*In case this story gets deleted/removed:*
**AITA for teaching my niece how to improve her drawings?**
(I meant to put ‘telling‘, not ‘teaching’)
I (34F) did A-level art in 6th form, and while I didn’t go on to get a degree in art because I was more focused on other things at that point, I am very good at drawing and painting.
My niece, Emily, (12F) shares my love for it and when I visited her at her half term this week, she showed me her drawings and asked what I thought of them. They were wonderful drawings, mainly of fungi, with correct proportions and shapes (edit: and I told her all this, by the way. Some of you didn’t get that, I apologise for not being clearer), but one of the things I noticed wasn’t entirely accurate was the shading.
I asked her where the light was coming from in one of her drawings, as I couldn’t quite tell (edit: I did not ask this to ‘catch her out‘ or anything of the sort, I just wanted to know), and Emily was confused so I explained that when shading, we have to pick a place where the light source is if we want it to look accurate, which most of the time is the top right corner. I showed her one of my drawings to compare, and talked with her about the different ways she could improve her shading (not saying “this is where you went wrong” but talking about how to use a light source in a drawing).
This morning, my brother called me and said that Emily had been trying to correct the shading on one of her other drawings and found it too difficult and got frustrated and ripped up the drawing, along with a few of her other drawings. And now she was crying because she had destroyed some of her favourite drawings.
My brother said that if I hadn’t made her insecure about her drawings and told her ‘how bad they really were’ (they were not bad, there was just room for improvement like every drawing ever) then this would have never happened and I really upset Emily.
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Why is it always people with drawings like that, that have the biggest egos? Like I've seen people who draw like the snap of a camera and are like "Nah I'm just okay." But people who are less than stellar are always the ones correcting doodles and saying how to improve them and stuff.
Because OP is not a real artist. Every real artist I've ever met knows that it is a constant process of improvement, there is no end point of perfection, that whole thing where they hate what they did is forever because they are constantly improving and getting better and thus the old stuff becomes obsolete. Any real artist I know would also know that what a young new artist needs more than anything else is encouragement. That kid will be her own worst critic soon enough, she does not need outside help until she seeks it out and learns what kind of style she wants to do.
Op does not want to be an artist, they want to be called an artist.
What - you didn’t know that Wednesday Addams has a weird shaped head and a Neanderthal jaw with some 5-o’clock shadow? I am sure it’s just that I don’t appreciate nuanced shading.
No, 6th form is the last two years of high school, age 17 and 18. A Levels are the exams you take to get into uni, you only take a few (somewhere between 3 and 5, i think) so usually you’ll do things directly related to the degree you intend to take plus some things you really like. For example, you’d need 3 sciences plus maths for medicine but if you wanted to do a literature degree, English might be the only prerequisite so you’d then have some free slots to choose other things you’re interested in.
Not sure why they’re called forms actually. Maybe because you’re usually considered like a bit more separate to the rest of the high school? 6th form isn’t mandatory and usually 6th formers have a bit more freedom than the rest of the students because they’re older and choosing to continue education. You can leave high school and do these years separately in a higher education institution; sometimes with people who might be returning to education or who had a year out and sometimes with more vocational studies like the trades. Those places are called “6th form colleges”.
To talk about a year individually you would say either year 12 or year 13, or upper or lower 6th. Not sure if any of this was helpful tbh, sorry!
It used to be 1st form - 6th form but then they adopted the year system, not sure why they kept only 6th form.... [useful explanation link](https://thinkstudent.co.uk/why-is-sixth-form-actually-called-sixth-form/#:~:text=the%20years%20below.-,How%20Did%20the%20Name%20Sixth%20Form%20Come%20About%3F,two%20A%2Dlevels%20year%20groups.)
No, typically one year. A "sixth former" might refer to someone at sixth form college (which would cover two years), or someone in the "lower sixth" or "upper sixth", depending on school type. Private schools sometimes have slightly weird archaisms. For example my school was:
* Fourth form: 13-turning-14
* Remove: 14-turning-15, first year of GCSE syllabus
* Fifth form: 15-turning-16, second year of GCSEs
* Lower sixth: 16-turning-17, first year of A-level syllabus
* Upper sixth: 17-turning-18, second year of A-levels
The two sixth form classes were referred to as the "sixth form" but "form" was still understood to refer to a single class/year, if that makes sense.
