I think youve got it down until about perspective where it gets a bit wonky, but hey youve got four of the 8 down, way to go! keep up the good work!
Now Jabert! love the name bro. it seems like youve done mostly a perspective study here, and I have got to say that I like it a lot. YOU my friend are well on your way to conquering perspective."

And so they work with good speed down the line, making everyone's day, and encouraging everyone to keep participating in the prompts, and keep subscribing to svs and keep saying the artist's prayer to become excellent self aware artists.
I can see it now, more and more people participate every month because at HAVE you fixed your art, everyone is a winner because everyone is trying and everyone is seen.

And of course, they save the best for last. They still do a redraw or crit reinforcing their congregation in their understanding of the principles of the gospel of art. The short crit is on the image(s) they show last, so even the people who get correction feel uplifted and constructed.

in this manner, people ACTUALLY get rewarded for doing the work to fix their own art, because they get the "you're going in the right direction, you're improving!" that they can't get from instagram or a recorded class or critique arena, or HTFYA--which is why people participate at the end of the day.

(i do not claim any ownership of Have you fixed your art, and would be simply overjoyed if they adopted this model, and would not seek any compensation.)

I really love the podcast and I want to love the community--i am here really craving connection with other artists-- but I just struggle to feel like there is a place for me because I want to be excellent and I haven't found anyone 5 years ahead of me. I graduated with a degree in art, and I need something that isn't here, but it could be here. I have nowhere else to go, so I'll keep trying and hope it can evolve.

[Elina Bronstein]

This post is deleted!

[Annika Wenzel]

"Trapped"

[Tom Harshberger]

@MarcRobinson Love this! Justin Gerrard is one of my favorites as well.

[MarcRobinson]

@Tom-Harshberger cheers mate. Yeah he is a master. My artwork took a massive leap forward after watching a digital painting tutorial of his a couple of years ago.

[rebeccamarie]

[Jeremy Ross]

I had this idea all month and thought it would be really cool to make it into a book cover mockup.

[Mariana Garcia]

[Jeremy Ross]

That’s a pretty cool idea, @stayhomejoe

[Jeremy Ross]

Love it! @R-Fey-Realme

You might like this post I made a while back trying to fix my own art. The struggle is real for me…
https://forum.svslearn.com/topic/13659/how-to-fix-my-art?_=1706583300423

[Jeremy Ross]

Here’s the original in non-mockup

[Ivan Arellano]

My submission for this month! Working on a sci fi/horror comic with a friend and this was good opportunity to incorporate the prompt!

[Sirma K.]

Hi. It is my first submission here and I am excited and grateful for the opportunity to get some feedback.

[JoshSchouwstra]

The cover of a short comic I'm working on

[Laurie Sawyer]

[Enni Heikura]

I really loved this prompt! I took a little bit different approach to this, because I wanted to create an image about the feeling of being trapped. Like feeling there is no way forward or back or anywhere else.

[Jeremy Ross]

I just read “Picture This” by Molly Idle based on a recommendation by fellow SVS Rabbit, and the final pages of the book provide some exercises requiring use of cut paper.

Here’s a second submission based on what I learned in the book.

[Joshua Chennault]

Been a long time since I've posted anything to SVS, and this is the first time to post for a HTFYA. This prompt was fun, and I hope to dive into the back catalog of other prompts that I didn't have the time for, since they have rather inspired me.

[Jeremy Ross]

Welcome back @Joshua-Chennault ! Looks great! Love the concept!

[Fey Realme]

Thanks @Jeremy-Ross, I remember reading that post back when you made it, and your work definitely improved from following the checklist and critiquing yourself! I wanted to make this suggestion because even with such a great tool critiquing your own work is hard, especially when you are new, and especially if your heroes stink (something that happens a lot with students, as the guys have brought up several times in the podcast).

Now that the tool is done and the guys are running monthly prompts again, I think the natural evolution of the live stream would be this sort of gentle 'Taste Training'. If the svs students were able to see a collection of artwork (the submissions) praised every month for specific strengths (if a given piece had only one strong element, or if it has most of the checklist under its belt) they would each have a stronger compass to follow because they would have an idea of what good and great look like and what resonates with them (not only a description of how 'good' works)

HTFYA is such a powerful idea, and such a powerful tool (well made, timely, etc) but I think it would be a missed opportunity if the live streams didn't evolve into something that recognized the progress of the participants to critique their own work, and thereby encourage more people to buy the course and use the tool to wrestle with their own self analysis/crit.

To think of it in that metaphor "give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he will eat for the rest of his life" idea--If you have a fishing lesson and three fish (crits) that you give away to the lucky participants, then people will keep coming hoping to get a fish. If you have a lot of minnows to give away as well as the three fish, and everyone who participates gets a minnow and sees the fishing lesson, then the people come for the minnows because they make good bait and they can then catch their own fish. They can now look beyond hoping for the lucky fish because they have something concrete and personal to start with and build on--a reason to wrestle with the fish of their own.

do you think that fish wrestling metaphor works in your experience of wrestling with your own critique? I know your pieces have been critiqued on htfya livestream a few times, but you also work to critique yourself as you shared in that post.