# Fears of being derivative as an artist



## Meliodas

Fru2 said:


> @Meliodas This is excellent advice, thanks!


Perhaps the best example of associative creativity is the music of Mozart. Ironically, W.A. has been lionized in modern times as some kind of superhuman creative visionary, almost a deity, but there is a very simple reason that he and his contemporaries were able to write entire operas in a few weeks.

They used pre-existing templates.

Believe it or not, the great majority of Mozart's piano concertos, symphonies and piano sonatas actually open with one of four distinct musical topics - the march, the serenade, the French overture and the pastorale. Almost every melody he wrote obeys a prosodic rule that strong/stressed beats should have longer note durations than weaker/unstressed ones (and much like the Beatles, this is what makes his melodies catchy: they resemble human speech).

So what's the lesson in all this? It is that genius lies not in some grand cosmic vision but in clever, unexpected associations between everyday ideas and objects. I think that "be true to yourself" is probably the worst advice you can ever give a budding artist, because inspiration isn't some mystical quality that lies deep within you - it comes through being engaged with the world.

Perhaps the easiest way to boost your creativity, _a la_ Kant, is to become more aware of the potential relations that exist between things (e.g. the form of a palm tree resembles an upside down toilet brush, as well as a pom-pom and an ovulating Japanese pop idol's microphone. As for its colour, dear reader, one could consider the flesh of cattipillar larvae and the skin of Martians from the _X-Files_. Its position/location, on the top of a neatly mown grass hill in a big city with a moist subtropical climate, is akin to the Washington Monument, which, for what it's worth, also happens to strongly resemble a gigantic white penis. I could also make use of rhetorical devices - a palm tree is, after all, made to shed its body hair like a pompous priapic pederast of a pineapple).

All I did in the above paragraph was relate random shit through the use of some common quality. So yeah, that's creativity for you. Onward and upward, Anna Regina!


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## Fru2

Meliodas said:


> Is akin to the Washington Monument, which, for what it's worth, also happens to strongly resemble a gigantic white penis.


Eye, someone had to compensate! Ah yes, the Papacy too, and the Pharaohs of course. Our world is one giant sausage fest apparently. 
I'll stick with O'keefe's flowers though.
Nontheless it's a very interesting point you've put forward, I'll have to look deeper into it.. 
God, now everything sounds sexual!


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## Squirt

Infinitus said:


> Oh I feel you. I don't _follow_ tutorials. Lol, can you imagine me following along step-by-step? Nah, I fish for information. Skip to the bits that contain what I want, & like you say, incorporate into my way of working and vision. I totally understand not wanting to implement something 'as is'. I enjoy discovering people who present information in a non-prescriptive way, & those are the types I lean towards, for the most part. Though they tend to be very niche in their expertise.
> 
> Aye, not really into formal theory. Well, not for visual arts anyway. Unless we're talking about internal conceptual frameworks I build myself. I can definitely see the value in procuring knowledge of theoretical frameworks.
> 
> I never considered your stuff derivative, but you've done a good job of convincing us otherwise.


Tell you what, if you paint like this:


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... then I'll paint like this:


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I think we'll become better versions of ourselves in this venture. 



WickerDeer said:


> Um...but yeah--I used to draw my friends as a kid. I don't know how to just go up to strangers and be like "can I stare at you while you sit still for a long time...I'm not being creepy or anything" but I have found that musicians on stage can work okay as models and they're already there to be looked at.


I would take a little notebook with me and draw musicians at shows, and then put the illustration in their tip jars. It's not too bad to draw people in public... although drawing children at parks can get you in trouble, lol.



WickerDeer said:


> I am thinking I need to try to do some night landscapes because I've been enjoying seeing some of those and maybe also a lit restaurant, meeting place at night. It's my goal but maybe because, like you, I did experience that unwanted attention as a kid by the bully accusing me of tracing (and yeah...I didn't do anything to attract him either--I was just drawing by myself at recess) I do have some anxiety about going out in public and doing Plein air.


That would be really cool!