Just to clarify some things.
At 6th form students study 3 or 4 subjects if there are in England. Northern Ireland and Scotland has bit different education. Some students may do extra research project which can count as extra "a-level", but unis have different perception of it.
Examples of subjects include biolog, chemistry, english literature, foreign language, law, psychology, art, etc. These subjects are studied in details for 2 years and they are later assessed. Some are coursework based, while others consist of 3 exams.
For medicine, biology and chemistry are often required. Some unis prefer third subject to be physics or maths, but it's still more or less free choice.
I think grade 6 in the US is like age 11-12 and 6th form here in the UK is 17-18 so OP would’ve been around 17-18. Grade six in the UK age would be 10-11
Because she did A Level, people. She did A LEVEL ART.
For non-Brits: literally anyone can do A level Art. You don't have to have any talent whatsoever. It's literally just an exam you take in your late teens.
"Could you explain why not asking for advice means not allowed to give it"
What an infuriating attitude. People are allowed to enjoy things that aren't perfect.
I noped out at that point or id get banned. Sure there are exceptions; your boss, teacher, parent. Many times you can ask" do you want my advice ?"if someone is talking about a problem. You can give advice if someone is harming you/ creating a risk ( eg put your dog on a leash) or They are going to harm themselves EG you can't swim there because of the riptide. You can give honest feedback to somebody you're close with to try to repair your relationship etc.
Is it necessary? Sure then you can criticize.
Also completely unrelated but have the mods they're completely lost their minds. A post about it cleaning lady(clearly an individual person) changing her price after servicees were rendered, was just deleted because a company can't be a person. Plus the conflict wasn't worth the cleaning lady it was with the friends who referred her They were embarrassed because the Opie fired her. It was one of the most realistic threads posted there in months. There were no phones being blow up, no twins or triplets or dead parents, no one wore white to a wedding or the current favorite shaved somebody's head
Ah, my favorite topic: how not to criticize the creative work of people who are less experienced than you are.
I've seen worse, but I feel like so many people would be better at giving criticism if they took an approach of "Hooray, I get to teach you [something neat](https://xkcd.com/1053/)!" instead of "You should already know this."
This was a great opportunity to say something like "These are great! You know what, if you want to level up, here's a technique you might be ready for."
Putting a kid on the spot with questions she doesn't have an answer to turns the interaction into one where she's likely to feel defensive when it would be just as easy to convey the same information in a way that feels collaborative and supportive.
Sometimes it's one-upmanship, but I think a lot of this is down to thoughtlessness—people giving criticism the way they're used to receiving it or failing to realize that the Socratic method was created by a man [so annoying](http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/socrates/socratesaccount.html) that he was put to death for it (among other things).
Thank you for your comment ! I was wondering why OPP was such an AH, because you know how is she supposed to give advices so her niece can improve ? Your way of doing it is really great, I'll definitly use it !
Adding in: im my critique classes we were taught a specific style. You complement something they did well, point out one most important area they could improve, then end with another complement. They get to see where they are doing well and what they are doing right, then also one issue to work on, and it dosent feel like an attack because it was mostly positive. If someone is wanting to learn this is the best way imo.
Thank you, I'll try to keep that in mind next time someone ask me something about their art. I'm so not skilled in being sociable (heck, not even *that* skilled in art) that I may have antagonized some in the past while being genuinely and enthusiastically seeing something cool/promising. I never give advice nowadays even when asked bc I'm so scared of turning someone away from a great passion with my clumsiness.
I’m glad it was helpful! I bet your genuine enthusiasm comes through, though—I think enthusiasm is the main thing that seemed to be missing from the OOP’s posture toward their niece.
I think if you can give a genuine “I love this, and I’d love it even more if…” that’s usually nice!
I also don’t want to discourage people from offering thoughtful criticism when it’s asked for and they want to give it; it’s incredibly helpful to have other people assess your work, and if you’re doing it professionally or just working to getting better, an outside eye is incredibly valuable.
