Art School VS Natural Talent

What do you think is better?

Art School	16.3%	[ 17 ]
Natural Talent	4.8%	[ 5 ]
A combination of both	48.1%	[ 50 ]
Both are good in their own ways	19.2%	[ 20 ]
Who cares art is art	11.5%	[ 12 ]
Total Votes:			[ 104 ]

[ARTISToWRDS_PNTRoSTORIES]

link freak131

I'm going to tell you something one of my professors told me/my class one day. I don't remember what we were doing, or what class it was, all I remember was what he said: "Art is like getting your driver's license. Once you know all the rules, then you can bend those rules and do whatever the ******** you want, and no one will care because in the end, you know what you're doing."

I think that you think these "rules" are super strict in some way, but they're not, really... They're only strict when you're in the process of learning them, but after you struggle and work your but off to learn them, then you don't have to worry about them any more. In order to learn these rules you NEED a teacher. If you don't have one, and you rely on yourself, it is extremely difficult to know how to progress in your work. Yes there are many self taught artists out there, but I almost always find their work to be lacking in something whenever I see it; perhaps it's because they didn't learn all or most of the rules properly so they are 'bending them' in the wrong ways. That's how I see it, anyway, and I'm in my JR. year at an art college.

The thing is when you learn them younger you tend to get stuck with the ways of doing things making it harder to get out of the box once it's finally time. While with older people I think they understand the concept more.

And like I've said in some of the other replies I don't like how this teaches that just cause you don't go to school doesn't mean you don't understand the concepts they teach. Or just because you don't go to school what ever you do will never be "real" art.

I don't really see "bending them in wrong ways" how that's valid at all since once you're out of school or whatever and the whole point is to go against everything how can there be a "wrong way" in breaking a rule if breaking the rule itself is suppose to be wrong. It's true the person may not know and may want to better that part of the work but I don't understand that statement.

I also don't like the idea that even outside of school there's still right and wrong and you can apparently only be right in doing a wrong if you go to school. It really makes no sense just cause you know some rules it gives you a little more insight yeah but it doesn't justify breaking them. And if you're breaking them in the wrong way but notice the style or whatever you're doing is working for you or not working just cause you don't know the science of why doesn't mean you can't understand what's good and what's bad about your piece.

[ARTISToWRDS_PNTRoSTORIES]

DarkMalus

Have you ever even been to an art school, or taken an art class? I'm going to say no.

They're teaching you rules. Rules to guide you down the path, and once you know those rules you can bend them however you want. You have to first understand what makes art and the base foundation of it. Once you understand the rules then you can go crazy with it and no one will give a flying dilly about it. Look at Picasso. He KNEW the rules of art, he UNDERSTOOD those rules and once he fully understood them, then he did whatever he wanted.

Everything have to start out from a set of rules before you can go and make your own little art piece, or your own composition. Look at music. You have to first understand the basics of music (i.e know how to name the scales, play with your diaphragm, etc) before you can go and compose your own music piece. If you tried to compose a piece without fully grasping WHAT makes it, then you'll just come up with a jumbled mess of notes that no one would want to play. There are many, many, many scales in the music world. My private lesson teacher taught me how to play my instrument. Before I took lessons, I sounded horrible. Like, I sounded like a dying animal. He took me aside and slowly started teaching me the rules of music. He taught me how to name the scales, how to translate a bass clef into a treble clef. Every lesson he gave me a group of flats or sharps and he would make me name them. You don't just put in the flats or sharps anywhere on the bar. You put them in a certain order because the scales, known as the Circle of Fifths, revolve around the ordered set. Example: An A flat major has four flats: B flat, E flat, C flat and D flat. Translated into a minor, it is an F Minor. At first, this sounds useless, but it's not. It's helped me read ahead in music an be able to sort of anticipate what's going to come. He didn't tell me to play with my diaphragm because it would restrict my playing and, ohhhhh, he's just an evil man. No. He told me "Don't play with your lungs, play with your diaphgram" because it was 1) the correct way to play any instrument and 2) once mastered, it would open up new doorways for me to explore and have fun. These rules helped shape my music reading and my own style of playing. Without learning these rules, I would have sounded like just another horde of dying animals in my middle school band.

TL;DR= RULES ARE THERE FOR A REASON.

