I'm glad that despite my limitations (I'm suffering from schizophrenia), I can be of some help to others, even if some people don't appreciate my artwork.
Earhoney, if being "honest" means that you vent your prejudice and narrow-minded ideas, and adjust your view on the world based on replies by others, BY ALL MEANS, be as honest as you can be. You can only grow and become a better human being. I constantly have to adjust my ideas, because what I believe and think is not always in par with reality.
And although my reality is sometimes distorted by my mental illness, I see a lot of prejudice and narrow-mindedness in the world around me. So much so, that I'm inclined to think that it is a serious social disease, doing a lot of damage. All attempts to remove prejudice and narrow-mindedness will certainly help to get rid of this ugly social disease in the long run.
Simple animation using Flash 2.0
Moderators: Víctor Paredes, Belgarath, slowtiger
[soapbox on]
I think as a society we are too quick to label things as limitations Rasheed. I have some problems of my own, and struggled when I was first diagnosed, but have since come to grips with it all. Remember that society often labels people based on deviation from the accepted norms of the time they are living. People who are creative, or think different than whatever is currently popular, are often looked at with narrowed eyes and furrowed brows. If you took Leonardo DaVinci, or any other great creative mind from history, and moved them to different societies and historical periods, you'd find them occasionally worshipped, and at other times ignored, reviled or ridiculed. Many of the greatest philosophers and innovators have been those who bucked popular thinking.
Look at the life of Henri Rousseau as an example. Few contemporary artists of his time recognized his genius. He was mockingly called the toll keeper because of his his job by the self important critics of his generation. He was poor and self taught, often used inferior paint and materials, and had to invent many of his own techniques since he had no training. Read the Wikipedia post. I was inspired by his story when I took art history last year. After his death his genius has been recognized while many 'popular' painters of the period have faded into the dust of history.
No man defines our worth and few conditions define limitations that cannot be conquered. I don't believe that producing cookie cutter art is neccesairily an expression of genius, regardless of current popularity.
One quote (heard at an Amway meeting many years ago) has stuck with me.
There are two ways to have the tallest building in the city, one way is to knock down all the other buildings.
All we have to decide is what kind of people we want to be - those who build up, or those who knock down.
[soapbox off]
I think as a society we are too quick to label things as limitations Rasheed. I have some problems of my own, and struggled when I was first diagnosed, but have since come to grips with it all. Remember that society often labels people based on deviation from the accepted norms of the time they are living. People who are creative, or think different than whatever is currently popular, are often looked at with narrowed eyes and furrowed brows. If you took Leonardo DaVinci, or any other great creative mind from history, and moved them to different societies and historical periods, you'd find them occasionally worshipped, and at other times ignored, reviled or ridiculed. Many of the greatest philosophers and innovators have been those who bucked popular thinking.
Look at the life of Henri Rousseau as an example. Few contemporary artists of his time recognized his genius. He was mockingly called the toll keeper because of his his job by the self important critics of his generation. He was poor and self taught, often used inferior paint and materials, and had to invent many of his own techniques since he had no training. Read the Wikipedia post. I was inspired by his story when I took art history last year. After his death his genius has been recognized while many 'popular' painters of the period have faded into the dust of history.
No man defines our worth and few conditions define limitations that cannot be conquered. I don't believe that producing cookie cutter art is neccesairily an expression of genius, regardless of current popularity.
One quote (heard at an Amway meeting many years ago) has stuck with me.
There are two ways to have the tallest building in the city, one way is to knock down all the other buildings.
All we have to decide is what kind of people we want to be - those who build up, or those who knock down.
[soapbox off]
Last edited by bupaje on Wed Jan 03, 2007 7:21 am, edited 2 times in total.
Oh, that stupid "honest" fashion promobed by that House M.D., hmmm... 
I knew it would bring problems to us, well...
I knew it would bring problems to us, well...And... believe me, you are, you areRasheed wrote:I can be of some help to others
...
I've been thinking about this discussion lately.
It does raise interesting points. In many forums of this nature there is the "argument" that critiques of someone's work are not harsh enough. Then there are situations like this when someone's critique becomes an "attack".
I suppose a word of wisdom to earhoney (I keep thinking of jungle movies where they bury the guy up to his neck in the sand and put honey on his head for the ants to "get him") would be to consider someone's skill level before making such a serious critique.
My older sister illustrated a book she wrote recently. She is not an artist. She wanted me to do the illustrations but I saw what she had done with her limited skills and thought it was perfect for the tone of the book.
The illustrations weren't "perfect", but that was the beauty of it. I could have told her it was total crap, horrible execution and composition... I could have made her cry.
Instead I made some honest comments for the really really bad stuff and had her redo one or two of the illustrations.