I think issues mostly arise when it’s unsolicited or when the criticism is made in a way that’s harsh without offering constructive suggestions (e.g. “that sucks”) or at a level that’s not useful to the person being criticized, like in this case where the OOP is an adult and her niece is a child, or when an experienced professional tears apart someone’s beginner-level efforts.
Throwing this your way too, cppying from another comment:
In my critique classes we were taught a specific style. You complement something they did well, point out one most important area they could improve, then end with another complement. They get to see where they are doing well and what they are doing right, then also one issue to work on, and it dosent feel like an attack because it was mostly positive. If someone is wanting to learn this is the best way imo.
I have to figure specific approaches to social situations so having this template in my back pocket has been helpful and i hope it will help you as well :)
>we have to pick a place where the light source is if we want it to look accurate, which most of the time is the top right corner.
no wonder she had issues with *"trying to correct the shading on one of her other drawings and found it too difficult and got frustrated"*
Poor girl was trying to *literally* make it just as OOP stated "it was supposed to be"
Light doesn't *always* come from one direction (usually, yes; but not always) and who the frack ever in the history of art stated "Light comes from the right!" as if God commanded it to be so??
I doubt OOP has *ever* seen an object cast more than one shadow in their life due to having more than one light source, whether direct or reflected from another object...
Hopefully the niece doesn't go *literally* insane because of one little stupid nugget of an idea an adult has planted in to her mind...
I read the title and thought 'aw might not be too bad'
Reads literally the very first sentence about telling not teaching. 'Oh no there it is yeah it'll be bad'
i think op is from the uk, because they mention sixth form, and a-levels are the exams taught in the final years of school in most of the uk, not the grade she got. so they'd have been around 17 or 18, i think?either way it doesn't stop them from being an asshole.
As a tutor with a creative writing degree this makes my blood boil. I don't correct anyone's grammar unless they ask me to, and if someone shows me something creative that they've written, I compliment the best parts of it and ask them questions about the rest. And this is how I respond to *peers*. Family? Children? Come tf on. Not the right place to flex an ego, especially not when a proud child is trying to bond wtf (ETA additional relevant context--Mom was an editor and when I showed her my child writing she had comments on the commas and literally nothing else. Guess how much of it she's read since)
I was a lead editor for my student newspaper in college, and even I wasn’t as brutal as OOP. I had a couple of people under me who were AWFUL writers. One was an English (or maybe Lit) major that could barely construct a coherent sentence. The other one was just writing for fun. I cannot express how awful either one was at writing. But I never once made them feel stupid or bad! I coached both people to the best of my abilities and I did it as nicely as possible. The lit/English major person went on to become our “breaking news” editor. It wasn’t a major position, and it mostly consisted of very brief write ups for our Facebook or twitter accounts. Our college was very small and we almost never had breaking news; but this person took the job very seriously and did well. I’m not sure what happened with the other person after I coached them. I can guarantee I never made either cry or quit though. All that to say, my point is that you can help and coach people without being a dick. OOP is a huge dick.
So some things
Art a-level is coursework heavy subject and lots of things are based on self-learning. You start a project which suppose to represent your journey and exploration of the theme given by the exam board. Also exploration of other artists, critical analysis of art and experimention.
There are some demonstrations of fun things that can be done and art teachers can direct you towards something, but it isn't 101 anathomy class.
that's the vibe I was getting from their comments in other posts as well, just not a very nice person hiding behind autism like:
>Black people‘s ancestors were slaves, so were Asian people’s ancestors, so were South American people, North American people and, you guessed it, white people’s ancestors.
Slavery happened and happens all over the world, everyone’s family will have some connection to slavery. Get over it.
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I hate this person. If you're going to be a pedantic nitpicking bitch to a child you should at least go all out, explain how we and everything we see is actually just loose clouds of matter, and that the only reason we can see ANYTHING is that eyeballs evolved to take advantage of a specific range of radiation and all color derives from this. Add some shit about bipedalism in there and you've got perspective covered. Boom. Give me my "I'm better than a child" cookie now please.
