[gekitsu]

hi.

i recently had an argument with a forum user in some german art forum about the relation (in percent) between talent (what you just have since birth) and everything you actively work on you (experience, theoretical knowledge, anatomy, perspective, technique, etc...)

the other guy was like 50:50 because he meant he could see in every case if a pic is just technically well done but the artist doesn't have any talent and that a talented artist without any experience and knowledge will still produce better artwork.
my idsea was 5% talent to 95% of the rest, not counting all the indirect influences, talent makes on the rest. if you are talented, i think you'll go down the long learning road easier and more encouraged, not having problems with the hiuge amount of time spent.

me opinion is that a lort of things can be enhanced by talent or are pulled off easier or more naturally with talent but talent is nothing you can rest on without anything else.

what's your opinion about this?

[tayete]

Hi Gekitsu!

It is hard to say, as the more I learn the more I think the "technical" part has a meaner importance. But I still think there's something given by Nature (or God, or our genethics, or whatever) that plays an important role in our creations.

I think (to not agree with neither of you ) that 25%-75% must be ok...
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[piter]

i think it is a much more complex and mysterious thing, and also highly individual. boiling it down to a ratio is just a pointless excercise, in my book. however, you do make some good points, and i am in agreement that it is mostly by the sweat of your brow that your work will attain any kind of virtuosity.

[Lunatique]

The ratio of talent and hard work is different with each individual. There's no "standard."

[Impaler]

I have to wuss out and agree with lunatique on this one, sort of.

For some people with lots of innate talent, they may have less hard work ahead of them on the road to artistic mastery.

However, I've seen people with innate talent that simply could not learn the basics. They could reproduce what they saw with great accuracy, but there were glaring technical errors that they could not get around. It's sort of like teaching a self-taught guitarrist to learn to read music. The guitarrist can play kickazz chops and screamin' solos, but if you try to teach him notation, he's like a beginner.

Those who were NOT born with a fantastic artistic sense are borne into struggle and frustration, for sure. Everyone, however, has the ability to learn what they were not born with. It just takes practice. There is no pixie dust in art. There are no great secrets that separate you from the greats of illustration. Start out with cubes and perspective.
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QED, sort of.

[gekitsu]

i agree that i may not be the best to try captiring this relation in numbers - actually, the prolem was how much talent can help someone.

i have seen both, too - talented people don't managing to cope with basics and "untelented" people, taking on them all the hard struggle willingly and making really remarkable progress.

sure, talent helps directly, as you have less trouble learning something but also indirectly, in terms of how you handle the subject of your learning.

the 5:95 thing came to my mind mainly because some famous pianist once said "it's 5% inspiration and 95% transpiration"
and that is, to a certain degree, my opinion, too. talent can help someone and make the learning easier and easier to cope with but in 99.999% of all cases it's not enough to "rest on" and make better pictures than someone who visited e.g. illustration classes at art center or ringling, knowing about how color and value works etcetera...

[ribozom]

ask anyone of the artists you admire how many hours they have spent drawing or painting since childhood, you will quickly understand the 95% of transpiration. of course it is not really transpiration as we enjoy ourselves scribbling away for hours on end. I think you will only learn through exercise, 'talent' wil be how quickly you learn or pick up on things

[Snakebyte]

I personally was not born with artistic talent (at least I don�t think so). What talent I do have I had to work at. It took me 10 years to get where I am now and I still have years to go.
Without references I CANNOT draw a person, in fact I need a reference for just about everything, however, I still come up with good original work. So, I lack technical skill but possess Creativity.
It�s possible that Creativity is a good substitute for raw Talent.
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[dr . bang]

I think Talent in art mean the person has a natural ability to make things look GOOD.
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[atomicmonkey]

I think it's a better question to ask about creativity rather than talent. Can creativity really be learned? Through a lot of hard work one can gain a great skill at producing great looking art, but how creative are their ideas? Can they create an amazingly rendered, proportionately and anatomically accurate dragon, or can they create an amazingly rendered, proportionately and anatomically accurate dragon that no one has ever seen before?

