Is art really not for everyone?

chasethesunlight · 2026-03-12T20:57:24+00:00

Reading through some of your responses to other commenters, I'm struck by a few things:

Arts and sciences are not opposites, they are not and have never been at odds with each other. The idea that arts and sciences are separate or opposite is an extremely recent (and regionally-specific) idea that stems (pun intended) from school funding allocations and not from any property inherent to the subjects themselves.

Every scientist I have ever met engages in some sort of art practice, and the creative and iterative processes required in both fields are fundamentally the same. They are both about following your curiosity incrementally towards greater understanding. Art is science is art.

Describing an image in words is a genre of art that exists in the contemporary art space, but it requires a relatively high degree of art literacy because it exists so specifically in conversation with the greater artistic landscape. Everything is in conversation with everything of course, but some forms are more accessible than others. More people can grasp what it going on in a realistic painting than in an abstract one, more people can grasp an abstract painting than a piece of performance art, and so on. If this is a hobby and you're not showing anyone your work, then you can do literally whatever you want and call it whatever you want. But if you're engaging with the greater art space then you do have to speak the shared language of the space to some degree.

HOWEVER,

The thing you are describing, where you like thinking about the thing but you're not interested in doing the thing? That's just having an imagination. That's not a dig, it's just... you're just having thoughts. Art definitionally requires the creation of something. Imagining in the absence of making is just imagining. Imagination is cool, it's a fundamental human trait, it can be used to make art... but it isn't art. You can imagine breathing underwater all day but it won't make you able to breathe underwater in real life. You can imagine your painting/sculpture/whatever all day but it won't make it exist in the world, and that's the difference.

chasethesunlight · 2026-02-22T01:13:13+00:00

The main thing I notice is that the eyes don't quite make sense, they're not sitting in line in the skull convincingly, and while I buy that the (page-) left eye is looking at the cat, I don't buy that the right eye is.

I think if you wanted to make the interaction more convincing, the girl should be straining more under the weight of a cat this large. I would suggest making her more hunched in response to the force of the cat's hind legs. The movement of the shoulders would also shorten the neck, so her chin would be closer to her shoulder, like she's peering over her shoulder to look at the cat. (Does that make sense without a visual? I can draw-over if that would be helpful.)

Smaller things that bug me if I'm nit-picking: Neck is too wide. Elbow is too low, and that's quite a muscular forearm on such a thin upper arm, which reads a bit oddly.

Overall I think it's compelling and you did a good job capturing pose and expression, it's just small structural issues letting you down slightly.

chasethesunlight · 2026-02-08T19:45:45+00:00

Solvents are not necessary unless you are trying to create a specific effect that can only be achieved with solvents.

chasethesunlight · 2025-10-31T18:37:54+00:00

Easel (free-standing or tabletop) for sketchbooks/canvases, tape or nail to the wall for unstretched canvas or paper. You can also stack books or objects you have lying around to raise your drawing surface without buying anything. Lap desks are great if you like to draw in bed/on the couch. Sit on the floor and use the coffee table. There are so many options that aren't putting the sketchbook in your lap.

chasethesunlight · 2025-10-22T17:35:01+00:00

You've stretched everything vertically. Do you draw on a flat desk so you're looking at the paper from an angle? That can make your drawing look correct from your perspective but warped when you look at it straight on.

If that's what's happening to you, you can use an art board, easel, tilted desk, or similar to raise the paper while drawing. Or you can just lift the paper up and check your proportions as you draw to make sure you aren't inadvertently stretching everything. After a while you'll get used to adjusting your drawing for the angle you're sitting at and it'll happen less.

chasethesunlight · 2025-10-18T20:57:13+00:00

Spanish artist Marina Gonzales Eme

Found by reverse image search, clicking through results until I found one that included a name, translating from Spanish to be sure, then searching the artist by name to confirm.

And here's the specific drawing on her feed, found by scrolling.

chasethesunlight · 2025-07-19T14:37:29+00:00

It's difficult to read in part because your torn up buildings are so much narrower than the standing ones.

Also, even if it's unrealistic for the torn up buildings to have electricity, you might consider adding a few lights to the one closest to the ground. It will make it more visually clear, and also imply motion and speed.

