If you’re like most artists, you find it difficult to be objective about your work.
Just as a mother only sees the beauty of her child, artists look at their creations in much the same way.
It’s hard for some of us to look at our own work and see flaws or areas that need improvement.
There are several ways to get an evaluation of your work. You may like the anonymity of the internet or crave the give and take of face-to-face discussion. Regardless of your choice, getting a review of your work is an important step in improving your art and yourself.
Become A Member Of A Local Art Group
Whether it’s through your local community center, an evening class at an adult continuing educational center or a local art club, getting together with other artists to paint and critique is a valuable resource.
Meeting to paint together, discuss new ideas or techniques and spending time learning from each other is a great way to network with other local artists. It’s also a good way to get feedback on your work.
A class will often have a critique period for everyone to join in with their own paintings. These open critique sessions include reinforcement from the instructor as well as fellow students.
Learn To Give Critical Feedback
A critique should be neither all negative nor all positive. Disapproving of everything in a painting is rude and does nothing to help or encourage the artist. A critique that is no more than accolades isn’t useful either. A good critique points out both good points and areas that could use work.
A good way to give a critique is to start with something you like in the painting. Whether it’s the composition, colors, subject matter or brushstrokes, find something positive about the painting.
Next, talk about a feature that is less successful. Explain why you feel that way and ask if the artist agrees. Discuss why that aspect isn’t successful and how it could be better. By including everyone in the session, the artist has an opportunity to see several viewpoints and ways to improve the painting.
Close with a positive comment about a feature of the painting that shows potential and discuss how best to improve that aspect of the work.
Online Art Critique Sites
Many websites and blogs will evaluate your artwork. Some are casual forums with anonymous posters while professional, working artists staff other sites.
Artist Daily is a website of American Artist. Community forum members critique each other’s work in an open forum scenario. These folks are all artists of varying degree of proficiency, but they are generally all artists. This peer-to-peer evaluation is more like what you would see in a local art class.
ProArt Critique has on staff a variety of artists in different disciplines. You can examine the individual artist’s work and select which artist you want to evaluate your work. This is a paid service on individual paintings.
Another paid critique site is Artistsnetwork Critiques. They have a staff of artists who will review several of your paintings and give you specific recommendations on three works. They also give you valuable insight into your overall strengths and weaknesses.
These are just three examples of the types of review sites. There are hundreds of similar websites and they can vary vastly in what they provide. If this style of critique interests you, make sure you do a little research to find a site that fits your needs and expectations.
Ask A Friend
You can’t ask just anyone to critique your work. Most family members and friends are too softhearted, biased or unknowledgeable to give you any useful feedback.
If you have someone in your circle of acquaintances who can give critical, thoughtful feedback about your work, seek him or her out. They may not know a lot about specific art techniques and methods, but sometimes just having a fresh point of view can help you see what should be changed, removed or is lacking in your painting.
Painting in a vacuum doesn’t allow you to grow as much as exposing yourself and your work to an audience. Insightful evaluations of your work can help you make the transition to the next level in your artistic career.
