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PE: The Importance of Community SupportFrom the Desk of =Requiemachina
The Importance of Community Support: What is a Community?
     When one thinks of a community, some words might come into play...maybe these: caring, supportive, familiarity, safe, helpful, united to promote a common interest or idea....that stuff. But, a community does not fit into a nice neat package. We use the word a lot, but it is important to ask more seriously what the term "community"  is.  A community is a sort of "construct"; We can't see a community, nor touch it, or directly experience it. Just like a snowflake, no two communities are exactly alike. They may share the same ideals, but the personal experiences will always be different. A community is not only the people in it-- but what was already established long ago, and which would continue to grow through the ages. Take DeviantART for example. This site I believe when it first started up, wasn't as big as it is now. But due to
PE: Daily Deviations - The Myth and the LegendDaily Deviations, or DDs . . . for some deviants, receiving one is the epitome of awesomesauce in the deviantART world. For others, they are a nice way to show off the work of lesser-known artists. Still others treat them as a special way to bring attention to great art that exemplifies works being done by a particular gallery or community.
Perhaps because there are so many different ways of conceptualizing DDs, there are also many myths and misconceptions. I would like to address some of those myths by responding to the ones most frequently heard. Please note that these opinions are mine and reflect my experiences with the photomanipulation community, but perhaps they will be informative nevertheless.
Myth 1: DDs should always be perfect.
To many of us, the ideal Daily Deviation goes to an artist with amazing talent whose work draws you in and makes you think, "Wow, everyone needs to see this!" A DD should move you, inspire you, and provoke you to think, b
PE: Giving and Receiving Quality Feedback

Giving and Receiving Feedback 


 
One of the most useful things on deviantart is the option to give and receive feedback. There are different kinds of feedback. This article aims to inform you on how to give quality feedback and hopefully receive it. 
Types of Feedback


Comments


One of the quickest ways to interact with others. From journals, to forums, to art, to profiles, comments are used everywhere. However, the quality can range from spam, to constructive. 
Critiques

Any deviant can write them,(~,*,=,`,^ etc.) but only premium members can request them. Constructive comments can substitute for these. Critiques take some time to write, and really provide insight. If used correctly, can be a wonderful way to give/receive constructive criticism.

Giving  Feedback
This is important to receiving feedback. If you give, you are l
Introduction to the Darkroom galleryIntroduction to the Darkroom gallery on dA
Darkroom on dA is a tribute to the traditional, involving chemical developing and printing techniques which have barely changed since the birth of photography, a symbol of the modern, making use of technological advances in digital processing, and a whole lot of amazing and beautiful things in between.

While the majority of Photography galleries on dA are subject-based, Darkroom is technique-based. Photographs using Darkroom techniques are generally accepted in the other photography galleries too, but if you wish to categorise your Darkroom photography submission based on how it was created, then Photography > Darkroom is here to allow you to do that.

If you're not a photographer, or you arrived on your photographic journey at a time when digital was in full swing, you may have never shot on film, been temporarily blinded by walking into daylight after hours spen
Project Educate: Classic Portrait PhotographyClassic Portraits are Photographs of people in traditional pose. These are often formal, refined and restrained in style. As you will see within the  Gallery they often involve a plain and simple background which is a popular feature of Classic Portraiture. One of the most notable things within the Classic Portrait Photography Gallery is that there are a lot of art nudes. This actually occurs across the board with People & Portraits and I cannot stress enough - that if your work features nudity, it belongs within the artistic nude gallery!
:bulletblack: Conversion to black and white with concentration on bringing out tones and shadows creates that timeless classic look and is often favoured by the elite artists that submit to the People & Portraits - Classic Gallery.
:bulletblack: Whilst D-SLR's have a monochrome function, for the most part (mine h
What is Traditional Darkroom?What is Traditional Darkroom?
Traditional Darkroom is where it all began. It started in a world where the word 'photography' didn't yet exist and the art of creating images of reality with light and chemicals sat somewhere between science and magic. Did you know that the mathematicians Aristotle and Euclid describe pinhole cameras in the 4th and 5th centuries?

In the early 1800s, artist/inventors like Louis Dageurre and Henry Fox Talbot (among others) experimented with ways of fixing images using chemicals, including silver compounds, following exposures on materials like glass and metal, lasting from several minutes to several hours. By 1840, Talbot was creating negative images using the calotype process and John Herschel had invented the cyanotype process (where the term 'blueprint' comes from) and created the first glass negative in 1839.