You know what they say about people who a**-u-me things.

Yes I have 3 as I mentioned 1 was art history the other was art appreciation the other was basic art. But like I said I don't really count those cause they where just normal art classes you can take in school as electives not anything special.

I'm not talking about the basics frankly you don't even need classes to understand the basics I knew already a lot of the basics that those classes where teaching me before hand the classes just elaborated it a bit.

And apparently you have never heard of people who play by ear or who just randomly have a natural knack for their instruments. Or they just have some inspiration or stimulation from outside but never have an actual teacher for every technical thing or learn to read music. A lot of them play just as good or better than someone classically trained people. Paul from the Beatles didn't read music, Yiannis Hrysomallis is a greek master pianist who can't read music and is self taught, Danny Elfman a famous composer and member of the band Oingo Boingo/The Mystic Knights only learned to read and compose music later in life, or Wes Montgomery a famous Jazz musician the list can go on.

Basic rules like the diaphragm thing can be ok or whatever but it's the things like you can't put that sharp or flat there, it's things that force you in to a one way of doing things attitude that I don't like. Because then you'll never know if you could make that work because you're so focused on can't. It wasn't tauight to play guitar with a violin bow but it happens and it can be done and can be nice. Again I also don't like that it promotes that just because others don't go through your training means they can't do what you do. And then get pissed off when someone untrained has a good sound and gets more attention than you do for it but you don't accept them as a "true" musician because they aren't technically correct or they can't read sheet music.

[Kaiser-chan]

ARTISToWRDS_PNTRoSTORIES

I know what they mean by it as the rest of the post said the guy just rubbed me the wrong way. But still I think there are in general rules that people develop weather on their own or from a teacher i.e shade, proportion, complementary color, texture etc. People shouldn't assume just cause people don't go to school they don't develop these things or at least some knowledge of them.

And I do think talent exists. I think things can be learned but natural talent makes things easier thats how you get people who have the same knowledge, practice, and training level but one of their pictures is better than the others. It's the same in just about anything some people have a natural talent for math or English opposed to others of the same training level.

I feel like most of the time the majority feels like if you haven't had a class or instructor there's no way you could know any of these things with out digging deep or trying really hard. It is hard but it's not that hard to get by with out classes you can still be aware of these concepts it's probably just not as scientifically picked apart.

For instance before I took a general art class I was already aware of how certain lines made me feel or how to use them to create a certain mood or effect i never questioned why that's just how it was. But the class just made the knowledge more solid it just added to something I already had. It helped me expand a bit but It's not like I took the class and everything was just so new like I was a blank slate.

It takes more than raw talent and intuition to figure out technique. People like the examples I linked previously, they're not just sitting down and drawing and letting the force guide them. They did thumbnails and master studies and read what experienced artists had to say about composition. They drew from life, photos, and anatomy charts to build a mental visual library of how people look and move. They studied, and that's why it worked, not because they just had an art epiphany one day.

If you're studying by yourself, you're not raw talent. That's not unmolded genius - that's just learning by yourself. We're not arguing if it's possible to teach yourself technique from resources instead of a teacher. We're arguing because you're talking about someone who just knows what to do without study and works better because they haven't learned technique. That's not the same thing as teaching yourself foundation skills. If you've puzzled things out from studying resources on your own, cool - but that doesn't sound like what I've seen in your posts. You just seem to have understood concepts without any work, from the sound of it, which sounds suspiciously too-good-to-be-true.



You're pretty much saying you're better than 99% of the people here because you say so, based on a priority system you've devised. You've got no art posted, no serious training, and haven't really adequately described how you learned these concepts that you claim you grok. I have to say, it's just really hard to believe any of that when it's packaged that way. There's probably more than 5 threads a year just like this - and inevitably, the people insisting they're amazing turn out to draw at a generic and bad level. Personally if I declared myself a mystical art genius, I'd wave my beautiful artdick at everyone so they could understand the magnitude of who they were speaking to. And it's pretty hard to believe you're just too humble to wow us when you created a thread just to brag about how gifted you are.

[Friederich von Hass]

ARTISToWRDS_PNTRoSTORIES

DarkMalus

Have you ever even been to an art school, or taken an art class? I'm going to say no.

