[Chris Mills]

like everyone else here, I love looking at fantasy art and love painting it, but is it something you should be encouraged with throughout formal art training? I hate to say it, but if I was given an art teaching post I would be very wary of letting a student dwell too much on fantasy. I was discouraged during all my art training right to degree level, but in retrospect I can see why.
It would be like doing a course in Drama but only ever performing Shakespeare!
In order to become a good artist you need to get a grounding in drawing, colour, composition...all the essential raw materials. Then, and only then, can you move on to specialised theme...and let's face it, fantasy art is pretty damn specialised. Let's not bash art teachers but the prejudice that exists in the commercial world, where the money can be made.
Lots of people love to look at fantasy art in its various forms, yet look at how few poster and print publishers bother with it! That's where the prejudice is, because they just don't understand it and don't like taking risks with new artists, and yet mention Arthur Rackham and they'll only be too happy to sell reproductions of his particular hobgoblins!
Also, let's not bash modern art to comfort ourselves. There's some great modern art out there and if we generalise it into squares and squiggles then we're aren't we being just as prejudiced?
Cheers - Chris Mills - junior member

[An8el]

Currently, for art to be art, artists need to come up with some paradoxical justification beyond just visual rendering or recording of imagination. This is first done by the artist themselves, but later by the artist's interpreters. Construct it as if you are offering an explanation of "why I do this art that I do."

To understand what art interpretation is, I recommend this book:
Why Cats Paint (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0898156122/qid=1059525383/sr=2-2/ref=sr_2_2/103-6616018-0425420)

You can look at some of the sample pages here to see some of what I mean. But in case this book is no longer available when you are reading this, here's a snippet quote of one of the reviews of this book:

"The writing style (of Why Cat's Paint) mimics most art criticism and art history pieces, so if you're familiar with that genre, you'll appreciate the genius of this book. It pokes fun at art criticsm while playing on most people's bafflement as to what constitutes art. This book is a joke, although it's so flawlessly constructed you can't be sure at first."

Give a tongue-in-cheek try at blurb-making about what you are doing, as these people have, and you'll be a wildly successful artist, no matter what your actual subject matter is. It's a challenge to come up with the "uber-level" layers of meaning that "serious" modern art attempts to evoke. I think that using an understated sense of humor has got to be the most sophisticated answer to this challenge. Hate it when artists take themselves sooo seriously.

"Normal people" will love repeating this "story" about your art as they are showing it off. That's why.

[Tasnek]

I don't usually meddle in art...in fact I suck at drawing, but this topic interested me. I never got into any kind of "real" art, even by my favorite inventor, Leonardo da Vinci. I could go into a classic art museum and not be the slightest bit phased. BUT when it comes to fantasy art...dragons, demons, evil people in cloaks, elves fighting orcs, whatever it may be, I am highly intruiged and amazed. Fantasy art has always appealed to me, and whenever I see it I cannot help but stare. My bedroom is littered with pictures of different fantasy art...so much that I put something on my ceiling because I had little room on my walls. I have no idea why I mentioned any of this...perhaps the urge to include myself in this.

[Steph19041961]

There are always those teachers who have their set pattern of what you, the student, are allowed to do in their classes.

My formal training in Art is just from the regular Canadian school system. I had planned to go on to Art College, but a very unthinking counsellor told me that I didn't have the right classes to get there, without bothering to tell me what classes those were. I had made the appointment to find out how to get into Art College and she just told me I couldn't. I was rather shy back then, so I just walked out thinking I would have to do it on my own. If it was now I would have told her off and got her to give me the information I had asked for.

There is always something you can learn from even a bad teacher... even if it is just how not to teach.
;)

As to what is 'art'... well the first think I did when someone asked me what 'art' was, was to go to the dictionary... ART: 1. Human effort to imitate, supplement, alter, or counteract the work of nature.

With a definition like that... well... it includes almost everything humans do... Art is a very big subject... maybe that is why so many art teachers try to limit it.

I was lucky. I had some very good art teachers, including my mom and dad. I had the unfortunate luck of running into two very stupid counsellors, who never should have been telling students what to do with their lives.

I did eventually take some art courses after high school... Life Drawing and Print Making... in my eyes I am a good artist, but I am a rotten salesperson. If I am doomed to be a starving artist, well so be it, but I would never put down those artists who are good salespeople. Everyone has his or her own style, even if the teacher won't let you show it.
;) ;)
You won't always be in their class...

[Princess of Darkness]

OK people - sorry for the, um, minor delay - i have just spent 3 months in South Africa, away from technology etc, getting back together with neature..............

Having managed to cheat the system using your excellent advice, and acheive great results, i feel i should thankyou all for your confidence boosting and imaginative ideas. I concluded my final year of school having produced a baffling array of different styles, which my tutor found most exciting - and i even manged to slip in some "fantastical abstractions from the innermost subconcious mind" (as my tutor most cleverly deviated around the subject).

Brilliant!
Tata for now PDarky xxxxxxxxxxxxx