"what's the worst thing you can do as an artist" is not "shade with black" or "not use references" or whatever the worst thing you can do as an artist is hate yourself. and that includes the person you used to be

"look at how bad my old art is" "this was so cringe" "it's embarrassing to look at this" what are you gaining here? belatedly being your own bully? is it more acceptable to hate a kid if it's the kid you used to be? shut the fuck up. be kind to yourself or don't say anything at all. people are really not laughing with you when you mock yourself and if they are maybe consider hanging out with nicer people. imo.

this also goes for having your personal blog tags be like "nobody cares (name)" or "shut up (name)" or whatever. why are you being mean to yourself. its not preventing other people from being mean to you just because you get the first shot in it just means you get shot twice. how is that better. how is any of that better

Fresh Pots - Vincent Giarrano , 2024.

American , b. 1960 -

Oil , c. 18 x 24 in.

Just in case!

Here is a link to Pride Plans where you can get this stuff started.

If you have children together, you BOTH need to be on the birth certificate/adoption papers. Some states don't automatically put both parents on there, and you may have to adopt your own child. This is REALLY important.

Hey guys, you know about the Same Energy website right? has someone made a post about that? Cuz otherwise im gonna sing its praises to high heaven for its artistic references

Okay so I'm just gonna talk about it even if someone's already made a post, someone's gotta spread the word of this incredible website

So you go to the main page, and you like the vibes of one of these pictures

Lets click skull face lady.

It then gives you BUNCHES of images with similar vibes. Want to tweak it a little and narrow it down further? What if you like the vibe of thatt purple one more? Well u click that one and TADA

And you can just keep narrowing down from there, and if you make an account you can even save images you like :D

I know it sounds like i'm advertising for them but honestly i would GLADLY take money to advertise for these guys, their website is still only in beta mode but already I use this (or try to) for my art warmups because I get to try to do something a little different each time. (I would give money to support them but I am broke AF so that's why I'm just spreading the word instead ;A; )

And on the front page there's even an option to search with your own images I think! (Though, I tried to do that but I kept getting an Error, so I don't know if that's a Me With Bad Internet issue or a Website issue. Again, website is in beta, so if it is a problem on their end it will hopefully be fixed soon).

and i just love this website cuz its GREAT for collecting asthetics and vibes (i mean, hence the name "same energy")

It's like Pinterest on crack :0

So yeah :D Definitely go check out Same Energy, it is a GREAT resource for artists and those trying to collect specific vibes.

Sharing here bc helpful resource, but also to add on a few notes.

This is a search engine! Long pressing images on mobile will bring up where the engine found the image (not sure how to pull this up on desktop). It is no different from the images section of Google or Duck Duck Go or w/e else you use in this regard.

I specify this bc pintrest is a hellscape of stolen works :,) it's entire foundation is based on ppl finding aesthetic photos and art and uploading them to the site with no credit or permission. This isn't like that. It is a search engine.

Sometimes what it finds may be reuploads, which sucks, but it's not based in trying to do that. So if you like a photo you see, check out the source. If it seems ligit, consider helping the artist by leaving a tip or doing whatever pleases that site's algorithm.

What was going on when they named Procreate and GIMP that

My art programs Sex and Mommy's Little Pet

This hit me like a brick and reminded me of when I was far younger and at a diner with my dear father for breakfast, and I told him, with zero hesitation, about how I was making computer art to post on "Deviant Art" with a free program "better than Microsoft Paint" called "GIMP" and he, struggling to maintain a poker face, replied with something along the lines of "I don't know if you should be doing that"

artist tips

don’t save as jpeg

as a former yearbook editor and designer, let me explain this further

if youre only planning on posting your art online, them please save it as .png ;this is also better for transparencies as well

BUT

please, if youre planning of printing your art, NEVER use png. it makes the quality of the image pretty shitty. use jpeg or pdf instead. and always set your work at 300dpi to get a better printing quality - this means, the images are crisper and sharper and theres no slight blurriness. i had a talk with my friend who is currently taking design, and pdf is much better to use when youre working with a bigger publishing company because it still has the layers intact, but if youre only planning on printing your stuff at staples or at some small publishing store, the jpeg is the way to go.

this has been a public service announcement

I’ve replied to this once before but I see it’s doing the rounds again.

This is all utter bullshit.

I’m sorry but if your qualification is working on the school yearbook, you have no qualifications. Do not pretend otherwise. As a former professional photo manipulator for advertising brochures, I can say that you’re not comparing apples to oranges here - if anything, you’re comparing fruit to farmyard machinery:

This has been a Public Service Rebuttal.

FUCKING THANK YOU

As a designer who’s worked a few years for a newspaper, I cannot begin to tell you how much OP’s post (edit: response, technically) made me cringe. I would have killed to get a photo as a TIFF for once instead of having to tear apart PDFs only to find a 50x100px 72dpi shitty JPEG inside for the 5 millionth time…

JPEG and PNG are best suited for web formats (and it is perfectly fine to save your web version as JPEG, that’s what it’s goddamn for). You will make a designer cry if you send a web-safe JPEG for print, however. And if you have a vectorized logo saved as EPS (or even better, AI), you will make that designer’s year.

300 DPI is what you want to set the scanner to if you’re digitizing traditional media, but if you’re reprinting that image or putting it online it’s usually fine to shrink it according to your physical or file space needs. Just don’t delete the original if there’s any chance you might need a different size of it later bc recompressing images is where jpeg artifacts come from

Variety of commonly kept chicken breeds in Ireland

winter day trip

Happy 3rd birthday Brioche!! Here are some Brioche identifying characteristics: Only one eyebrow, 3 tiny white hairs on his forehead, and lil gloves and two-tone beans!

Heads up, especially if you have trouble with unreality:

I've already started seeing Sora videos pop up on other platforms, so just know that if you see this watermark logo:

the video is AI generated. Some of them can be very convincing, so I just wanted to let people know if you haven't already heard of it.

[image id: a white watermark of a cloud with eyes next to the word Sora.]

in the same vein, google gemini has a logo in the corner of its generated photos. obviously someone could crop it out but given how lazy users of ai can be chances are they wont

deepen the shadows bro. it'll be ok

i meant art-wise but if any dark sorcerers see this. you do you

Working on both, thanks.

the way people online talk about art they like is utterly intoxicating

copyrighting neon dream as we speak

Hello, friends!

I reworked the ol' "Schweizer Guide to Spotting Tangents" lecture from my comics-teaching days, figured I'd share it here. If you want a free, printable PDF for yourself or to share (especially if you're an educator), you can find it at the bottom of this same lesson on my website.

-Chris