They're teaching you rules. Rules to guide you down the path, and once you know those rules you can bend them however you want. You have to first understand what makes art and the base foundation of it. Once you understand the rules then you can go crazy with it and no one will give a flying dilly about it. Look at Picasso. He KNEW the rules of art, he UNDERSTOOD those rules and once he fully understood them, then he did whatever he wanted.

Everything have to start out from a set of rules before you can go and make your own little art piece, or your own composition. Look at music. You have to first understand the basics of music (i.e know how to name the scales, play with your diaphragm, etc) before you can go and compose your own music piece. If you tried to compose a piece without fully grasping WHAT makes it, then you'll just come up with a jumbled mess of notes that no one would want to play. There are many, many, many scales in the music world. My private lesson teacher taught me how to play my instrument. Before I took lessons, I sounded horrible. Like, I sounded like a dying animal. He took me aside and slowly started teaching me the rules of music. He taught me how to name the scales, how to translate a bass clef into a treble clef. Every lesson he gave me a group of flats or sharps and he would make me name them. You don't just put in the flats or sharps anywhere on the bar. You put them in a certain order because the scales, known as the Circle of Fifths, revolve around the ordered set. Example: An A flat major has four flats: B flat, E flat, C flat and D flat. Translated into a minor, it is an F Minor. At first, this sounds useless, but it's not. It's helped me read ahead in music an be able to sort of anticipate what's going to come. He didn't tell me to play with my diaphragm because it would restrict my playing and, ohhhhh, he's just an evil man. No. He told me "Don't play with your lungs, play with your diaphgram" because it was 1) the correct way to play any instrument and 2) once mastered, it would open up new doorways for me to explore and have fun. These rules helped shape my music reading and my own style of playing. Without learning these rules, I would have sounded like just another horde of dying animals in my middle school band.

TL;DR= RULES ARE THERE FOR A REASON.

You know what they say about people who a**-u-me things.

Yes I have 3 as I mentioned 1 was art history the other was art appreciation the other was basic art. But like I said I don't really count those cause they where just normal art classes you can take in school as electives not anything special.

I'm not talking about the basics frankly you don't even need classes to understand the basics I knew already a lot of the basics that those classes where teaching me before hand the classes just elaborated it a bit.

And apparently you have never heard of people who play by ear or who just randomly have a natural knack for their instruments. Or they just have some inspiration or stimulation from outside but never have an actual teacher for every technical thing or learn to read music. A lot of them play just as good or better than someone classically trained people. Paul from the Beatles didn't read music, Yiannis Hrysomallis is a greek master pianist who can't read music and is self taught, Danny Elfman a famous composer and member of the band Oingo Boingo/The Mystic Knights only learned to read and compose music later in life, or Wes Montgomery a famous Jazz musician the list can go on.

Basic rules like the diaphragm thing can be ok or whatever but it's the things like you can't put that sharp or flat there, it's things that force you in to a one way of doing things attitude that I don't like. Because then you'll never know if you could make that work because you're so focused on can't. It wasn't tauight to play guitar with a violin bow but it happens and it can be done and can be nice. Again I also don't like that it promotes that just because others don't go through your training means they can't do what you do. And then get pissed off when someone untrained has a good sound and gets more attention than you do for it but you don't accept them as a "true" musician because they aren't technically correct or they can't read sheet music.

Here, the problem with not doing certain things has to do with what you are trying to express. If you don't care what you're trying to express in art, then fine. Go ahead and be an abstract artist if that will make you happy. But if you care about what you're expressing, and you want people to look at your drawing and know what they're looking at, then it does matter. There are basic ground rules for that because you are necessarily drawing from objects that are real and exist (or are perceived as such), and it is this same reality that everyone shares--the better you are at this, the better you are at convincing people they are seeing the same thing. I'm sorry to say it, but there are rules for that. Try drawing an apple that looks like an orange, and see how many people you can convince that it is an apple. You simply cannot draw something like an orange and tell people it's an apple, because they're just going to tell you it's an orange. And there are perfectly good reasons for that, namely that they have properties that serious artists study and learn about. So unless you want people to come back and tell you the joints on your characters are seriously twisted because you can't be bothered to look up the rules of human anatomy, you'd better study it.

