We Are All Artists

Posted: February 10th, 2011 | 21
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On Thursday I spoke with the ds106 face to face course
happening simultaneously at the University of Mary Washington. As this is my
first time participating in a MOOC it was a great honor and privilege to
get to interact a bit with those students and perhaps offer something
inspirational and challenging.                                                        http://www.timmmmyboy.com/2011/02/we-are-all artists/

After listening to Tim Owns linked Discussion of “We Are All Artist”, I’d have to agree right away with the title. I do believe we are all artists, in many ways. We all have a sense of creativity, style, and our own imagination of creative ideas. I do agree with Tim when he says “Creativity is not inherited”. Mainly because creativity is inside of us all, we just have to realize it.

Art is something that expresses our emotions, therefore it allows everyone to be an “Artist”. However it all comes down to Confidence. Many people believe that they are not true artists because they are not too confident in their work, or their creative beliefs. It was discussed at the end of the link that we are all in competition with each other. This is true, we all want to be the best at what we do. But when it comes to art, I feel as though how could there be any competition? We all have our own styles, and unique ideas, this is what makes art so fascinating. There is no right or wrong when it comes to art.

What makes your pictures, drawings, paintings, sketches, videos and so on, better than mine? What makes my work better than yours? The answer is absolutely nothing. My style may not be similar to another artists style, and that’s perfectly fine. Some people may be able to relate to certain styles of art weather it be based on colors or certain images etc. Then there are some that won’t be able to relate to certain styles, this doesn’t mean the work is bad, or good.

So we all need to be confident in our work. Without confidence comes excuses, as well as laziness. Too many people can relate to this problem, We have an idea of what we want to create, but then we tend to think too much about it. Our confidence starts out high, then we start to think is everyone else going to like it? Is it really that good of an idea? Should I actually waste my time attempting this? Do I have all the right tools to complete this project? On second thought, never mind I’ll just look into it later. Once that happens, our Artistic view is lost.

I really appreciated Tim’s sharing of all the tools that we can use to help motivate us. Like taking old pieces of work and making them new. As well as different free programs that can help us with our creativity, tools that are simple compared to the tough programs like “Photoshop” and so on. Tools like “Aviary Tools”, I never knew about this site until this discussion, I checked it out and I’m excited to explore it.

Overall, we are all Artists, we just need to pick up our cameras, pencils, paint brushes, canvas’, sketch books with confidence, and just express our emotions. All we can do is take it one idea at a time. “We Are All Artists”, we just have to realize it!

The World Is Full of Black & White. It's Up to Us to Find The Color In It. – Nick G