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I think the study and practice of fundamental techniques is directly tied to training your creative side. But they're also independent skills, in a sense. I see

I think the study and practice of fundamental techniques is directly tied to training your creative side. But they're also independent skills, in a sense. I see far too many young artists who focus solely on technique, at the detriment of their creativity. Classical atelier programs can train an individual to create astonishingly life-like representations... but too often lacking entirely in any sort of creativity. On the flip side, a lot of art schools have focused so much on creativity that they've lost their grounding in technique. So you get a lot of creatively profound but technically incompetent graduates. Neither are great options. But training technique and creativity together seems like a good choice. Only personal experience to share here, but I can comfortably say that as my technical skills increased, so too did my creativity. I was always worried as a kid that I wasn't "creative" enough to be a decent artist. But when I knew how to express ideas, for some reason I had an easier time coming up with those ideas in the first place.

hodwik2 10y ago
First hand, the atelier program can kill your joy. That said, knowing how to render is the only way to get any good at representational art.
rangibaby 10y ago
> But when I knew how to express ideas, for some reason I had an easier time coming up with those ideas in the first place. That's the rub, being creative is not worth much if you don't have the necessary skills and technique (practice practice practice!) to express yourself.
- Uhhrrr 10y ago
  It's another spin on "ideas are worthless" (http://paulgraham.com/ideas.html http://paulgraham.com/ideas.html)
- duncanawoods 10y ago
  I think this is less true than you think especially after seeing documentaries inside the world of many high-profile artists. In many real-world cases, creativity is closer to direction and composition than the nuts and bolts technique. This is especially true for works that grow in scale beyond a single practitioner. Modern artists have studios and contractors that actually do e.g. metal casting, modern musicians use engineers/producers to create the actual beats, a film score writer probably isn't a skilled trombonist etc. IMHO creativity is about decision making - its closer to "taste" and doesn't require skill to be a unique and special talent in itself. Its a bit like the Jobs/Woz divide.
  - theoh 10y ago
    > IMHO creativity is about decision making - its closer to "taste" and doesn't require skill to be a unique and special talent in itself. Its a bit like the Jobs/Woz divide. I think you're talking about something other than creativity. Architects are not bricklayers, that's the subject of the allographic/autographic distinction made by Nelson Goodman, but it really is orthogonal to creativity. Creativity is generally understood to be about fluency, flexibility and originality of ideas. (The Wikipedia page is pretty extensive.) Skill and taste are different and certainly do each contribute to the value of works of art, but not necessarily in a creative way. Like the work of a prolific artist in a busy studio full of assistants, cooking (for example) involves both skill and (literally) taste. Artists who work like that are actually precluded from certain types of creativity, by their own reputation and the expectations of their market, even if their work is selling well. Much like a chef. I think that's the problem with your notion of what creativity is. You are mistaking aesthetic productivity for originality and the other things that mark actual creativity.

hodwik2 10y ago

First hand, the atelier program can kill your joy. That said, knowing how to render is the only way to get any good at representational art.

rangibaby 10y ago

> But when I knew how to express ideas, for some reason I had an easier time coming up with those ideas in the first place. That's the rub, being creative is not worth much if you don't have the necessary skills and technique (practice practice practice!) to express yourself.

Uhhrrr 10y ago
It's another spin on "ideas are worthless" (http://paulgraham.com/ideas.html http://paulgraham.com/ideas.html)
duncanawoods 10y ago
I think this is less true than you think especially after seeing documentaries inside the world of many high-profile artists. In many real-world cases, creativity is closer to direction and composition than the nuts and bolts technique. This is especially true for works that grow in scale beyond a single practitioner. Modern artists have studios and contractors that actually do e.g. metal casting, modern musicians use engineers/producers to create the actual beats, a film score writer probably isn't a skilled trombonist etc. IMHO creativity is about decision making - its closer to "taste" and doesn't require skill to be a unique and special talent in itself. Its a bit like the Jobs/Woz divide.
- theoh 10y ago
  > IMHO creativity is about decision making - its closer to "taste" and doesn't require skill to be a unique and special talent in itself. Its a bit like the Jobs/Woz divide. I think you're talking about something other than creativity. Architects are not bricklayers, that's the subject of the allographic/autographic distinction made by Nelson Goodman, but it really is orthogonal to creativity. Creativity is generally understood to be about fluency, flexibility and originality of ideas. (The Wikipedia page is pretty extensive.) Skill and taste are different and certainly do each contribute to the value of works of art, but not necessarily in a creative way. Like the work of a prolific artist in a busy studio full of assistants, cooking (for example) involves both skill and (literally) taste. Artists who work like that are actually precluded from certain types of creativity, by their own reputation and the expectations of their market, even if their work is selling well. Much like a chef. I think that's the problem with your notion of what creativity is. You are mistaking aesthetic productivity for originality and the other things that mark actual creativity.