I will admit through my browsing of the net, I've seen artists work which demonstrates a lot of skill and experience, but leaves me flat out bored to look at it. It's not interesting, or original, or even appealing, yet they knew how to draw paint it incredibly well.

I don't really know what I'm getting at here... I've just heard this "Natural Talent vs. Experience" argument so many times... Creativity seems more interesting to discuss.

[bearsclover]

It's an emotional thing, I suppose. I think that most artists have creativity nestled in them, they just need to know how to bring it out. They need to discover what areas they are strongest. (For instance, I know several artists who draw well technically, but can't draw organic things well, but can draw machines and technical things well.)

I also know people who suck at color�they have no idea what colors to choose, and I cringe when I see their color choices. Could they learn to do better color? Maybe. I think sometimes, yes. But if they can't learn, then they need to stick to monochromatic. Not having a talent for color does not make one untalented in art. Just in color.

On the flip-side, there are people with a lot of "natural talent", but because they don't practice and study, their natural talent languishes. I've seen A LOT of artists in this category. They think that "talent" should be enough, without realizing that discipline and practice make a huge difference. And that sometimes, those with just a dollop of "natural talent" (but with great drive and dedication), can outdistance those with a lot of natural talent but little drive or ambition.
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[gekitsu]

wow, cool to see so much input in the topic.

you spoke well, bearsclover - i know one of those people with weakness of color very well, even too well.

[Drunken Monkey]

Creativity links directly to the experiences you've had in life. In my opinion at least. Those who travel, read, and explore have more material to be creative with.

To sum it up even better - creativity is inherent in those who pay attention to the world around them.

[Behemoth]

if I remember correctly the word talent is defind as ability to master things. For example davinci could master many different areas that for others took a lifetime to master. He also mastered many different things, and this is something that definately wasnt possible without an extraordinary talent. As I see it you could simplify talent into some kind of number. For example davinci had a mathematical, artistic and innovation talent of 10, meaning that he could master those areas ten times faster than someone with talent 1. It is of course impossible to get any precise numbers like this, and the formula would definately be alot more advanced than this. The only thing I really draw any conclusions from is life drawing class; some people with no rior experience(their stuff was crap at the beginning) started to excel after only half a year or so, overtaking people that had done this kind of thing for years. The learning was simply ten or so times faster. The people with talent also kept improving once at top, leaving others far behind.

[Akolyte]

Hard work.
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[[666]Flat]

No, no, no. What you call talent is mo like the gift to be able to stand up despite of the countless times you got your ass kicked to the ground. STAMINA, buddy. It's all about STAMINA. Go and ask teh ladies if you dun believe me.
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[haohmaru]

i second dr.monkey. he sums up my own opinion more or less.
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[SG]

This topic really helped me out a lot. I was wondering myself if I would ever become a good artist or only have the ability to improve the art that I currently have. I enjoy drawing from life and I want to do more of it, but I'm not too good at drawing from my mind. I can draw life drawings fairly decent, but I want to improve my drawing speed while still having quality. I wish I always had something to draw. :\

[ELLioT]

I think that you don't have anything "from birth".
I think that any skill or artistic ability can be learnt more or less easily depending on the individuals. Even what we call "inspiration" (that so stealth thing) is a process that can be learnt then relatively successfuly controled to focus their creative subconscious impulses by talented artists. For me it's also a technical issue just as perspective, anatomy etc... Everybody has fructful imagination, you just have to learn to free it. Getting the basic technics of your art is the first step. If you're already a decent "from-ref" artist, that means that you are ready for the next step.

People you think are "gifted" have just developped skills, often without even knowing it themselves during their life. The fact that they did not feel the pain of the hard work while learning do not increase their value.
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[bearsclover]

While I think that the concept of "talent" is way overrated ("Oh, you had that from birth�you don't have to work at it") there is a certain amount of innate ability. For instance, I loved to draw when I was age 4 and younger. Was obsessed with it. None of my sisters were, at least not as much as I was.

But I did have to work, and work hard to develop the talents I was (apparently) born with. And some talents I had were really buried deep. I showed almost no "talent" for them at first�it took a while to finally start to get decent at them, and to finally show "talent". But on the other hand, there are a lot of people with innate talents, but they go nowhere with them. Because they are not motivated (or too lazy) to develop them.

