So, I was painting a goldfish (using a ref) for its glass's reflections, and then I thought "axil's the only one I can think of right now that would do it justice".. and then I got to wonder, if there's "talent" for art, or is it just practice. Personally I don't feel I was born with a talent for art, but I see improvements as I practice.

I realized the nativism vs. behaviorism question is old, but I want to look at it from a slightly different way. Talent can be viewed as the base level, what a person can achieve without major effort, or the natural conclusions one might achieve without studying.

Talent can also be viewed as your highest point. Everyone can achieve certain, good skills, but only those talented will get the great results. Personally, I think imagination and maybe luck are the factors who separate the good from great.

And maybe, there is no such thing as an artistic talent, but it's an integration of several abilities, such as mental representation, imagination, understanding light, memory.. and then I get to wonder again, if imagination can be practiced.
I remeber reading once that in laboratory experiments, seeing a lightbulb (as opposed to fluorescent and yellow light without seeing the bulb) helped people achieve insights in an exercise, because of the bulb symbolism. So maybe the things we use in art, like music, work in the same way.


Now I can freely get back to my fish ;)

I think anything takes a lot of practice if you want to excel in it... although there is definitely a degree of talent you must have to be an artist, for sure. A lot of people don't have the eye or mind for it... and they always say they wish they could do that. I tell them they can if they practice, but some will always be better than others. It's all in the eye of the beholder, what one thinks is crap, another could think is genius.

If it had to come down to practice...purely going from what I see on this website;

Axil is on a 1598 submissions on this website.
You are on 185 submissions.

Having a look through Axil62's gallery, you can see the development from when he first started drawing on here to what he currently does now. His early work is great, and you can see some amazing things come out with time.

I would say, it is a love for what you do though. If you love doing something, whether you are aware of it or not, then you will persevere through the hard times (in this case, feeling like you are getting nowhere, or you feel your work isn't good enough compared to others and so on) and continue to do what it is you love. Talent alone won't have you want to practice to improve, you would simply give up.

With that said, you have some great stuff in your gallery. Keep going at it.

hmm.. I'd just memo you about that. ;)

I've usually been against the concept of talent. But there is no denying that some people have it easier with picking things up.

The way I see it is that people who are talented are those who are really interested in what they are doing. Yanno they draw because they actually enjoy it and always see something new and valueable in other artwork and their own(they naturally think about it all day). Those less talented don't really care for what they are making....their thoughts are operating more on a meta level ("man this is no fun", "I want to impress others", "fuck I need to make money"). And that turns them into really slow learners...And a lot of practice won't neccesarily help because their minds are at a "wrong" place.

I think when conditions are right, mentally, physically, spiritually, one can achieve anything.

There are moments, days, where I would just love to sit at home and paint all day. But, I am addicted to video games and cannot achieve my art goals as of now.

I don't think anyone can achieve anything.. would you say the same if it was math?

Well for me, yeah. I used to be horrible at math in High School. That is until I went to ITT Technical Institute for a year. I learned more math in ITT than I ever did in high school. ( Algebra II, Geometry, Trigonometry, Physics. And it was fun!) The Teachers at ITT were amazing. Only reason why I did not complete it was because I had joined the National Guard at the same time I enrolled at ITT. And I deployed to Germany twice that same year. Just missing 2 days of Classes was rough because it was a lot of hands on.

But anyways, the conditions were right to learn math.