How has deviantART helped you grow as an individual and/or as an artist?
My first deviation posted to this site was on September 3, 2007.
Not a very good one, to be honest. At the time, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with art. As it says in my artists comments from 7 years ago: "I drew this on flash. I am not the greatest artist, but I can kinda draw. I prefer to write, but I appreciate incredible art". This is still true today. I still can't draw. But seeing some of the incredible art on this site led me to take classes at my local college so I could learn more about the wonderful world of art.
Some of my other earliest deviations were my photographs from that class:
And then I realized, I can take a decent picture. And I have some interesting ones to share, too!
And after my class in photography, I started working with Photoshop. I took an introduction class with my sister, and didn't really like it at first. Use just a mouse to draw on a computer? Wow not that fun. My Photoshop work sucked! But as time progressed, I got better at it. Some of my first photoshop images combined horses, an animal I have always loved, with photos I had taken. The exercise of the one below was to use a photograph and a scanned image; the horse is from one of my horse calendars (which has since met the garbage) so I don't recall who the photographer of the horse is.
and
And so my work progressed. I tried to stick with using my own stock as much as I could; at the time, I was not very familiar with the creative commons license, so it seemed the wiser choice. The images below all use a background photograph taken by me (in some cases, more than one background photo combined):
Well, after that point I was hooked on art. I took one additional photoshop class so I could learn more about it, and then was self-taught from there on out. I realized I could express myself in art through photomanipulation. I didn't have to be some incredible artist who draws, paints, sketches, molds, etc. Photographs were already perfect and I could combine them to make interesting and different images, from fan art to personal requests such as flying pink horses for family members.
Through the years my art did get better (I like to think, anyway). I would look back on some of my original pieces and think, wow, that's bad. So I'd redo it. I don't have many examples of this, because I'd end up replacing the original on DA as well, but here is one in particular that I think shows this. The original (left) was quite popular thanks to Diana Gabaldon writing such good books. I always felt like it was not that great, and worked up the courage to attempt a more accurate version of the same photo, incorporating more things from the novel in the scene. For example, in the novel, the standing stone circle is up on a hill behind the main characters. There is a broken down cottage at the foot of this hill. For those not familiar with the books, the reason for the split images is that time travel is involved. Starz is making a tv series about the books for those too lazy to read the very large novels
From there on out, I shared mainly photography and photomanipulation. These were two things I enjoyed, and still do today.
In fact, my first and only daily deviation was for a photograph I took:
My photomanipulation probably outranks my photography in what I enjoy doing most and what I have shared the most of on here. Regardless, watchers (who I appreciate very much) will continue to get a good mix from me, as I continually refine my craft and share my art with the DeviantArt world.
Photomanipulation:
Fan Art:
Photography:
Thanks for reading!