Critique Guidelines

Unfortunately, many beginning artist let their fear of making errors prevent them from creating anything at all. Don't stop before you start. Get your work out there so people can look at it, give you some advice, and you can get some critiques.

How does one begin a critique? Unfortunately, there are no formulas. You may want to identify the three components of the work (subject, form, and content), evaluate them separately, and then examine how they work together as a whole. Analysis may seem awkward in the beginning, but asking some of the following questions may help.

• What area feels most successful and why?
• What areas feel incomplete or troublesome, and what is the cause?
• How is the subject presented?
• Are there visual or symbolic metaphors that could have helped expand the rendering?
• If the rendering is nonobjective, what suggests the meaning?
• How are the elements used to support or destroy the rendering compositionally?
• Have the principles of organization been observed?
• What is the intention behind the rendering?
• What is being communicated - a feeling, and idea, a personal aesthetic?
• Is it too esoteric?
• Is it to obvious?
• Where does the rendering succeed in integrating these components, and where is it less successful?

You may want to begin with your own feelings about each issue but then ask yourself what sets up that response and how it could be altered. - are there other interpretations, viewpoints, or relationships that could have been present? As you become more skilled at analysis, you may find it becomes less necessary to consciously explore a list of questions. The most relevant may simply rise to the subconscious.

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