[The Zorya]

ARTISToWRDS_PNTRoSTORIES

The Zorya

You can not expect to write a good novel without knowing your ABC. Same with drawing, no matter how much creative you are, you will not produce a good artwork without knowing your basics, and this is what you learn when you learn basics. It is your ABC.
In art schools and good art courses you first train your eye to actually see things the way they really are which actually free you from symbols forced upon you trough society. THEN you are able to stylize and break free and be creative. Take for example gesture drawing. You have under 5 minutes to catch whole human body. It is impossible to draw it exactly as it is, shading included. You pick by yourself which things are important and which you will note down, and this is what your style actually is.

Problem here is that people from start are not able to create valid concepts, trained or not, and it can be learned trough a tutor or with huge amount of personal effort.

What would a valid concept be?

I guess it's understandable for the very basics texture, shading, line, shape, form, proportion It's cool to be informed about stuff and know the concepts but I don't like the idea or feel of has to be done like this. I'm not saying that all people who go to former school develop this mindset but it feels like it takes them a while to warm up to other things. At least the younger the person is cause I know this type of thing happened more as I was younger and around younger artists than it does now that I'm older and around older artists.

Valid concepts - artwork that is actually aesthetically pleasing and is following/breaking objective standards that apply to art on purpose.

It does not have to be done like this, as I said, trough gesture drawing, you "loose" most of basics, but you break them on purpose, and not just like some shaman, dance and maybe coincidence occurs and rain falls, like person with no knowledge of the above might once make things look good, and if they want to do it again, they will either fail miserably or repeat the concept they know is already successful, not making anything fresh and interesting.
You make it sound as if art schools make people constantly do same old thing based on basics, enev though you deny that. But it is not true.

People get stuck in a route too easy, it is in human nature and it sneaks into our habits very cunning.
Thus, practicing almost daily, learning about world, thinking about it, enjoying observation (among other thing) will help your gray cells working and you won't have issues with route. Thing with art students on collages is that their program is very intensive and does not leave much free time for exercising the brain. Well, at least not here, we have no minors to attend, just what program says. It is not programs fault, but students for beeing stuck in a rout.

[DarkMalus]

You know, I had this whole paragraph written up, but I'm not going to put it up, because it would be a waste of time. This is like beating a brick wall. Guys, let her a**-pat herself that she's a sphesul snowflake and her natural talent is "God's gift to the World."
If she wants to be an abstract artist, then let her. One less competition in the art world, I say.
So, have fun with your logic and enjoy your day.

[Friederich von Hass]

DarkMalus

You know, I had this whole paragraph written up, but I'm not going to put it up, because it would be a waste of time. This is like beating a brick wall. Guys, let her a**-pat herself that she's a sphesul snowflake and her natural talent is "God's gift to the World."
If she wants to be an abstract artist, then let her. One less competition in the art world, I say.
So, have fun with your logic and enjoy your day.

True, but I tend to think threads like these exist for the benefit of everyone else.

So if you can't convince the OP, at least you might be able to convince anyone else who happens to be reading this thread.

[pocketable]

i dunno, i have been taking art classes for a long time and am now attending an art school, but i have never felt that being in classes has restricted my ability to find my own style. i'm sure that during my high school years there would have been material limitations or assignments that didn't allow for full experimentation, but that hasn't prevented me from developing into an innovative artist. if nothing else, it opened me up to unconventional methods of creation because i desired to break away from the traditional norm. i'd say i have "natural talent" when it comes to developing concepts, and that couldn't have come from the assignments i received in high school. being good on your own and being good on your own as a result of learning are going to be two completely different things, and i can definitely say that i respect the latter more than the former.

[Ulterior_Motives]

DarkMalus

You know, I had this whole paragraph written up, but Im not going to put it up, because it would be a waste of time. This is like beating a brick wall. Guys, let her a**-pat herself that shes a sphesul snowflake and her natural talent is Gods gift to the World.
If she wants to be an abstract artist, then let her. One less competition in the art world, I say.
So, have fun with your logic and enjoy your day.

My problem, as a classically trained artist who is currently working abstractly, is that people like this give those of us who know what were doing, and can talk about it in an intelligent, non-flowery manner, a bad rep. I painted photo realistically for years, and only recently have branched into abstraction, and I vouch that my classical training and rules have made it so much easier to rewrite them for my own goals and concepts.