In the middle part of the 1800s, the wet plate collodion process be
PE Daily Deviations- Presentation of your workHello all! :wave:
Well we’ve had a fascinating week so far; a week which hopefully has provided some insight not only to the process of DD selection but helped you understand what we look for in DDs as CVs. As we draw to the end of this week, I bring you an article which will whet your Saturday with thoughts that don’t just apply to the DD feature, but something which should be a consideration to everything you submit to dA. I am talking about deviation presentation.
Why is Presentation important?
Art isn’t always about just being “creative”. There are techniques and skills which develop over time which contribute to the quality of the work you produce and alongside this comes a developed understanding of good presentation.
Good presentation could be anything from cropping a photograph, to spell checking your literature. These are common sense things that in the rush of wanting to show off your creativity can sometimes be
PE: Mastery and Purpose in Your Art"Wow, you’re so talented, I could never draw like that even in a million years!"
"You’re either really good at art or you aren’t."
"Some people have all the talent, and I’m not one of them."
We hear and see things like this all the time and people with the middle to high range art skills know these comments are just not true. As author Geoff Colvin says in his book by the same title, "Talent is overrated," and really it is. There is no such thing as one person being born super talented and another having none at all or other such myths in art like that. The only difference between you the beginner artist and that artist way up at the top is hard work, smart work and time.
One major study (listed in 'Talent Is Overrated') showed that there was no such thing as the ‘talented’ elite who hardly work and just come out on top. It was found that there was no such thing as the person who just worked super hard consistently
Traditional and Digital Mixed MediaFix That Miscat! is a series of articles aiming to  help you distinguish between galleries that are commonly confused or  abused in the category system here on deviantART. In this occasion we'll  talk about Mixed Media, both Traditional and Digital.
Mixed Media
Mixed  Media within deviantArt refers to artwork in the making of which more  than one medium has been employed. For example, a drawing that combines  color pencils, watercolors and inks in the same canvas.


To  be considered as Mixed Media, an artwork needs to combine 2 or more  traditional or digital mediums. However a big misconception is that  Mixed Media refers only to artworks combining digital AND traditional  and this is not entirely true. The combination can also be between traditional mediums only or digital mediums only and in fact, when you intend to submit to this category, you'll
Everyday we're CV'ingAs a Community Volunteer - I do as much or as little within the community that I feel comfortable doing. We're not pressured to do this and that, we don't even have to give a Daily Deviation every day, we choose how we promote our selected galleries/chats and forums and we're not fixed to any specific rule on how much or how little we do. But I do believe that it's important to share with you just what the community volunteers do and why we do it. More importantly it's so easy to get lost on this site full of many people - and miss out on the awesome that's going on. So I'm going to share with you exactly what the latest awesome is...
Project Educate
Almost every week since October last year the Community Volunteers have been working hard both independently and as part of small teams to bring You Project Educate.
Project Educate is about bringing forward art forms whether they are popular or overlooked and giving
PE: Tolerance Towards Daily DeviationsIf you're like me, one of the first things you do every morning is turn on the computer to check the DDs for the day, if you make this a habit sooner or later you'll see something featured that you won't like at all, making you spill your morning coffee all over the screen.

Oh the crime! That poor coffee going to waste.
Before you hit the Caps Lock button and begin an essay about the drop of quality of DDs, stop. Take a deep breath, maybe walk around for a bit to cool down, and think about what you're going to do. To begin with, complaining about the DD leaving a comment is extremely disrespectful for the artist because most of the time, they didn't even ask to be featured. Instead, take a moment to consider why was it picked, DDs are chosen for far more than just being visually attractive, as the article Daily Deviations - The Myth and the Legend explained; we often look f
Pimps and Whoas - December 13, 2012Pimps
Official dA News
:bulletpurple: Celebrating Deviousness December 2012
:bulletpurple: Odyssey Propulsion 6
:bulletpurple: Holiday Headquarters 2012
:bulletpurple: Realm of Fantasy - The Anatomy of a Group
:bulletpurple: Be Vigilant of Phishing Scams
:bulletpurple: Gratitude
:bulletpurple:
When to Google, When to ForumOne of the coolest things about dA is it's not just for sharing art, it's for sharing ideas about art. If you're stuck on a piece, or you'd like to learn to how to do something that just hasn't been clicking in tutorials or class, the art-related forums are a great place to look!
But the best part about the forums is also the riskiest part: anyone can answer! Which means you'll get opinions which contradict each other, 'industry facts' from people who heard it elsewhere on the internet, people who don't quite understand your original question...it's a mess!
So how can you back up all that different advice, or alternately open with a question that won't be confusing?
GOOGLE
Ignoring for a moment that I basically worship Google (hey, you try growing up with a 1000-page reference book as your only source of random facts), it's is an awesome, flexible tool.
Just drop your question into Google and see wh
Categorising Darkroom - Digital or Traditional?On dA, the galleries for Darkroom Photography are split into two categories - Digital and Traditional.
Digital Darkroom is for Photographs which have been digitally processed or edited with the use of computer software to emulate traditional and alternative film darkroom techniques.