I also believe that some people have almost no innate talent in some areas (like color theory, for instance) and can learn to overcome it. To educate themselves enough so that while they might not ever be "inspired", they at least can be "passable". But of course, I suppose there will always be a few unlucky souls who will never, no matter how hard they try, ever master color (or whatever). But I think these kind of people are far more rare than we think.
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[Malachi Maloney]

Anyone can learn to draw, but you've got to be born an artist.


Just my opinion, disagree with me if you will.



~M~
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[Aaron]

Technical skills aren't the only thing you learn. A person can learn good taste and what excites people. If an artist has great technical skills and boring art, most likely - A) They are content with what they are doing, or too afraid to experiment. - B) They aren't getting enough feedback (which is essential to know what effects others). Have you noticed that artists with most interesting work (Mr Mullins) are out in the fray, constantly bouncing their art off of others to see the reactions?

Creativity, memory, patience, appreciation of beauty are all things that can be developed, and not nessessaily just while you are drawing/painting. I have never met anyone with "natural talent". Any successful artist who says that their works flow to them from inherit springs of magical talent, and that they don't have to work like hell for it is either a liar, or a modern artist.

[Aaron]

BTW, I agree with Flat. If there is such a thing as talent, it's stamina.

[glody]

[Drunken Monkey]

talent is a state of mind.

[gekitsu]

[Capt. Fred]

In my opinion there is no such thing as innate abiity, magic talent or whatever.

What different people are 'born with' are different INTERESTS. The more you find something intersting, the more you do it, the better you get, the more you learn... The less you find somethign intersting, the more "hard work' becuase you're acting against boredem. you're not intersted.

What we have 'innately' is an interest for whatever reason -- you dad likes it too, you saw a cool picture in amgazine that captured your imagination. and that interest is not even 'innate' it just originates very early.

What you do when you're bored is what you're intersted in, which is how you get good. If you ain't enjoying it, don't do it.

Some people latch onto styles early on -- particular ways of rendering everything thy draw irrespective of reality -- styles that make everything look impressive, but are hopeessly inaccurate, but this is a naturla part of learning and people hopefully soon drop these and hop onto other ones, or boldly move out into an arena that reiles on phenomenal observation.

Me personanlly? ever waking moment I thik about either painting or music (painting more) - every scene I see i think about painting, every time I don't have the opportunity to paint, I look at other paitings and artwork - or just out in the world around me. Everything looks awesome if you really look. And music, every rythm I hear I extemporise in my head... Hey! i never said I was billiant but I'm young and I think I'm getting there...
... Someday ...

Ignore this all-to-attractive concept of 'innate talent'.

That's MHO only... It is relevant to bear in mind that I know nothing

[Lunatique]

Then explain why I have a close friend that despite being passionate about art, draws all the time, tries so hard to improve, gone to art school, graduated with a degree in art, and still can't draw a decent drawing that doesn't look like it came from an average 15 yr-old art enthusiast?

And I'm not even talking about highly subjective stuff like impressionism or modern art. I'm talking about straightforward portraits, comics, illustration, sci-fi/fantasy drawings/paintings.

I've been friends with him for over 16 years, and I've given him countless critiques, tips, instructions, exercises for improving...etc, and it made very very little difference. I don't even know how he graduated from art school. But then again, most art schools are only interested in making money.

Believe me, there IS such a thing as talent. The ratio of talent vs. hardwork is drastically different from one person to another. In my friend's case, he has close to zero talent, but he worked pretty hard since he was about 13( he's now 28 ). I'd say in the 15 years of his hardwork, he's gotten as far as what it takes the average serious artist with moderate talent about 5 years.

[Malachi Maloney]

[toast!]

Lunatique have you ever been told about dislecsy ?, your friend can be one of those guys who traditional learning techniques don't fit his way of thinking; there is many cases at school that are never spotted and those guys aren't more retarded than others, they just think differently.

Imo, anyone can draw; i guess drawing has the same psychological process of "writing with your pen", you draw letters from your mind when writing; anyone can do that, drawing is just a longer process to learn .. some will learn faster ... that s maybe the famous "5%" of the story
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