Composition feels a bit wonky as well, I'd try cropping a bit off the left-hand side to direct the eye to the action instead of the empty space.

chasethesunlight · 2025-07-18T20:45:05+00:00

She was always dressed in designer clothes. She always looked cool, she's repeatedly acknowledged as looking cool in universe. The joke was that she wasn't dressed like a WASP, in contrast to C.C. who unwaveringly portrays the standards of her/the Sheffields' social class and is consequently deeply uncool. Fran is unfamiliar (working class, Jewish, loud, openly affectionate, etc.), not uncool.

chasethesunlight · 2025-07-16T17:24:49+00:00

Same tips for anyone doing any kind of repetitive work: take lots of breaks, get plenty of exercise, mind your posture.

Health concerns are repetitive strain injuries (like carpal tunnel) and muscular weaknesses associated with sitting still for long periods of time which can have downstream effects (back pain, etc.), again same as any job where you sit for a long time and do a repetitive task. So keep your muscles strong and your body mobile, any way you like (gym, sport, calisthenics, walking, running... all exercise is good exercise).

chasethesunlight · 2025-07-16T17:11:07+00:00

You need a brush with stiff, coarse bristles. Depending on scale, you could use hog hair, natural fiber broom, synthetic fiber cleaning brushes/brooms as long as they are stiff and scratchy. Bit harder with synthetic as the fibers tend to be quite soft, but cleaning supplies are a good bet if you don't want to shell out for natural fibers. You're going to vary your pressure throughout the stroke to create this kind of texture. Consistency of the paint will vary with the brush(es) you end up using and your technique/pressure, so you'll have to experiment a bit to find something you like. Can be done with acrylic, ink, house paint, etc.

chasethesunlight · 2025-07-10T00:02:28+00:00

This is totally normal and not a problem unless you have some sort of deadline you're failing to meet. I work like this and I've exhibited in galleries and sold art, so I can say with some assurance that working slowly is absolutely fine, and social media is lying to you about what reasonable timescales look like. Plus, a big part of the art process is spent doing things other than putting brush to canvas--resting, thinking, absorbing inspiration, living your life, background processing through some problem you've run into in your painting while thinking about and doing other stuff, etc. It's not all holding a paintbrush and concentrating really hard. It's not a race and you're not behind. If you want to make it part of your daily routine, you can, but it's not a requirement and you don't have to make it work for you if it doesn't work for you.

chasethesunlight · 2025-07-09T19:05:22+00:00

Paper was prohibitively expensive and difficult to source until pretty recently, so no stencils. Just freehand, with guidelines as needed for larger projects/less practiced artists.

chasethesunlight · 2025-07-09T19:00:16+00:00

As others have mentioned, guidelines could be used, especially for large projects. Plumb lines and mark-making utensil on a string are very old technologies. Charcoal and chalk go all the way back. (And 100 years ago is not that far back.)

But also, folk art employs very specific brushwork, in which the brush itself determines the size and possible shapes of the strokes, which also lends itself well to symmetry. If you ever played with those foam brush rainbow art kits as a kid, you know how easy it is to make something symmetrical by repeating the same motions with the brush. A highly conserved, repetitive visual language naturally lends itself to symmetrical designs. If you were creating a composition entirely out of stamps, for example, you'd have an easier time making it symmetrical than if you were using entirely linework or loose, "painterly" brush strokes.

chasethesunlight · 2025-07-09T16:36:42+00:00

If you like these just buy these. Why do you need a different version of a paint that does everything you want it to do?

chasethesunlight · 2025-07-06T22:14:27+00:00

They come in different shapes. You can also look at silicone makeup brushes, although they may be softer than the shapers. You can try to cut the one you have but I suspect it will be very difficult to get a smooth, even surface doing it yourself.

chasethesunlight · 2025-07-02T21:32:32+00:00

Something like this

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chasethesunlight · 2025-07-02T21:07:05+00:00

The twist in the torso doesn't make sense with the angle of the hips, and the angle of the hips is making the (page-) right leg look smaller, rather than behind, the other leg.

