4 ms·

This story illustrates two things that invalidate a lot of excuses. 1. It's probably not too late to start a new skill. 2. For digital drawing/painting in par

This story illustrates two things that invalidate a lot of excuses. 1. It's probably not too late to start a new skill. 2. For digital drawing/painting in particular, the tools probably aren't as important as most people think. (Though to say they're not important would be lying. Bad tools shorten your life.)

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
- unimpressive 13y ago
  I'm not really sure what you're saying with this. Do you mean that they're worthless because he could have done so much better? Or that the methods are worthless because they won't translate to other programs? Or do you literally mean that they're worthless because they were done in MS paint? EDIT: Ah, your edit clarified. Yes, you want to move away from bad tools ASAP. Which means that nobody here should be using MS paint when Gimp, Paint.net, Krita and others are available free of charge.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
    - eksith 13y ago
      They're both limiting media; the only variant here is degree. The Excel artist prints at a higher resolution... and that's about the only difference really. This is contradictory to your original assertion that it was "worthless" because of the technique used. The method used is interesting, but art doesn't have to have a higher resolution to be enjoyable. I mean this is in a museum for crying out loud : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Malevich.black-square.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Malevich.black-square.jpg Quality of the lines, the resolution, the medium are all irrelevant when art considered on an individual basis and not comparatively. For the record, I feel like creating my own piece. Not in Paint, but with snips of fabric, paper and glue. It will be a lot of effort, but that effort will be fulfilling. Maybe that's another reason why I appreciate this. There's effort involved that aren't necessary. But then most of Pollock's work is just splatters of paint without "passion" isn't? Edit: Arrrgh! I hate it when people delete posts. Now I don't remember what the hell I was replying to or what arguments were made.
      - stan_rogers 13y ago
        Actually, I think Pollock's work is more the other way around — the pieces are the remnant of a bit of performance art the viewer never got to see. While I'm not in any sense a fan of the work aesthetically, it feels even more of a cheat since the process was what was important, not the product. Neither do I particularly care what sort of anguish Mark Rothko may have been feeling when he put a black border around a yellow rectangle — however poetic his intent may have been, he had a piss-poor way of expressing himself. At least the Warhols and Lichtensteins of the period were authentic: they were unashamedly in it for the fame and the bucks.
- eksith 13y ago
  How someone looks at a beautiful piece of art (regardless of whether it's done in Paint, Photoshop or yak dung) and claim "the examples shown have 0 value of any kind" without the age, software and year prefix, is beyond me. I'd love to have the forest paint in particular in my living room. Edit: And you've heavily edited your original post to the point it has completely lost its original context. As I recall, what you originally wrote left no room for "misinterpretation" or else that's rather like claiming you intended to fly to Canada and bought a plane ticket to Russia.
  - rlt3 13y ago
    Pieces like these (and others, like a 5 year old's painting) can have monetary value. People might place value on its level of enjoyment, such as yourself. But artistically, you'd be hard pressed to find any value in this due to its only merit being "made in Windows 95 in 2013" or "made by a 7 year old" or whatever. Typically, intentionally doing work in a difficult manner for the sake of making it hard on yourself isn't rewarded because it doesn't really add anything. This piece isn't made better because it was made in Windows 95 and Paint, yet that's the only reason why we're talking about it.
    - vacri 13y ago
      How something is made can be a significant part of the price. I remember a report on a painting that was unsigned. Experts were divided on who had painted it. I can't recall the painter's name, but if it was him, the painting was worth $200k. If it was one of his students, as half the experts thought, it was worth $2k. Same painting - only thing different is the 'metadata' for who made it, which made up literally 99% of the value. Similarly, there is art out there where an aficionado knows how difficult it is to do and hence will pay more for it, where a layperson will say "what crap" and refuse it. The story of a piece often has value over and above the piece itself - and making something to a certain level of quality while using inferior tools can be a valid part of that story.
      - rlt3 13y ago