[StarMasayume]

I think natural talent is important, but everyone is different and requires different things. I don't believe an expensive art school is necessary for everyone but some education in art can be very valuable along the way for an artist who is serious or wants to improve.

I've drawn all my life almost. Though I'm afraid I'm getting lazy now I'm 26 with a part time graphics job, I'd still like to keep going with my art. I love creating something I enjoy and others may as well, and also love DA and artist alley at anime conventions. I'd say in the 14-20 age range were years when I really actively studied art books, tutorials online, whether for coloring or anatomy or such. Heck just drawing so many gaia commissions in a few years and having the influence of so many talented artists really jumped me up to be a better artist.

So I can't really say that not learning good techniques and concepts are a bad thing at younger ages. You can be free to draw whatever and however you want. But if you're know you're bad at hands or shading, if you don't have the benefit of a teacher, study art books and practice a lot.

I stressed out for a long time wishing to go to a private art school. Would I enjoy it? Yes. Would I improve my art? Yes. Was it worth 30k-60k grand to me? Not really.

I already had my AA degree through a community college (the two art classes I found there were disappointing). But I really lucked out when people kept recommending a really great art teacher who did a two year commercial art class at a local vocation/tech school. Yes I understood a lot of concepts of things already, but I got pushed a lot and got to do things I never would have normally done. I never felt restricted by the assignments either even though my personal art is anime style, just because I could always find some way to enjoy the assignment.

I don't think every artist has to go to a fancy art school to improve themselves or get better, but I do believe it can be a good push to improve and try new things and can benefit some individuals more than others.

[The Savage Beauty]

DarkMalus

You know, I had this whole paragraph written up, but I'm not going to put it up, because it would be a waste of time. This is like beating a brick wall. Guys, let her a**-pat herself that she's a sphesul snowflake and her natural talent is "God's gift to the World."
If she wants to be an abstract artist, then let her. One less competition in the art world, I say.
So, have fun with your logic and enjoy your day.

The whole point of this forum is to discuss art-related things. It's not about forcing every single person to believe the exact same things. That would make for pretty boring discussions, don't you think? If everyone felt the same way about everything? Even if the person you are disussing with doesn't see your point of view, there are others who may be swayed or inclined to agree simply by reading the dialogue between the two of you (or however many people there are involved in the discussion). Unless the person is being purposefully disrespectful and/or inflammatory, I wouldn't see it as a waste of time. It's about discussing, not convincing. Not everyone is going to change their opinions on a given subject, even if you have mountains of proof and examples of why their opinion or viewpoint is flawed. You just have to put your own thoughts out there and allow them (and others) to take from it what they can. They might not understand where you are coming from now, but they may pick up on it further down the line. And if they don't, it's likely that someone else will.


Also, as Ulterior said, it's pretty absurd to imply that abstract art is somehow a lesser art form. Good abstract art requires the same amount of skill and competency as good any-other-branch-of-art. It just focuses on different things and requires a different approach. I'm absolute rubbish at abstract and non-representational work because I have very little understanding of art as a whole. I do not know precisely what makes an abstract piece good (I haven't taken the time to look into or study that yet), but I have seen a lot of abstract work that far exceeded many of the non-abstract works that I am fond of (in both skill and aesthetic appeal). In general, I am not a huge fan of abstract — but I can't ignore how powerful and effective good abstract work can be.

I think people use 'abstract' as an insult or excuse far too often.

[The Savage Beauty]

I think the main misunderstanding here is that you seem to believe that art schools teach you to remain in one style of art and only do things one way. Honestly, I've never even heard of an art school that does that, so I'm not sure where you got that notion.

What you are taught in art school is not a style; it is a foundation. It's not meant to be restricting; it's meant to be liberating. A lot of people tend to restrict themselves to what works and what they are good at; art education forces you to go outside of your "comfort zone" and delve into and improve in areas that you might not have even known existed.

You don't have to worry about your personal style or creativity being snuffed out or corrupted by "rules" because everything is there to benefit you, as an artist. Everything that is mandatory in art schools is there to enhance and improve your own artwork. It's there to help you understand which direction you'd like to take your work, and to help you learn how best to accomplish whatever it is you are trying to accomplish. It's there to help you better communicate your ideas, and to help you better communicate with other artists (after all, how are you going to speak with another artist about your work if you don't understand the jargon that they're using?).