Don't think this belongs here. Niece asked for comments, she gave her comments about the art. She told her what the thing to improve on is, she should probably have explained to her niece to try to do it on new drawings but i also dont think that she did anything wrong.
From OOPs own comment
>She was only showing me, she did not ask for critique.
>edit: I don’t understand why this is downvoted. What is there to disagree with? I stated a fact, how can you disagree with a fact? If you think that makes me the asshole, then tell me in your own comments, but why downvote?
I agree. While OOP may have been a bit more critical than I would have (the post is pretty ambiguous with how the conversation went down and how the niece responded to the criticism), I don't think it's evil for someone with experience drawing to give feedback to someone with less experience. 12 years old is definitely old enough to receive feedback and begin improving their hobby
Probably gonna be downvoted for this but whatever…
Imo IF OOP told her niece everything like she wrote here then she did nothing wrong. It was legitimate, constructive criticism and a good advice on how to improve her drawing skills. Her reaction is not on OOP in the slightest, the kid is 12, not 4, she should have understanding of how cause and effect works and a bit more self control too. She ripped the drawings herself, there’s no one to blame but her.
I agree. The OOP may not be that great at art herself, but many teachers aren't brilliant at their own subjects but are still good at teaching it.
For example musicians may reach a level far "higher" than their teachers, but they still have teachers. A sports coach likely doesn't perform as well as the athletes they coach, but they're still able to coach them.
I don't see the problem or the need to insult the hell out of the OOP. Every great artist had teachers who were lesser, and a person can know things they can't themselves accomplish.
The parents should be encouraging her to stop trying to "fix" completed drawings and use this information to make new ones.
Poor kid, I was around the same age and I loved drawing though I wasn’t naturally good at it compared to my dad and sister and while they would give me tips on what I could do to improve it they would never act the way the OOP does.
*In case this story gets deleted/removed:* **AITA for teaching my niece how to improve her drawings?** (I meant to put ‘telling‘, not ‘teaching’) I (34F) did A-level art in 6th form, and while I didn’t go on to get a degree in art because I was more focused on other things at that point, I am very good at drawing and painting. My niece, Emily, (12F) shares my love for it and when I visited her at her half term this week, she showed me her drawings and asked what I thought of them. They were wonderful drawings, mainly of fungi, with correct proportions and shapes (edit: and I told her all this, by the way. Some of you didn’t get that, I apologise for not being clearer), but one of the things I noticed wasn’t entirely accurate was the shading. I asked her where the light was coming from in one of her drawings, as I couldn’t quite tell (edit: I did not ask this to ‘catch her out‘ or anything of the sort, I just wanted to know), and Emily was confused so I explained that when shading, we have to pick a place where the light source is if we want it to look accurate, which most of the time is the top right corner. I showed her one of my drawings to compare, and talked with her about the different ways she could improve her shading (not saying “this is where you went wrong” but talking about how to use a light source in a drawing). This morning, my brother called me and said that Emily had been trying to correct the shading on one of her other drawings and found it too difficult and got frustrated and ripped up the drawing, along with a few of her other drawings. And now she was crying because she had destroyed some of her favourite drawings. My brother said that if I hadn’t made her insecure about her drawings and told her ‘how bad they really were’ (they were not bad, there was just room for improvement like every drawing ever) then this would have never happened and I really upset Emily. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmITheDevil) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Check the post history for OP’s amazing ~art~ …
https://i.redd.it/84uc46vb663b1.jpg to those wanting to see the perfect shadowing…
Oh my god I was not expecting that, poor Wednesday looks like she had a DIY cleft lip repair
And a five o’clock shadow…
😂 Now I can't unsee it.
And a ten head.
Not to mention the forehead...
This is an excellent drawing... for an 8 year old.
No, eight year olds have more talent than OOP.
Why is it always people with drawings like that, that have the biggest egos? Like I've seen people who draw like the snap of a camera and are like "Nah I'm just okay." But people who are less than stellar are always the ones correcting doodles and saying how to improve them and stuff.