        Typically, extra labor -- that is rewarded -- for an art piece is going to be something that is pertinent for some common end. Using Windows 95 to paint something doesn't add anything to the end of a piece. Using marble and creating a structure that looks like a fluid river (or flowing something) adds value to the piece even though it was hard. Using marble, period, adds value simply because the work is in marble (monetary value) and represents a skill that you can produce works of art in marble. Using Windows 95 means you can use dated technology to produce literally the same thing that Photoshop CS6 could product (most likely in less time): a JPG. It literally is the same difference as painting a scene with your hands, and then doing it with your feet. Nothing was added and the work is no different, but you did it with your feet.
- stfu 13y ago
  But this argument is like telling painters they produce stuff of no value because they could just take a photograph. Or use a painting effect if they insist on the style. Art has often a self-limiting aspect that makes it beautiful.
  - GhotiFish 13y ago
    Is it not fair to judge a piece of art without its context? In my opinion it isn't.
    - alan_cx 13y ago
      Yeah, art, IMHO, is all about context. In some cases, the actual piece of art, or perceived quality, is irrelevant. Cave paintings can be said to be rubbish art. Any one going to claim they have no relevance or value? With out context, to me, art is just a picture.
- mynameishere 13y ago
  if he had spent 5 months on photoshop Or acrylics. I'm pretty sure everyone involved was aware of acrylics and he was really just using MS Paint as a pastime. Chill.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- npalli 13y ago
  Well, he is doing pointillism. How is that going to be better in Photoshop? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointillism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointillism
  - rdtsc 13y ago
    Apply a filter. There is a Photoshop filter for it, I am pretty sure. Which again brings us to a discussion point. Would that be art? What if this man spend time building a Photoshop filter and starting applying the "pointillism" filter to random images. What if he wrote a script scraped the web, applied the filter and then published it out in his image archive. Would that be impressive? Would we have heard about him?
    - jussij 13y ago
      > There is a Photoshop filter for it, I am pretty sure In other words find a shortcut. I would say when it comes to art, shortcuts are not the best approach. Anyone could use that Photoshop filter, but it takes real skill to do it by hand.
    - npalli 13y ago
      That's not what he is doing though. He is actually manipulating the pixels, applying the filter will not give him any control over the pixels. He wants to do pointillism, not achieve a pointillism-like effect on a regular painting.
      - rdtsc 13y ago
        I was being sarcastic.
    - alan_cx 13y ago
      Would you walk up to some one painting, and tell then to get someone else to do it?
      - rdtsc 13y ago
- rdtsc 13y ago
  >On the other hand, if he had spent 5 months on photoshop at any point in the past 20 years, On yet another (third) hand maybe not. It is like saying. "Yeah look he can bike 100 miles _but_ just imagine if he had his drivers' license, he could have driven 2000 miles!". Yeah maybe he could. But it wouldn't be the same story. > The art is (would be) much better, and useful without the story. Not matter how much we try it is always tied to the creator. The same doodle can be made by me, but if an elephant does it OMG it is amazing, sell it for $200k! If you don't see the creator or know how they are, it is tied indirectly to them via understanding of the work went into it. For example, maybe I don't know the name but if someone shows me a a large pointillist painting it will be impressive and the work put into it is part of it.
- woofyman 13y ago
  I think they're beautiful. Very 50s illustration in style.
- unimpressive 13y ago
  >For "2. For digital drawing/painting in particular, the tools probably aren't as important as most people think." I said this wrong. If you want to get into digital drawing/painting, the tools probably aren't important enough that you'll fail without them.
toble 13y ago
Older tools can be liberating because you have to work within their modest set of features. Choice isn't always a good thing etc.
- deadfall 13y ago
  This is true. I am not expert in PS, so when I use it I basically only use the basic tools that MS paint provide. Unless I use the auto blend feature which is a fantastic. I think some of this art would be great backgrounds for indie pixel games.
- woofyman 13y ago
  Having a limited set of tools forces me to be more creative. When I only had simple monophonic synthesizers, the results were much better than with the nearly unlimited sounds at my disposal now.
  - keithpeter 13y ago
    I take your point, however, have you considered simulating a simple analogue synthesiser in something like PD?
chestnut-tree 13y ago
"For digital drawing/painting in particular, the tools probably aren't as important as most people think" I agree, there's a lot of longevity and capability in older software. Watching this MS Paint video makes me realise we're too quick to dismiss software as outdated or inadequate. This story reminded me of another artist: an illustrator called Bob Staake who uses Photoshop 3 and a mouse to create his illustrations. He has a series of short videos on his website showing his process http://www.bobstaake.com/pixfix/films.shtml http://www.bobstaake.com/pixfix/films.shtml

