I was wondering a while ago how to receive advanced comments and critique. And also how to give those little diamonds, which so greatly help artists to develop themselves. It's hard to try to remember, while commenting, that maybe the artist would like to hear something else than 'I really love your style!'. The first thing I think about that comment is: ok, so you love my style, why?
Flattering words or negative comments can be as much irritating as getting no comment from your friend in irl. To me, giving advanced comments and critique means that I say the positive, negative and also neutral things that comes in my mind when I see the artwork. Often in the internet I leave out the negative and neutral, because I'm a bit afraid I might offend the artist. Writing the critique does always take away the voice that explains a lot of little nuances. Also, English is not my national language so I still might write sentences that contains wrong kind of nuances.
My friend tried to explain to me how hard it really is to give critique and comments. It opened my mind to a whole new thing which I haven't thought about at all. I have an art education so I know the terms and because I have had to critique my friends work over and over again (which is really a good thing to me!). I also talk a lot with fellow students a lot and tell what we think about each others works, sometimes really frankly. And it helps us to create better and better art. But he doesn't have the education or the intrest to talk about art so deeply we do, either he likes the art or not. And the most importantly, he had not needed to give comments or critique.
So what happens when I show him the work and tell him to say what he thinks?
Well, he tries to be polite: 'I like it, it's really nice.'
So my next question is: Now tell me more, what do you like about it? The composition, colours? Maybe the theme is near your heart? I also tell him that there is no need to be polite, I can't expect that all the people in the world loves my works! So he tries to think about why he likes it, or does he really like it at all. In time, because I was asking a lot of questions, he learned to know not to say only 'nice' but 'nice, I like the way... but I hate the way...'
Giving an advanced critique is a skill that needs to be learned. And that my friend teached to me. I've learned to comment and give critique from artschool, thing that I didn't thought at all. It was not written in my timetable "Today we learn how to give good critique!" It sort of came along the way, without me being noticing. And I'm still learning. Here in the internet I too often go back to the positive and polite 'great style' commenting. I need to get away with that and get some real information to my comments and critique. Though sometimes all you really have to say is that irritating 'Omg, I love this piece!'
Commenting and giving critique is all about learning the skill and knowing the little nuances of written language.
p.s.
For the typos you can blame me, I'm lazy with my english dictionary. Hope that these thoughts gave something for you to think or comment.
C&c very welcome.
Artist
Comments
See with me, I haven't had that opportunity to go to art school and get well-thought-out critiques from my peers or teachers. I just had highschool, where I was one of the best in the class, and nobody had anything negative to say about my work.
Now sometimes I feel like I'm still doing the same quality stuff as in highschool... 3 years later.
I feel like I can give good critiques though, mostly because the kids in school always wanted them from me, and I'm good at tact and really into art terms (like movement and balance)... And on the internet I always try to say why I like a piece. Sometimes to a stranger I do say something negative,,, sandwiched between two positives. Like, "I am crazy about the movement in this piece! But his stiff posture ruins it for me. If he echoed the amazing fluidity of the piece it'd be over-the-top!"
Something like that.