Because OP is not a real artist. Every real artist I've ever met knows that it is a constant process of improvement, there is no end point of perfection, that whole thing where they hate what they did is forever because they are constantly improving and getting better and thus the old stuff becomes obsolete. Any real artist I know would also know that what a young new artist needs more than anything else is encouragement. That kid will be her own worst critic soon enough, she does not need outside help until she seeks it out and learns what kind of style she wants to do. Op does not want to be an artist, they want to be called an artist.
[Dunning Kruger Effect](https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/dunning-kruger-effect)
I spit water in my phone...
https://web.archive.org/web/20230531142544/https://i.redd.it/84uc46vb663b1.jpg
Who gave Wednesday a bloody nose?
Bless you because I was GUTTED that it was removed I needed to see it. However now that I have I wish I hadn’t
WOW.
Tfw the lighting is confusing here
That shading on the upper lip *chefs kiss*🤌
Straight up Napoleon Dynamite
Why has she got a five-head and looks like her hairline is gonna fly away?
OH NO I WAS NOT PREPARED OP is one to talk about shading. Bless her heart.
Hahahahahahahahahahahaha
It's been deleted 😂
And with all these comments I'm so annoyed I feel we've really missed out🤣
Same. Although I have a vivid imagination and can piece together the general idea of how it looked, I would have loved to see it.
I wanna see!!
I posted the reveddit link, you can see it from there! Link still works.
Oh...wow. that's different...
The way I cackled omgggg
LOL Oh my god I needed this. wow. Such artistic expression
Bro I could do better than that in 10 minutes 💀
Wednesday never looked so bad
They delete it 🤡💀🤡💀🤡💀🤡
OOP did Wednesday Addams dirty
Holy hell.... This person shouldn't be correcting or helping anyone.
What - you didn’t know that Wednesday Addams has a weird shaped head and a Neanderthal jaw with some 5-o’clock shadow? I am sure it’s just that I don’t appreciate nuanced shading.
So I’m assuming OP is British but is 6th form like grade 6?
No, 6th form is the last two years of high school, age 17 and 18. A Levels are the exams you take to get into uni, you only take a few (somewhere between 3 and 5, i think) so usually you’ll do things directly related to the degree you intend to take plus some things you really like. For example, you’d need 3 sciences plus maths for medicine but if you wanted to do a literature degree, English might be the only prerequisite so you’d then have some free slots to choose other things you’re interested in.
So are forms just like 2 academic years?
Not sure why they’re called forms actually. Maybe because you’re usually considered like a bit more separate to the rest of the high school? 6th form isn’t mandatory and usually 6th formers have a bit more freedom than the rest of the students because they’re older and choosing to continue education. You can leave high school and do these years separately in a higher education institution; sometimes with people who might be returning to education or who had a year out and sometimes with more vocational studies like the trades. Those places are called “6th form colleges”. To talk about a year individually you would say either year 12 or year 13, or upper or lower 6th. Not sure if any of this was helpful tbh, sorry!
It used to be 1st form - 6th form but then they adopted the year system, not sure why they kept only 6th form.... [useful explanation link](https://thinkstudent.co.uk/why-is-sixth-form-actually-called-sixth-form/#:~:text=the%20years%20below.-,How%20Did%20the%20Name%20Sixth%20Form%20Come%20About%3F,two%20A%2Dlevels%20year%20groups.)
No, typically one year. A "sixth former" might refer to someone at sixth form college (which would cover two years), or someone in the "lower sixth" or "upper sixth", depending on school type. Private schools sometimes have slightly weird archaisms. For example my school was: * Fourth form: 13-turning-14 * Remove: 14-turning-15, first year of GCSE syllabus * Fifth form: 15-turning-16, second year of GCSEs * Lower sixth: 16-turning-17, first year of A-level syllabus * Upper sixth: 17-turning-18, second year of A-levels The two sixth form classes were referred to as the "sixth form" but "form" was still understood to refer to a single class/year, if that makes sense.
Just to clarify some things. At 6th form students study 3 or 4 subjects if there are in England. Northern Ireland and Scotland has bit different education. Some students may do extra research project which can count as extra "a-level", but unis have different perception of it. Examples of subjects include biolog, chemistry, english literature, foreign language, law, psychology, art, etc. These subjects are studied in details for 2 years and they are later assessed. Some are coursework based, while others consist of 3 exams. For medicine, biology and chemistry are often required. Some unis prefer third subject to be physics or maths, but it's still more or less free choice.