WickerDeer said:


> I hope this isn't awkward to say, but if you decided to do this too, I wouldn't be like "oh she copied me!" because I own all the night landscapes in the world...and no one else should be able to draw them. lol But if you did it better than me (as I suspect you might because you are very skilled, from what I've seen), I would probably stop and ask myself what you did right and try to learn from that so I could apply it to my work...because I think what we like is sort of a guide. And to me, if I can see it or figure it out, it is fair game to learn as a skill. Not everyone likes the same thing--there's no objective best, but there is what I like, and so I don't consider it stealing in a bad way to try to reverse engineer it and explore what someone else has pioneered or achieved.


Right. And I should adopt that attitude more - I mean, that is how I was able to learn at all early on, so it is pretty dumb to think I'm somehow "not allowed" anymore. 



Meliodas said:


> This is a common fear among artists, and I think it stems from the mistaken belief that art has to be completely original/derived from the self to be worthwhile. While novelty is certainly a virtue, to pursue it at the expense of any other aesthetic considerations will not lead to beautiful art. Form, proportion and narrative are equally important.
> 
> In reality, creativity is an associative process where you juxtapose objects or ideas together to achieve a certain dramatic effect, for example: "luscious", "benevolent", "maggots", which might be useful in a comedy skit with the pervert vs straight man trope. The same process could occur in music, for example I might combine a march motif with a drone and some sigh motifs to create a bipartite theme, or I could combine a weary traveler, misty mountains, a clear night sky and a chorus of angels to create a romantic painting.
> 
> If you want to be an effective artist, you need three things:
> 1. A wide vocabulary, which you can obtain by collecting words, ideas and tropes related to the discipline, and then sorting them into categories.
> 2. A clear idea of the dramatic effects you want to convey in each part of the work, as this will determine what content you select and where you put it.
> 3. Patience. Like any skill, artistic excellence takes time to develop, so don't judge your early work.


I agree this strategy works well for "novel" compositions. When done well, it can be pretty seamless and without contrived effort. This is often how I naturally want to work. I love parody, too... which often employs unexpected juxtapositions.

It is funny how much of what you see that are supposedly classics or "originators" were built off previous work that had inspired them, and it's just too archaic for us to recognize as derivative (as you detail in your next post).

Ran across this which is relevant... It brings up more questions that @WickerDeer sorta touched on about stock photos... with the availability of images on the internet, it is a fair question on how one discovers/utilizes/credits/consumes their sources... even in a professional setting.


__ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1390844762182328320


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## mia-me

The paint by numbers style is similar to my style. 😅


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## Infinitus

Squirt said:


> Tell you what, if you paint like this:
> ... then I'll paint like this:


If you’re absolutely sure it will make me better, let’s go. But do I _have to_ paint? Can I not use crayon or something? The scent is quite nostalgic. 🖍


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## Joe Black

I like finger painting and face painting... Getting my hands dirty.


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## Squirt

mia-me said:


> The paint by numbers style is similar to my style. 😅


Ooh... Maybe you can get into the paint by numbers game and make some money selling kits. 




Joe Black said:


> I like finger painting and face painting... Getting my hands dirty.
> View attachment 878764


That’s where it starts...


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## Lunacik

Squirt said:


> Also, it might be fun to discuss transitions from being derivative to developing a more unique artistic style, or thoughts on that process in general!


I've never had this problem but I have shielded my originality since the beginning. It's why I didn't go to art school. I actually held a customer survey a few times and I always got tons of comments on my work being so unique.

Reduce your need for references - practice the art of drawing based on shapes.

Personally, I like to combine things that inspire me or turn them into something else. Example: sci-fi theme + bohemian theme = something that is never really done at all. Observe similar patterns in the styles in order to come up with something convincing.





























In the second set I would not keep the lights the same way - I would make them more tech / futuristic. I would draw my ideas that come to mind by looking at these things, but I don't have time...but yeah...combining different patterns to come up with your own buildings, etc...

Make an inspiring environment scene into an outfit design, shit like that as well (instead of environment to environment, outfit to outfit, etc.).



























It can't look like someone else's work if no one else has made it before.











ahh--also....make stuff up based on what is symbolic to you. Nobody else needs to understand there is even any meaning, the only thing that matters is that it's something inspired by your own mind.


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