That time a teenager critiqued my digital painting and was right

I was at a local art meetup in Portland last year, showing off a fantasy landscape I'd spent about 20 hours on. A kid, maybe 16 years old, looked at it for a minute and said "the reflections on the water don't match the sky colors." I almost brushed him off since he was just a kid with a tablet, but I looked closer and he was absolutely correct. The sky was all warm sunset oranges but the water had these cool blue reflections I'd copied from a reference without thinking. I had to admit my colors were off and thanked him. He then pulled up his own work on his phone and showed me how he matches reflection hues layer by layer. It really made me rethink how I handle lighting in my pieces. Has anyone else had a younger artist teach them something unexpected?

2 comments

2 Comments

jadep4122d ago

Oh, this hits close to home for me... I had something similar happen at a workshop where a kid pointed out my shadows were all the same darkness even though some areas should have had softer edges. It stung a bit at first but he was totally right about atmospheric perspective and how things fade out in the distance. Made me slow down and actually look at how light behaves instead of just guessing.

river_rivera4521d ago

Had a buddy who went through almost the same thing at a life drawing class. A guy in the back just goes "your shadows look like black paint slopped on." Harsh way to say it but he actually improved way faster after that. Kids and random strangers really don't hold back huh.