What I've noticed with "self-taught" artists versus "formally educated" artists is that the self-taught seem to find a niche to confine themselves to, and those with formal education seem to be more well-rounded. The self-taught will often focus on one area and work to improve only in that one area. They will find a style or a way of doing things and avoid deviating from it. It gets to a point where their work becomes repetitive and lifeless because they are just following a set of steps that they've taught themselves and "perfected" over the years. The formally educated, however, tend to focus on expanding and improving overall. They may find styles that they prefer and use frequently, but that doesn't stop them from trying out new styles, techniques, and approaches, and being in a continuous state of learning.

So where self-taught artists tend to stagnate, formally educated artists tend to continue growing. Of course, that's not to say this is true 100% of the time. There are a lot of artists with formal education who get stuck and refuse to expand beyond their "style", just as there are plenty of artists who are self-taught and continue to learn, experiment, and expand upon their skills.

Most people though, do not have the dedication and drive to teach themselves. Not only that, but there is so much involved in becoming a well-rounded and impressive artist that it's possible for those that are teaching themselves to completely overlook something, simply because they didn't know it existed or didn't understand its importance. Teaching yourself is like trying to find your way through a maze in the dark, whereas being taught by professionals is like trying to find your way through a maze in broad daylight (with a map ... and a motorcycle). You can reach the "end" of the maze both ways, but one route is a little more efficient in that you will acquire the same amount of (or perhaps more) knowledge, but in a more direct and (often) quicker way. The problem with stumbling around in the dark is that you may think you've explored every nook and cranny of the maze and that you've reached the end and claimed your sweet, sweet victory — when in fact there could be a large portion of the maze that you've left entirely unexplored (and how would you know, if you don't have a map or any kind of illumination?).

[Friederich von Hass]

The Savage Beauty

I think the main misunderstanding here is that you seem to believe that art schools teach you to remain in one style of art and only do things one way. Honestly, I've never even heard of an art school that does that, so I'm not sure where you got that notion.

What you are taught in art school is not a style; it is a foundation. It's not meant to be restricting; it's meant to be liberating. A lot of people tend to restrict themselves to what works and what they are good at; art education forces you to go outside of your "comfort zone" and delve into and improve in areas that you might not have even known existed.

You don't have to worry about your personal style or creativity being snuffed out or corrupted by "rules" because everything is there to benefit you, as an artist. Everything that is mandatory in art schools is there to enhance and improve your own artwork. It's there to help you understand which direction you'd like to take your work, and to help you learn how best to accomplish whatever it is you are trying to accomplish. It's there to help you better communicate your ideas, and to help you better communicate with other artists (after all, how are you going to speak with another artist about your work if you don't understand the jargon that they're using?).



What I've noticed with "self-taught" artists versus "formally educated" artists is that the self-taught seem to find a niche to confine themselves to, and those with formal education seem to be more well-rounded. The self-taught will often focus on one area and work to improve only in that one area. They will find a style or a way of doing things and avoid deviating from it. It gets to a point where their work becomes repetitive and lifeless because they are just following a set of steps that they've taught themselves and "perfected" over the years. The formally educated, however, tend to focus on expanding and improving overall. They may find styles that they prefer and use frequently, but that doesn't stop them from trying out new styles, techniques, and approaches, and being in a continuous state of learning.

So where self-taught artists tend to stagnate, formally educated artists tend to continue growing. Of course, that's not to say this is true 100% of the time. There are a lot of artists with formal education who get stuck and refuse to expand beyond their "style", just as there are plenty of artists who are self-taught and continue to learn, experiment, and expand upon their skills.

Most people though, do not have the dedication and drive to teach themselves. Not only that, but there is so much involved in becoming a well-rounded and impressive artist that it's possible for those that are teaching themselves to completely overlook something, simply because they didn't know it existed or didn't understand its importance. Teaching yourself is like trying to find your way through a maze in the dark, whereas being taught by professionals is like trying to find your way through a maze in broad daylight (with a map ... and a motorcycle). You can reach the "end" of the maze both ways, but one route is a little more efficient in that you will acquire the same amount of (or perhaps more) knowledge, but in a more direct and (often) quicker way. The problem with stumbling around in the dark is that you may think you've explored every nook and cranny of the maze and that you've reached the end and claimed your sweet, sweet victory — when in fact there could be a large portion of the maze that you've left entirely unexplored (and how would you know, if you don't have a map or any kind of illumination?).