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

unimpressive 13y ago
I'm not really sure what you're saying with this. Do you mean that they're worthless because he could have done so much better? Or that the methods are worthless because they won't translate to other programs? Or do you literally mean that they're worthless because they were done in MS paint? EDIT: Ah, your edit clarified. Yes, you want to move away from bad tools ASAP. Which means that nobody here should be using MS paint when Gimp, Paint.net, Krita and others are available free of charge.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
  - eksith 13y ago
    They're both limiting media; the only variant here is degree. The Excel artist prints at a higher resolution... and that's about the only difference really. This is contradictory to your original assertion that it was "worthless" because of the technique used. The method used is interesting, but art doesn't have to have a higher resolution to be enjoyable. I mean this is in a museum for crying out loud : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Malevich.black-square.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Malevich.black-square.jpg Quality of the lines, the resolution, the medium are all irrelevant when art considered on an individual basis and not comparatively. For the record, I feel like creating my own piece. Not in Paint, but with snips of fabric, paper and glue. It will be a lot of effort, but that effort will be fulfilling. Maybe that's another reason why I appreciate this. There's effort involved that aren't necessary. But then most of Pollock's work is just splatters of paint without "passion" isn't? Edit: Arrrgh! I hate it when people delete posts. Now I don't remember what the hell I was replying to or what arguments were made.
    - stan_rogers 13y ago
      Actually, I think Pollock's work is more the other way around — the pieces are the remnant of a bit of performance art the viewer never got to see. While I'm not in any sense a fan of the work aesthetically, it feels even more of a cheat since the process was what was important, not the product. Neither do I particularly care what sort of anguish Mark Rothko may have been feeling when he put a black border around a yellow rectangle — however poetic his intent may have been, he had a piss-poor way of expressing himself. At least the Warhols and Lichtensteins of the period were authentic: they were unashamedly in it for the fame and the bucks.
eksith 13y ago
How someone looks at a beautiful piece of art (regardless of whether it's done in Paint, Photoshop or yak dung) and claim "the examples shown have 0 value of any kind" without the age, software and year prefix, is beyond me. I'd love to have the forest paint in particular in my living room. Edit: And you've heavily edited your original post to the point it has completely lost its original context. As I recall, what you originally wrote left no room for "misinterpretation" or else that's rather like claiming you intended to fly to Canada and bought a plane ticket to Russia.
- rlt3 13y ago
  Pieces like these (and others, like a 5 year old's painting) can have monetary value. People might place value on its level of enjoyment, such as yourself. But artistically, you'd be hard pressed to find any value in this due to its only merit being "made in Windows 95 in 2013" or "made by a 7 year old" or whatever. Typically, intentionally doing work in a difficult manner for the sake of making it hard on yourself isn't rewarded because it doesn't really add anything. This piece isn't made better because it was made in Windows 95 and Paint, yet that's the only reason why we're talking about it.
  - vacri 13y ago
    How something is made can be a significant part of the price. I remember a report on a painting that was unsigned. Experts were divided on who had painted it. I can't recall the painter's name, but if it was him, the painting was worth $200k. If it was one of his students, as half the experts thought, it was worth $2k. Same painting - only thing different is the 'metadata' for who made it, which made up literally 99% of the value. Similarly, there is art out there where an aficionado knows how difficult it is to do and hence will pay more for it, where a layperson will say "what crap" and refuse it. The story of a piece often has value over and above the piece itself - and making something to a certain level of quality while using inferior tools can be a valid part of that story.
    - rlt3 13y ago
      Typically, extra labor -- that is rewarded -- for an art piece is going to be something that is pertinent for some common end. Using Windows 95 to paint something doesn't add anything to the end of a piece. Using marble and creating a structure that looks like a fluid river (or flowing something) adds value to the piece even though it was hard. Using marble, period, adds value simply because the work is in marble (monetary value) and represents a skill that you can produce works of art in marble. Using Windows 95 means you can use dated technology to produce literally the same thing that Photoshop CS6 could product (most likely in less time): a JPG. It literally is the same difference as painting a scene with your hands, and then doing it with your feet. Nothing was added and the work is no different, but you did it with your feet.