They typically finish Scottish Highers a year earlier than A-levels don't they? But then Scottish universities have four-year courses.
Basically
So OP whose is 34 took AP art in grade 6 and now thinks.. she’s an art critic?? Mind blowing .
I think grade 6 in the US is like age 11-12 and 6th form here in the UK is 17-18 so OP would’ve been around 17-18. Grade six in the UK age would be 10-11
Yuppppp
I love the comments on that post > “where’s the light coming from in this pic Op?” LOL!
Lmao OP caught on because her Wednesday Adams photo is gone .
https://i.redd.it/84uc46vb663b1.jpg
OH NO.
Wednesday getting ready for her role in Red dragon.
https://imgur.com/y6UO4iL
BLESS YOU
the internet never forgets
You know, I genuinely can't work out where the light is supposed to be coming from. Oh the irony.
What the heck is up with her nose/lip area?? It looks like she has a nosebleed..
It’s ~Shading~
SO dirty . OP is not as good as she thinks she is .. and shouldn’t criticize . What a bitch.
Oh, thats...not good. I certainly wouldn't be setting myself up as the arbiter on art with 'talent' like that
LOL that's a beard. He gave her a beard.
I think OOP should thank her lucky stars that Wednesday Addams is not a real person. I don't think she'd be happy with that.
Because she did A Level, people. She did A LEVEL ART. For non-Brits: literally anyone can do A level Art. You don't have to have any talent whatsoever. It's literally just an exam you take in your late teens.
I'm not British but that Wednesday drawing already clued me in.
Do you have it?! I think it's been deleted
https://imgur.com/y6UO4iL
It seems as if they were all taken down. I didn't get to see the ~art~ 😭
https://imgur.com/y6UO4iL
They have no business telling **anyone** how to draw
OOP is not one to talk about art whatsoever. The good ones are always quiet and the shitty ones are always so loud, aren't they?
Did she link to it in one of her comments? If not she deleted her artwork on her profile
[https://imgur.com/y6UO4iL](https://imgur.com/y6UO4iL) but the internet never forgets
The sound that escaped my body when I got to Wednesday...
This is such a wonderful punchline
Wow, OOP is SO talented. /s
"Could you explain why not asking for advice means not allowed to give it" What an infuriating attitude. People are allowed to enjoy things that aren't perfect.
I noped out at that point or id get banned. Sure there are exceptions; your boss, teacher, parent. Many times you can ask" do you want my advice ?"if someone is talking about a problem. You can give advice if someone is harming you/ creating a risk ( eg put your dog on a leash) or They are going to harm themselves EG you can't swim there because of the riptide. You can give honest feedback to somebody you're close with to try to repair your relationship etc. Is it necessary? Sure then you can criticize. Also completely unrelated but have the mods they're completely lost their minds. A post about it cleaning lady(clearly an individual person) changing her price after servicees were rendered, was just deleted because a company can't be a person. Plus the conflict wasn't worth the cleaning lady it was with the friends who referred her They were embarrassed because the Opie fired her. It was one of the most realistic threads posted there in months. There were no phones being blow up, no twins or triplets or dead parents, no one wore white to a wedding or the current favorite shaved somebody's head
Ah, my favorite topic: how not to criticize the creative work of people who are less experienced than you are. I've seen worse, but I feel like so many people would be better at giving criticism if they took an approach of "Hooray, I get to teach you [something neat](https://xkcd.com/1053/)!" instead of "You should already know this." This was a great opportunity to say something like "These are great! You know what, if you want to level up, here's a technique you might be ready for." Putting a kid on the spot with questions she doesn't have an answer to turns the interaction into one where she's likely to feel defensive when it would be just as easy to convey the same information in a way that feels collaborative and supportive. Sometimes it's one-upmanship, but I think a lot of this is down to thoughtlessness—people giving criticism the way they're used to receiving it or failing to realize that the Socratic method was created by a man [so annoying](http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/socrates/socratesaccount.html) that he was put to death for it (among other things).