Ja, I actually consider myself one of those self-taught artists, but then that's probably also because I'm hugely a DIY type, autodidactic person in general. I think it has more to do with mentality if you are self-taught; I understand that art school forces you to look into things you wouldn't be interested in doing because let's face it; if art wasn't a career for you, and it's just something you treat as a hobby, you would, of course, only be interested in drawing stuff that you like, and that's the direction you're going to be taking with your art. Of course you can still get better, but that's the difference between art is strictly for fun, and art is for fun, but I still want to get better at it, so I'm at least somewhat serious.
And art school isn't cheap. I think some of the self taught people who are serious about it will most likely find some way to learn it properly by hanging out on websites like ConceptArt.org, going to art meet-ups, buying or reading proper art books (I don't mean those how to draw manga books, something like Loomis or even Betty Edward's book), and making friends with people who have gone to art school.
And some people like me eventually get bored of drawing the same stuff, so we look towards drawing different things. I used to draw a lot of bishi guys when I was younger, but that quickly got boring. I wasn't great at it, but it stopped being exciting, so I looked to drawing older guys, and more muscular characters because they had a lot of details, and it's hard to get them right unless you know what they're doing. Which meant I had to care about details like anatomy, lighting, perspective, etc.
And now I also occasionally draw women and monsters too.

[Friederich von Hass]

The Savage Beauty

DarkMalus

You know, I had this whole paragraph written up, but I'm not going to put it up, because it would be a waste of time. This is like beating a brick wall. Guys, let her a**-pat herself that she's a sphesul snowflake and her natural talent is "God's gift to the World."
If she wants to be an abstract artist, then let her. One less competition in the art world, I say.
So, have fun with your logic and enjoy your day.

The whole point of this forum is to discuss art-related things. It's not about forcing every single person to believe the exact same things. That would make for pretty boring discussions, don't you think? If everyone felt the same way about everything? Even if the person you are disussing with doesn't see your point of view, there are others who may be swayed or inclined to agree simply by reading the dialogue between the two of you (or however many people there are involved in the discussion). Unless the person is being purposefully disrespectful and/or inflammatory, I wouldn't see it as a waste of time. It's about discussing, not convincing. Not everyone is going to change their opinions on a given subject, even if you have mountains of proof and examples of why their opinion or viewpoint is flawed. You just have to put your own thoughts out there and allow them (and others) to take from it what they can. They might not understand where you are coming from now, but they may pick up on it further down the line. And if they don't, it's likely that someone else will.


Also, as Ulterior said, it's pretty absurd to imply that abstract art is somehow a lesser art form. Good abstract art requires the same amount of skill and competency as good any-other-branch-of-art. It just focuses on different things and requires a different approach. I'm absolute rubbish at abstract and non-representational work because I have very little understanding of art as a whole. I do not know precisely what makes an abstract piece good (I haven't taken the time to look into or study that yet), but I have seen a lot of abstract work that far exceeded many of the non-abstract works that I am fond of (in both skill and aesthetic appeal). In general, I am not a huge fan of abstract — but I can't ignore how powerful and effective good abstract work can be.

I think people use 'abstract' as an insult or excuse far too often.

I think the reason for this is simply a lack of appreciation for abstract art (myself included). Especially since most of the time, on places like this, people are more in the interest of expressing ideas which can be illustrated through concrete objects that actually look like something rather than anything. So if people are too lazy or arrogant to bother with going through studying the properties of the things they want to draw, then I'm sorry to say, but not expressing yourself by drawing stuff that people can interpret how they want is probably a better fit. I'm not claiming I know what's involved in abstract art, but it's certainly not all the stuff you're studying so that you can depict things that are real and exist or are perceived as such; that's obviously not what abstract art is about.

[Valtiel the Watcher]

The thing art school will help with is first, get you to try things you may not have thought of on your own and second understand the standards of art in a professional environment.