I also gave her a brief tutorial on "technique", a bunch of my books on drawing, an artists manikin and a whole bunch of pastels, colored pencils and drawing paper so she wasn't using cheap markers on cheap laser printer paper (ICK!).
I didn't lie to her and say she was a brilliant artist. I did say that her "style" worked for that project. It was better for her to illustrate the book she wrote since it was closer to her heart.
p.s. I did however give her a bunch of crap about her work ethic. She did not want to redo anything... because it was "soooo much work". She said her hand was cramping up... sheesh! It was like pulling teeth to get revisions. I told her a "real" editor would have made her redo every single illustration... twice. I was letting her off easy.
-vern
It does raise interesting points. In many forums of this nature there is the "argument" that critiques of someone's work are not harsh enough. Then there are situations like this when someone's critique becomes an "attack".
I suppose a word of wisdom to earhoney (I keep thinking of jungle movies where they bury the guy up to his neck in the sand and put honey on his head for the ants to "get him") would be to consider someone's skill level before making such a serious critique.
My older sister illustrated a book she wrote recently. She is not an artist. She wanted me to do the illustrations but I saw what she had done with her limited skills and thought it was perfect for the tone of the book.
The illustrations weren't "perfect", but that was the beauty of it. I could have told her it was total crap, horrible execution and composition... I could have made her cry.
Instead I made some honest comments for the really really bad stuff and had her redo one or two of the illustrations.
I also gave her a brief tutorial on "technique", a bunch of my books on drawing, an artists manikin and a whole bunch of pastels, colored pencils and drawing paper so she wasn't using cheap markers on cheap laser printer paper (ICK!).
I didn't lie to her and say she was a brilliant artist. I did say that her "style" worked for that project. It was better for her to illustrate the book she wrote since it was closer to her heart.
p.s. I did however give her a bunch of crap about her work ethic. She did not want to redo anything... because it was "soooo much work". She said her hand was cramping up... sheesh! It was like pulling teeth to get revisions. I told her a "real" editor would have made her redo every single illustration... twice. I was letting her off easy.
-vern
I guess I should say Im knocked out at the thoughtful, well tempered, articulate responses to my posts
I really expected a pasting and probably deserved one as my comments were inflammatory -
I probably like most of you have many flash files and moho files that I would call "studies" observations or experiments and Im not going to post them here because they dont say anything, theyre just stuff.
Im not at all concerned about Rasheeds drawing skills - Im sorry if you thought that was my point of attack
My attack was on Rasheed's sharing his work and telling us the complicated way he built the animation using Flash 2 of all things. The end value of the work he was sharing was ziltch. It might have been better posted in tips and techniques
Flash 2!!! I still believe it was an unecessary post on this forum as the end result of the hard work was for me "SO?"
I mean I could put on a pair of boxing gloves and try over and over for a couple of weeks till I can draw a circle.
But its still just a circle. The end doesnt justify the means does it?
Flash 2 was 1997. Now we have AS ...Dont look back
Take off the boxing gloves show us what you can do with the best animation software available on 2007!
I know you all love Rasheed as he is a gentle soul, is from the Netherlands and has Schizophrenia but I think if someone new here had posted that example I probably wouldnt be alone in my views
And hey that is one cool t-shirt seriously I would wear that. [/url]
I really expected a pasting and probably deserved one as my comments were inflammatory -
I probably like most of you have many flash files and moho files that I would call "studies" observations or experiments and Im not going to post them here because they dont say anything, theyre just stuff.
Im not at all concerned about Rasheeds drawing skills - Im sorry if you thought that was my point of attack
My attack was on Rasheed's sharing his work and telling us the complicated way he built the animation using Flash 2 of all things. The end value of the work he was sharing was ziltch. It might have been better posted in tips and techniques
Flash 2!!! I still believe it was an unecessary post on this forum as the end result of the hard work was for me "SO?"
I mean I could put on a pair of boxing gloves and try over and over for a couple of weeks till I can draw a circle.
But its still just a circle. The end doesnt justify the means does it?
Flash 2 was 1997. Now we have AS ...Dont look back
Take off the boxing gloves show us what you can do with the best animation software available on 2007!
I know you all love Rasheed as he is a gentle soul, is from the Netherlands and has Schizophrenia but I think if someone new here had posted that example I probably wouldnt be alone in my views
And hey that is one cool t-shirt seriously I would wear that. [/url]
I say again, do not discourage people from posting experiments. Fine, you don't post yours. I probably wish you would. I am learning as much as I can, and I want to see the ways people are going about things. Even if the experiment produces a single result that could be accomplished in a simpler way, the method may still be useful for other things that can't be done in that simple way. We cannot know until someone thinks of it, and we can't think of everything alone.