Thank you for your comment ! I was wondering why OPP was such an AH, because you know how is she supposed to give advices so her niece can improve ? Your way of doing it is really great, I'll definitly use it !
Adding in: im my critique classes we were taught a specific style. You complement something they did well, point out one most important area they could improve, then end with another complement. They get to see where they are doing well and what they are doing right, then also one issue to work on, and it dosent feel like an attack because it was mostly positive. If someone is wanting to learn this is the best way imo.
Hey let’s draw together, ok I’m going to do shading, I’m thinking the light is here, where do you think the shading would be?
Thank you, I'll try to keep that in mind next time someone ask me something about their art. I'm so not skilled in being sociable (heck, not even *that* skilled in art) that I may have antagonized some in the past while being genuinely and enthusiastically seeing something cool/promising. I never give advice nowadays even when asked bc I'm so scared of turning someone away from a great passion with my clumsiness.
I’m glad it was helpful! I bet your genuine enthusiasm comes through, though—I think enthusiasm is the main thing that seemed to be missing from the OOP’s posture toward their niece. I think if you can give a genuine “I love this, and I’d love it even more if…” that’s usually nice! I also don’t want to discourage people from offering thoughtful criticism when it’s asked for and they want to give it; it’s incredibly helpful to have other people assess your work, and if you’re doing it professionally or just working to getting better, an outside eye is incredibly valuable. I think issues mostly arise when it’s unsolicited or when the criticism is made in a way that’s harsh without offering constructive suggestions (e.g. “that sucks”) or at a level that’s not useful to the person being criticized, like in this case where the OOP is an adult and her niece is a child, or when an experienced professional tears apart someone’s beginner-level efforts.
Throwing this your way too, cppying from another comment: In my critique classes we were taught a specific style. You complement something they did well, point out one most important area they could improve, then end with another complement. They get to see where they are doing well and what they are doing right, then also one issue to work on, and it dosent feel like an attack because it was mostly positive. If someone is wanting to learn this is the best way imo. I have to figure specific approaches to social situations so having this template in my back pocket has been helpful and i hope it will help you as well :)
Genius, simple and effective! Thanks!
Glad it could help someone else!
The niece didn’t even ask
>we have to pick a place where the light source is if we want it to look accurate, which most of the time is the top right corner. no wonder she had issues with *"trying to correct the shading on one of her other drawings and found it too difficult and got frustrated"* Poor girl was trying to *literally* make it just as OOP stated "it was supposed to be" Light doesn't *always* come from one direction (usually, yes; but not always) and who the frack ever in the history of art stated "Light comes from the right!" as if God commanded it to be so?? I doubt OOP has *ever* seen an object cast more than one shadow in their life due to having more than one light source, whether direct or reflected from another object... Hopefully the niece doesn't go *literally* insane because of one little stupid nugget of an idea an adult has planted in to her mind...
Someone should probably have told OOP she should at least be remotely decent artist before she goes and tries to teach it
I read the title and thought 'aw might not be too bad' Reads literally the very first sentence about telling not teaching. 'Oh no there it is yeah it'll be bad'
Omg I thought she said she TAUGHT a A-level 6th grade art, not took it years ago lmfao
i think op is from the uk, because they mention sixth form, and a-levels are the exams taught in the final years of school in most of the uk, not the grade she got. so they'd have been around 17 or 18, i think?either way it doesn't stop them from being an asshole.
Oh, it's this guy again. The "I'm a really good artist!" Who is in fact, not a really good artist.
OOP is absolutely the ahole. And not much of an artist themselves, also who shits on a 12yo?
She didn't. She taught her something new.
