Why I HATED School Art Competitions (ft. @CDawgVA)

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if you dont want the bell pepper ill take it!!!! i love it 🥺

bell pepper is like when an artist posts a full on painting that gets maybe two likes , then posts a random doodle they spent three minutes on that gets like a billion likes and a movie deal

bell pepper winning just reminds me of the pumpkin contest where there were tons of intricate designs and the lil smiley face won

Ah yes, the “can’t you draw anything else?” from like, everybody in my classes growing up. The hyperfixation struggles. Especially in a small town that was hardly aware of new or even popular concepts and characters.

THANK YOU FOR HAVING ME BACK!

bell pepper is like that one sibling who never does anything around the house yet gets the most praise from parents

i hate art contests because of how unpredictable they are. the only predictable thing about it is that the winner is always the one who nobody thought will be a winner. people make weirdest choices.

The dragon story reminds me of when I doodled Reshiram's head in class and my teacher went "Oh look, a billygoat!" Seems to be a weirdly universal experience.

I honestly started to resent Art class in high school because it seemed to be more "copy this artstyle" than "make art"

4:15 I’ve learned that when complementing a child’s art, never guess the object they have drawn. Don’t say “nice dog” or “oh is that supposed to be me?” Say “I love your use of colors, they work really well together” or “wow you drew your lines really good. You know it’s hard to draw good lines, and you drew very good lines” or “oh hey _ color is my favorite I love that you used it in your art” etc. because unless you are 110% sure you know what they drew, do not guess it. You may think it’s a dog when it’s meant to be a horse. You may think it’s a character you recognize when it’s actually a character you don’t know about. Compliment the approach they took in making their art, never the subject they have drawn.

(As a struggling musician/artist) wasn’t expecting to cry at the end. I needed to hear that. Thank you so much for sharing this experience. Thank you.

This video reminded me of a photography class I took in high school, and specifically the toy photography assignment. I borrowed my brother's Spiderman action figure, and for every few photos I spent a while setting Spiderman on different vertical surfaces, and experimenting with multiple perspectives. My teacher's favorite photo was the one where Spiderman was standing next to a window.

Art classes were generally a struggle for me all through elemetary and middle school because the art teachers wanted projects done a VERY SPECIFIC WAY and discouraged us from making our projects OURS. We weren't allowed to add unique flair, our own characters, our favorite colors unless the prompt involved using them. It made going to those classes a chore. When I got to my senior year of high school and was put in the art class (because they had no more required classes to give me) I expected more of the same. One of our first projects was to mess with perspective and use a vanishing point to create a street or hall scene. Everyone around me was doing just the buildings or the items in the hall, but I finished early and decided to make a "zombie school" scene by adding the undead and two survivors in the middle of the hall. The art teacher walked up behind me, saw my work and ask if he could see it. I let him, expecting to be scolded for not "following the prompt" but when he took it, he held it up to show the class and said "This is what I want you to do! You should have fun with it!" That class became the first art class that I EVER enjoyed. He encouraged us to do our own thing, to let our personalities and interests come out in our work, to use the prompts as a framework and to not just follow them to the letter. He only scolded us when he thought we were being lazy about an aspect of our work because he knew we could do better. We collected all of our art and kept every project in a student-specific folder as our portfolios. I was sick the last day of our class and when I came to school for the last day, he made sure to hunt me down to give me my portfolio because "I KNOW you don't want to forget this." Some of my art even got put in the display case for him to keep and show to future students. It was genuinely a great experience.

OHHH MY GOD.... ILLY... the "can't you draw anything else?" snide remark brought me right back to middle school so quickly it hurt; I think I still have the vent art I made when I was 11 or 12 with almost that exact quote on it. The plight of the cat artist.

I'm glad to see someone else express the feelings of frustration when something you did with very little passion/as a joke gets a ton of love while the piece you want to bond with people over gets barely any engagement.

6:20 , I saw that king plushie in the background, ngl that made my day ❤

14:40 "why did bell pepper win, but soapstone bunny didnt" she is a philosopher asking questions we desperately need answers for

When I was in first grade, my class made these books for a statewide illustration contest. I felt like I just threw down what I immediately thought of onto the page. I wrote and illustrated a story about a mouse with a chocolate shop who changed her chocolate recipe because her shop was struggling to make money. She ended up making lots of money with her new exciting chocolates. Apparently the judges were excited to see a first grader write about entrepreneurship, because I got third in the state in my division and got to visit the state capitol. It was really cool. Now I’m an artist with a bachelor of fine arts. 😊

bell pepper is like a fun simple fanart piece with tons of insta likes and soap bunny is a detailed original character portrait with shading and background but 4 likes. i’m not salty you are