Greetings one and all and a good evening to anyone I may have missed! It is time once again for I, the woefully bombastic Dr. (____), to grace this blog with my oh so tedious ego and vapid wit! Never fear though, for I, the eternally melodramatic Dr. (_____), shall endeavour to be a good evenings entertainment in spite of my glaring deficiencies as a man of succinct exposition and humour!
To this end its time for everyones favourite bit of any serious discussion, the editorials! That glorious section where opinion masquerades as fact and all semblance of unbiased commentary goes out the window (good thing too, it was cluttering up the place!), and your host, the forever rambling Dr. (_____), goes completely out of his gourd!
Ok that's enough of all that, its time to put the crazy away and get around to ye olde meaningful writing, going out of my mind shall have to wait. But where to begin? Well I suppose explaining what the hell constructive criticism means would be a good start.
Paging Dr. (_____): Constructive Criticism Part 1:
Oh constructive criticism, what a cheap phrase that's become, with way too many people mistaking it for the old mantra of "say something nice, or nothing at all," when this is not what constructive criticism means, as by definition criticism is kind of on the harsh side of things. No matter how gently you break it, or how valid it is, it is still criticism.
No what this "only say nice things" mindset ends up doing is filling the heads of many aspiring writers, artists, musicians, and whatever else with gobs upon gobs of praise and little actual advice on how to actually improve upon upon their art. The thinking seems to go that so long as you don't quash a young artists fragile muse it'll flower into something beautiful all on its own.
Sadly the truth is that this is rarely the case, especially with self taught artists. Many an aspiring artist who has subjected themselves to professional scrutiny has found, to their sorrow, that you can have all the good feeling in the world and that won't mean a thing if all you can produce is a flat two dimensional stick figure.
While technique is only half of what makes good artwork (the other half being the indefinable spark of genius.) you can't count yourself amongst the best without it, and that's where the "only say nice things" mindset hurts artists more than it helps them.
To illustrate my point, I present to you the following hypothetical situation:
Wait, I hear you cry out, I told them there were a few minor things! So you did. But those minor things could be anything, if the artist wasn't aware they existed beforehand, what good will vaguely declaring there's one or two small things to fix do? You didn't tell them where to look. If you did, you didn't point out the full extent of the problem, saying it just needed a bit of polish or something. This lack of honesty in favour of trying to boost their spirits will do them no favours when they try and present their work to people who will not be as forgiving. If anything their feelings will be hurt worse because when it really mattered they thought their work was better than it actually was!
Option 2, as the more astute amongst you have probably figured out by now, is what constructive criticism actually is. Its being honest about all every single shortcoming and how severe they are. The artist will not necessarily like it, but for something so important they deserve the truth, especially if your their friend. Constructive criticism is not only being unafraid to knock-down something that's not good, but to help put up something better in its place. The key word here being help, as you cant outright do it for them.
There's more to being a constructive critic of course, but all the details on ettiquite and such will be covered in Paging Dr. (_____): Constructive Criticism part 2! Available now at all for the low low price of $99.99! Or, you know, for free in this blog...
Whatever! Until next time, this has been the indefatigable Dr. (____), wishing you all a good evening!
To this end its time for everyones favourite bit of any serious discussion, the editorials! That glorious section where opinion masquerades as fact and all semblance of unbiased commentary goes out the window (good thing too, it was cluttering up the place!), and your host, the forever rambling Dr. (_____), goes completely out of his gourd!
Ok that's enough of all that, its time to put the crazy away and get around to ye olde meaningful writing, going out of my mind shall have to wait. But where to begin? Well I suppose explaining what the hell constructive criticism means would be a good start.
Paging Dr. (_____): Constructive Criticism Part 1:
Oh constructive criticism, what a cheap phrase that's become, with way too many people mistaking it for the old mantra of "say something nice, or nothing at all," when this is not what constructive criticism means, as by definition criticism is kind of on the harsh side of things. No matter how gently you break it, or how valid it is, it is still criticism.
No what this "only say nice things" mindset ends up doing is filling the heads of many aspiring writers, artists, musicians, and whatever else with gobs upon gobs of praise and little actual advice on how to actually improve upon upon their art. The thinking seems to go that so long as you don't quash a young artists fragile muse it'll flower into something beautiful all on its own.