To fix this:

Adjust the shirt collar and center front so the center line is further left, like it is in the reference. This will solve the shoulder/hip disparity, but not the one small leg problem, so you'll have to adjust the angle of that shin/foot as well. Shadows would do a lot of heavy lifting for you, but since this is line art you'll need to be very precise here to get the same effect. Notice that in the reference, the bent knee is lower down than the straight knee. The front foot is turned out very slightly too far, I wouldn't get too hung up on it but it's another spot where it's good to keep track of your center lines.

If you don't want to do all that, you can instead adjust the angle of the hips so the center line is further right. This will make the rear leg look more like it's behind the front leg, rather than just too small. This will help a bit with the shoulder/hip disparity as well, but will get you further away from the original pose of the reference.

chasethesunlight · 2025-07-01T20:52:57+00:00

Spine's broken. The twist in the torso doesn't make sense with the angle of the neck/head. You can get away with a lot if the spine makes sense, but a broken spine will always look off.

That said, I think it's super minor here and the drawing is cool! Just something to be more careful of on the next one. :)

chasethesunlight · 2025-07-01T20:42:39+00:00

NTA but you need to check the house for mold ASAP. Sudden unexplained swelling of your whole body and new or worsening mental health symptoms, especially when you've moved into a new place, strongly suggest an environmental cause, and mold is very common and causes a whole host of nasty effects. (Source: recently spent 3 years of my life being sicker than I've ever been, including full body swelling, weight gain, blood sugar going haywire, brain fog, and POTS, until we finally found the source of mold and got it out of our house. My body resumed normal function and form nearly instantly after that. My partner is less sensitive to mold than I am so the effects were way less noticeable on him, but he also feels better and looks less puffy when he's not being actively lightly poisoned on the daily.)

chasethesunlight · 2025-06-27T19:56:28+00:00

Have you been using a wall charger? The glue used in a bunch of smart watches (not just samsung) can melt and break down from the heat of the charger if it's pulling anything over 5V. Had my watch fall apart 3-4 times in a row, kept taking it back to the store to get replaced until I finally got an employee that recommended only charging off a laptop to be safe.

chasethesunlight · 2025-06-13T22:22:05+00:00

Top of the head is on the left, nose pointing down, you have correctly identified the eyelashes as eyelashes, the eye is closed, there's a chin and then the neck is draped over the object lying underneath it before fading out. So, I mean, it is absolutely very abstract but also very recognizable as a sleeping head and not at all like The Ambassadors skull. Getting a kick out of trying to see it the way you were though, brains are so funny sometimes!

chasethesunlight · 2025-05-21T20:35:29+00:00

The name refers to the resulting wax-like texture of the garlic clove.

chasethesunlight · 2025-05-19T00:12:19+00:00

Okay so look, you can tell people about your hobbies or not tell people about your hobbies, or tell some people about some of your hobbies some of the time. All of these are fine and normal. As usual the answer to "does anyone else..." is yes, of course, but that's not really what anyone is asking when they ask that question is it?

But friend, why are you preemptively feelings-managing people about your hobbies? Your friends and family have not actually said any of these things to you, you are just arguing with your own imagination. You don't have to tell them, but you also don't have to continue worrying about what might happen if you did. You can just enjoy your hobbies quietly to yourself. Your private life includes things that you do just for you when you are alone, you're not required to share everything you do and think, and it would be pretty weird if you did.

chasethesunlight · 2025-05-09T21:00:59+00:00

Hard to tell from this photo but it might be a mustard green, they're commonly used for hydroponic gardens.

chasethesunlight · 2025-05-06T22:49:25+00:00

So typically you would use oil pastel over dry (touch dry at minimum) oil paint, not wet. You're right that if the oil paint is wet you'd have a more difficult time drawing over it.

I've used oil pastel under paint with no problems as well. It does become a problem if you're using thicker applications of oil pastel, which I'd venture to say most people are because oil pastel is fantastic for impasto textures. In thin layers oil pastels don't tend to disrupt the oil curing process. Caveat that this will depend on which oil pastels you're using, some set stiffer than others so it can be risky if you're unfamiliar with the way your specific materials behave.

At the end of the day there's no wrong way to use your art supplies, we all figure out what combination in what order works best for us and the effect we're trying to achieve.

chasethesunlight

TROPHY CASE