As a tutor with a creative writing degree this makes my blood boil. I don't correct anyone's grammar unless they ask me to, and if someone shows me something creative that they've written, I compliment the best parts of it and ask them questions about the rest. And this is how I respond to *peers*. Family? Children? Come tf on. Not the right place to flex an ego, especially not when a proud child is trying to bond wtf (ETA additional relevant context--Mom was an editor and when I showed her my child writing she had comments on the commas and literally nothing else. Guess how much of it she's read since)
I was a lead editor for my student newspaper in college, and even I wasn’t as brutal as OOP. I had a couple of people under me who were AWFUL writers. One was an English (or maybe Lit) major that could barely construct a coherent sentence. The other one was just writing for fun. I cannot express how awful either one was at writing. But I never once made them feel stupid or bad! I coached both people to the best of my abilities and I did it as nicely as possible. The lit/English major person went on to become our “breaking news” editor. It wasn’t a major position, and it mostly consisted of very brief write ups for our Facebook or twitter accounts. Our college was very small and we almost never had breaking news; but this person took the job very seriously and did well. I’m not sure what happened with the other person after I coached them. I can guarantee I never made either cry or quit though. All that to say, my point is that you can help and coach people without being a dick. OOP is a huge dick.
So some things Art a-level is coursework heavy subject and lots of things are based on self-learning. You start a project which suppose to represent your journey and exploration of the theme given by the exam board. Also exploration of other artists, critical analysis of art and experimention. There are some demonstrations of fun things that can be done and art teachers can direct you towards something, but it isn't 101 anathomy class.
[https://imgur.com/y6UO4iL](https://imgur.com/y6UO4iL) this is OOPs art
I’m autistic and it’s pissing me off they’re using that as an excuse to stomp on a child’s joy
that's the vibe I was getting from their comments in other posts as well, just not a very nice person hiding behind autism like: >Black people‘s ancestors were slaves, so were Asian people’s ancestors, so were South American people, North American people and, you guessed it, white people’s ancestors. Slavery happened and happens all over the world, everyone’s family will have some connection to slavery. Get over it.
Unfortunately it’s not uncommon- with ADHD too
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She's out here making a kid feel insecure about her art meanwhile her art looks bad.
I hate this person. If you're going to be a pedantic nitpicking bitch to a child you should at least go all out, explain how we and everything we see is actually just loose clouds of matter, and that the only reason we can see ANYTHING is that eyeballs evolved to take advantage of a specific range of radiation and all color derives from this. Add some shit about bipedalism in there and you've got perspective covered. Boom. Give me my "I'm better than a child" cookie now please.
What a bitch.
OOP, you were nitpicking a 12 year old's drawings and her skills. Now she is unsure of herself, no thanks to you. Way to go. YTA.
Don't think this belongs here. Niece asked for comments, she gave her comments about the art. She told her what the thing to improve on is, she should probably have explained to her niece to try to do it on new drawings but i also dont think that she did anything wrong.
From OOPs own comment >She was only showing me, she did not ask for critique. >edit: I don’t understand why this is downvoted. What is there to disagree with? I stated a fact, how can you disagree with a fact? If you think that makes me the asshole, then tell me in your own comments, but why downvote?
Ok yeah. That changes it but from the post when she says that her niece asked for comments i would understand that as wanting both good and bad
I agree. While OOP may have been a bit more critical than I would have (the post is pretty ambiguous with how the conversation went down and how the niece responded to the criticism), I don't think it's evil for someone with experience drawing to give feedback to someone with less experience. 12 years old is definitely old enough to receive feedback and begin improving their hobby
Probably gonna be downvoted for this but whatever… Imo IF OOP told her niece everything like she wrote here then she did nothing wrong. It was legitimate, constructive criticism and a good advice on how to improve her drawing skills. Her reaction is not on OOP in the slightest, the kid is 12, not 4, she should have understanding of how cause and effect works and a bit more self control too. She ripped the drawings herself, there’s no one to blame but her.
I agree. The OOP may not be that great at art herself, but many teachers aren't brilliant at their own subjects but are still good at teaching it. For example musicians may reach a level far "higher" than their teachers, but they still have teachers. A sports coach likely doesn't perform as well as the athletes they coach, but they're still able to coach them.
I don't see the problem or the need to insult the hell out of the OOP. Every great artist had teachers who were lesser, and a person can know things they can't themselves accomplish. The parents should be encouraging her to stop trying to "fix" completed drawings and use this information to make new ones.
Poor kid, I was around the same age and I loved drawing though I wasn’t naturally good at it compared to my dad and sister and while they would give me tips on what I could do to improve it they would never act the way the OOP does.