stfu 13y ago
But this argument is like telling painters they produce stuff of no value because they could just take a photograph. Or use a painting effect if they insist on the style. Art has often a self-limiting aspect that makes it beautiful.
- GhotiFish 13y ago
  Is it not fair to judge a piece of art without its context? In my opinion it isn't.
  - alan_cx 13y ago
    Yeah, art, IMHO, is all about context. In some cases, the actual piece of art, or perceived quality, is irrelevant. Cave paintings can be said to be rubbish art. Any one going to claim they have no relevance or value? With out context, to me, art is just a picture.
mynameishere 13y ago
if he had spent 5 months on photoshop Or acrylics. I'm pretty sure everyone involved was aware of acrylics and he was really just using MS Paint as a pastime. Chill.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
npalli 13y ago
Well, he is doing pointillism. How is that going to be better in Photoshop? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointillism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointillism
- rdtsc 13y ago
  Apply a filter. There is a Photoshop filter for it, I am pretty sure. Which again brings us to a discussion point. Would that be art? What if this man spend time building a Photoshop filter and starting applying the "pointillism" filter to random images. What if he wrote a script scraped the web, applied the filter and then published it out in his image archive. Would that be impressive? Would we have heard about him?
  - jussij 13y ago
    > There is a Photoshop filter for it, I am pretty sure In other words find a shortcut. I would say when it comes to art, shortcuts are not the best approach. Anyone could use that Photoshop filter, but it takes real skill to do it by hand.
  - npalli 13y ago
    That's not what he is doing though. He is actually manipulating the pixels, applying the filter will not give him any control over the pixels. He wants to do pointillism, not achieve a pointillism-like effect on a regular painting.
    - rdtsc 13y ago
      I was being sarcastic.
  - alan_cx 13y ago
    Would you walk up to some one painting, and tell then to get someone else to do it?
    - rdtsc 13y ago
rdtsc 13y ago
>On the other hand, if he had spent 5 months on photoshop at any point in the past 20 years, On yet another (third) hand maybe not. It is like saying. "Yeah look he can bike 100 miles _but_ just imagine if he had his drivers' license, he could have driven 2000 miles!". Yeah maybe he could. But it wouldn't be the same story. > The art is (would be) much better, and useful without the story. Not matter how much we try it is always tied to the creator. The same doodle can be made by me, but if an elephant does it OMG it is amazing, sell it for $200k! If you don't see the creator or know how they are, it is tied indirectly to them via understanding of the work went into it. For example, maybe I don't know the name but if someone shows me a a large pointillist painting it will be impressive and the work put into it is part of it.
woofyman 13y ago
I think they're beautiful. Very 50s illustration in style.
unimpressive 13y ago
>For "2. For digital drawing/painting in particular, the tools probably aren't as important as most people think." I said this wrong. If you want to get into digital drawing/painting, the tools probably aren't important enough that you'll fail without them.

toble 13y ago

Older tools can be liberating because you have to work within their modest set of features. Choice isn't always a good thing etc.

deadfall 13y ago
This is true. I am not expert in PS, so when I use it I basically only use the basic tools that MS paint provide. Unless I use the auto blend feature which is a fantastic. I think some of this art would be great backgrounds for indie pixel games.
woofyman 13y ago
Having a limited set of tools forces me to be more creative. When I only had simple monophonic synthesizers, the results were much better than with the nearly unlimited sounds at my disposal now.
- keithpeter 13y ago
  I take your point, however, have you considered simulating a simple analogue synthesiser in something like PD?

chestnut-tree 13y ago

"For digital drawing/painting in particular, the tools probably aren't as important as most people think" I agree, there's a lot of longevity and capability in older software. Watching this MS Paint video makes me realise we're too quick to dismiss software as outdated or inadequate. This story reminded me of another artist: an illustrator called Bob Staake who uses Photoshop 3 and a mouse to create his illustrations. He has a series of short videos on his website showing his process http://www.bobstaake.com/pixfix/films.shtml http://www.bobstaake.com/pixfix/films.shtml