Sadly the truth is that this is rarely the case, especially with self taught artists. Many an aspiring artist who has subjected themselves to professional scrutiny has found, to their sorrow, that you can have all the good feeling in the world and that won't mean a thing if all you can produce is a flat two dimensional stick figure.
While technique is only half of what makes good artwork (the other half being the indefinable spark of genius.) you can't count yourself amongst the best without it, and that's where the "only say nice things" mindset hurts artists more than it helps them.
To illustrate my point, I present to you the following hypothetical situation:
An artist you know wants your opinion on a work in progress. Upon viewing the piece you notice there are very serious flaws with the lighting and shadow. This is not a minor thing, like a misshapen leaf or a less than ideal composition, proper lighting is one of the very foundations of proper artistic technique. Books upon books have been written on the subject, art classes will make a big fuss about it, its a major problem.Here are your available solutions:
Option 1:
You can be all smiles and good cheer, saying it was a excellent job and that with a little extra effort, you're sure those minor flaws with the lighting will be a thing of the past. This does nothing but tell the artist there is a vague, non specific, and minor flaw in their work. Assuming the artist has taken your critique to heart they're likely to reach the following conclusion about their work. "One one hand, there's apparently something wrong with how I did the lighting. But on the other hand it wasn't bad/big/important enough to point out specifically so it can't have been too bad. Besides they said it was very good anyway!
Option 2:With Option 1, what you've basically done is mislead the artist about how skilled they really are, telling them what they wanted to hear instead of what they needed to hear. This is not constructive criticism as, to any serious artist, their level of skill is their pride and joy. It's what they use to bring their vision to canvas, paper, whatever! Their art is something meaningful and important to them, and in some cases is their very livelihood. With all that in mind, consider that you've just lied about how successful their attempt to bring their vision to live was in an attempt to spare their feelings.
You can be honest with the artist, and point out that there are major flaws in their work. In an attempt to be helpful you take the time to point out the problem areas exactly, explaining how the lighting should act in order to accomplish what the artist was aiming for. Here you can give your own humble opinion on how the artist can accomplish this, though of course the artist is free to provide their own solution to the problem. With their shortcoming firmly in mind they can alter the picture according to new goals and aims in an attempt to compensate or correct for the existing flaws, or possibly start anew in a bid to get it just right. On one hand, you thrown a monkey wrench into things. On the other hand, you did your best to help fix things, and now the artist is once again pursuing their goal, with the problems fixed.
Wait, I hear you cry out, I told them there were a few minor things! So you did. But those minor things could be anything, if the artist wasn't aware they existed beforehand, what good will vaguely declaring there's one or two small things to fix do? You didn't tell them where to look. If you did, you didn't point out the full extent of the problem, saying it just needed a bit of polish or something. This lack of honesty in favour of trying to boost their spirits will do them no favours when they try and present their work to people who will not be as forgiving. If anything their feelings will be hurt worse because when it really mattered they thought their work was better than it actually was!
Option 2, as the more astute amongst you have probably figured out by now, is what constructive criticism actually is. Its being honest about all every single shortcoming and how severe they are. The artist will not necessarily like it, but for something so important they deserve the truth, especially if your their friend. Constructive criticism is not only being unafraid to knock-down something that's not good, but to help put up something better in its place. The key word here being help, as you cant outright do it for them.
There's more to being a constructive critic of course, but all the details on ettiquite and such will be covered in Paging Dr. (_____): Constructive Criticism part 2! Available now at all for the low low price of $99.99! Or, you know, for free in this blog...
Whatever! Until next time, this has been the indefatigable Dr. (____), wishing you all a good evening!
with way too many people mistaking it for the old mantra of "say something nice, or nothing at all,"
ReplyDeleteThat mantra makes me think of my professor from Creative Writing. She was against us being negative in any conceivable way - which translated to "sugarcoat everything and make most of your criticisms sound at least 33-50% suggestion."
And being nice is, well, nice, if one can manage it. But sometimes, it isn't really possible to sugarcoat something, or even be nice.
You remember that highly misogynistic, plagiarizing zombie story I showed you, from that class. I still don't know how to be nice and diplomatic about that story.
(But, that is an extenuating circumstance...)
Also, if you're making money on charging ridiculous prices for free things, I demand a cut.