Traditional Darkroom is for Scans of photographic prints and negatives where the images have been physically developed and/or printed using traditional and alternative film darkroom techniques. This gallery is not for digitally created or edited images.




It seems like an obvious difference, right? How much further explaining really needs to be done? Well, just a little, because there are a few exceptions to what you might assume to be hard and fast rules.
The Rule
Photos created with the involvement of a digital camera should never be placed in Darkroom > Traditional.
Celebrating Diversity #13In this issue of Celebrating Diversity, I would like to remind you of an amazing feeling...when you see a piece of art created in a medium or genre that you have little or no experience of working in, and it feels like you're witnessing something magical, something beyond your comprehension.
It's wonderful to revel in the joy of How do they do that? and find inspiration in the creations of other artists. So I challenge you to take a step outside of the galleries that you regularly browse and immerse yourself in the experience of indulging in something new.









How do you celebrate diversity?
:bulletpink: Do you regularly browse, comment on and collect art that's wildly different from what you create?
:bulletpink: Do you watch artists who use mediums that you don't use in your own
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November 21, 2012
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:iconmelmee:
*Melmee Nov 29, 2012
hehe I have a tendency to go overboard sometimes :la:
but I agree with you, I think it's important to read the artist's input :nod:
It kinda strikes me as a no-brainer, isn't it obvious one would read it? So why wouldn't you put anything there? XD
Reply
:iconvalasedai:
^ValaSedai Nov 29, 2012  Hobbyist Digital Artist
Going overboard is better than writing nothing. I mean you can always pick just certain parts to read then but you can't do that with only three dots there. >__>
Reply
:iconmelmee:
*Melmee Nov 29, 2012
true ^^
Personally, I just get disappointed there's nothing to read. It makes the work seem more.. distant. Unrelatable to or something :meow: The artist is making no attempt to connect to the audience whatsoever.
Reply
:iconvalasedai:
^ValaSedai Nov 30, 2012  Hobbyist Digital Artist
Exactly!
Reply
:iconsingingflames:
=SingingFlames Nov 26, 2012  Hobbyist Writer
Great points! I always try to put personal touches in my comments. I think it makes me seem more "human" to my readers. I also hate the generic "..." or "^" comments. I almost always read comments. I want to know what the artist or writer thinks about their piece.

Great article! :)
Reply
:iconvalasedai:
^ValaSedai Nov 26, 2012  Hobbyist Digital Artist
Exactly my thoughts. :handshake:
Reply
:iconjanneward:
*janneward Nov 26, 2012  Hobbyist Traditional Artist
This is all very important to know. No matter how casual or professional the artist, we all could do with the reminder and the practice. At least, I know I could... :-)
And comments can be just as important for the person leaving them as they are for the one receiving. Learning how to talk about art, what makes a work good or bad or whatever is a skill unto itself. Learning what you like (or don't) about someone else's work can help you in developing your own.
The rest is just good manners- which are always better to use than not.
Reply
:iconvalasedai:
^ValaSedai Nov 26, 2012  Hobbyist Digital Artist
Amen to that.
Reply
:iconripley4o77:
*ripley4O77 Nov 24, 2012  Hobbyist Digital Artist
I always hate it when people do not state WHERE there fan-art is coming from, what movie or game etc...
Reply
:iconvalasedai:
^ValaSedai Nov 24, 2012  Hobbyist Digital Artist
Ditto. And just because something is in the fan art category doesn't mean you don't need to give credit anyway.
Reply
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