#how to talk about art

[alfalfascouting]

My Friend is an Amazing Artist and I Don't Know How to Talk About Art! 😰 Help??

No need to fear. Most of us art folk don't expect non-art folk to tell us that you can feel the echoes of impressionist thinking or that we have great economy of line. Some of us might not even know what to do with a statement like that. We just made something cool and we wanna share it with you.

So, if you're floundering trying to think of something to say, here's a buffet of examples for you. Some artists might like some of these more than others. You might like some of them more than others. They're food for thought; get thinking.

Talk about the Subject

And don't be afraid to state the obvious! We work hard to make the characters recognizable, to make the fabric look like it's caught in a breeze, to frame a city so that it looks alive. A great start is recognizing what you see.

Do you know the person, creature, place, or thing in the art?

"Hey, I remember you talking about him!"

"That's beautiful, what kind of bird is that?"

"That is the most haunted castle I've ever seen."

Do you know them REALLY well?

"Oh my god, that's my character! I love the way you did their hair!"

"That was one of my favorite places, growing up. I think you really got what I liked about it."

"I remember when that happened, in the story. When they were looking up through the fire and the clouds and it felt like they weren't going to make it, like... damn."

Is something happening in the art?

"Ough, that looks super painful."

"Wow, it's almost like she's flying. Like she could dance right off the paper."

"Now I know that when you said explosion, you meant literally all of it."

Attention to details

"Did you design this outfit for them? It looks awesome."

"It's so spiky. Menacing. Like it's really gonna eat you."

"I'm always amazed by how well you draw hands."

Talk about the Methods & Medium

You don't need to know fancy art words to do this. You just need to dig a little deeper into how they made it and how it turned out.

Recognizing style

"Your lines are always so smooth and graceful."

"The texture of this is really interesting, like waxy and crumbling..."

"I love the way your art is so bright and intense, all glitched out."

Some open-ended questions

"How do you get the colors to turn out this way?"

"You said you make these all out of found materials, so, how do you choose which ones to use?"

"How long does it take you to make these?"

"Did you do a lot of planning for this, or did you make it up as you went along? (And if planned, what do the plans look like?)"

"Can you tell me more about how you decided to make this? Were you inspired by anything?"

Talk about Your Experience

There's a reason we showed you, and it's usually because we thought you in particular would get something out of this artwork. So what are you getting?

How do you feel?

"Seeing them together makes me really happy. All is right with the world."

"I don't know what it is about it, but it feels really sharp, like it could burn me if I get too close."

"It looks so cold and quiet, like the middle of winter in the middle of nowhere."

"This is one of those feelings that you can't really describe in words, and I didn't think anybody would be able to put it down on paper, either, but you did it."

What are you thinking about?

"All those little things on the shelf make me think of traveling around the world and getting souvenirs from each place."

"I wish I could live in your fantasy forest."

"This makes me think of some of the dark times in my life, too. But I got through it. And we'll get through it."

"Honestly, your drawings of cats always make me want to go pick up my cat even though I just talked to her 2 minutes ago. They're that fluffy."

"Every time you send me one of these I just can't get over how incredible all of it is, and I want to point at every single thing and wave my arms around and babble nonsense until you understand just how excited I am that this is sitting in front of me right now and you made it."

In Conclusion

I found a lot of funny public domain pictures of people looking at (or pointing at) art and now that's your problem.

Also, feel free to share your own tips on talking about art for non-art people.

[yeepof]

I understand that tall men are our POV characters, but surely being like a foot taller than everyone around them would have some occasional consequences

[razzafrazzle]

Just Checking In! (aka Something About Red Triangles)

[cordspaghetti]

really factual recounting with no embellishments whatsoever

[shrubsparrow]

It's in the eye of the beholder

[mayhemchicken-artblog]

in the hour or so it took me to draw this op turned reblogs off

EDIT: reblogs are STAYING OFF. op was right and correct and i have never regretted making a post as much as this one. if you want to reblog my art you can reblog something else from my blog. or commission me, lord knows i deserve financial compensation for the nightmare this post has put me through

[hinamie]

morning glory

[lemongogo]

life of regret

[chimchiri]

gideon & harrow OR rd and sf as cowboys please please please

It's the cowgirl necro and her gunslinger cav! Who is so damn extra she's got three guns: one left, one right, and one in pole position! (She swears the ladies love it!)

[shigeoreum]

gender spock and the intrinsic sense of vulnerability in an exposed back

[me-beef]

@strangeravatar made a great point

i was gonna focus on the spike-hotboxing-celestia aspect but i got distracted somewhere along the way and i think i forgot what joke i was trying to make

but dont you think its interesting how many guards of the exact same color/body type she's managed to accrue?? i do

ooohh you want to go look at our stickers so bad

[lovelydeps]

Most informative danandphil video ever

[royaltea000]

“A thousand generations serve to praise…”

[evgar]

kiss of death

graphite and watercolors on paper

[plush-pigeon]

two prints. chickens made last month and an osprey made back in March.

i know they're really messy but like whatever

[demaparbat-hp]

*pats Zuko's head* This bad boy can fit so many near-death experiences.

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Read For the Spirits Chapter VIII here!