Don't Take It Personally: How to Make Critique Work for You - Full article by Monika Zagrobelna

A ''Thank You'' Message to You...A journal dedicated to the following people:
:iconstuck-in-suburbia: :iconsky-of-dust: :iconcrazylaura64: :iconmirz123: :iconin-the-zone: :icontawadi: :iconstamptrove: :iconwolfshadowxd: :iconbubblebabylover: :iconsilentkitty: :icondark-skater-girl: :iconredsakuramanga: :iconpocky-o-clock: :iconmizumisan: :iconviollence: :iconfrostphoenyx: :iconxxhotstuffxx: :icontineaus: :iconraptorbane: :iconquelance: :iconlolicantdraw: :iconsaragardner: :iconesemese: :iconfallenumbra: :iconclefairykid: :iconsanpasazzaro: :icon3lda: :iconzetsu-0-sakura:
Well, I was searching for stamps around dA when I read your comment...
Your words entered into my heart and made the difference. Your words encouraged me to not be afraid to be myself, to try new things, to not be so insecure, to risk more, to not be so rigid with myself, to go on and put an end on the empire of the "fear" in my life.
You...Yes, you...You really "saved" me.
You may be dumbfounded for this declaration and a

Below I'll post some samples of her article in order to "tease" you and hopefully convince you to read her article.

But first, allow me to suggest you some websites which helped me deal with things related to self-esteem along the years, since I believe this is a topic that can really get really psychological and emotional to certain people:

Pageviews and Popularity - The real deal.Be an artist, not a number.
Many members of the artistic community here on DeviantART were shocked by a recent popular news article about how to become popular. I won't link to it because that would be foolish - but the mentality behind it was pageview orientated and made a 'mockery of all that deviantART stands for'.
So - to spell it out for everyone on DeviantART whos ever wanted more pageviews, I went to my nearest and dearest ' popular' artists and asked them what they thought about popularity and statistics.
The answer? They don't give a damn...
Your page views won't help you progress as an artist, and that is what you should be on this art site for.. the art..
Page views can be a feel good thing - I won't deny that - but it does not reflect how much your actual art is viewed, how sucessful or popular your art itself is, or even how popular you are.
Using cheap tactics as described in the article it is easy to generate high numbers of page views even with an EMPTY gallery.

Pageviews, Watchers, and Popularity on dA I know this horse has been beat to death (and by beat to death, I mean guides have been made on the subject) but I feel the need to insert some words of compassion rather than to simply say “you shouldn’t care about becoming popular here, it doesn’t matter” or “follow these steps and you’ll be dA elite overnight!”  The fact of the matter is we all long to be loved and liked in just about everything we do. We all want acceptance and validation from our peers. And when that acceptance and validation is nowhere to be found, the feeling is really not great at all.  We all know that feel bro.
I tend to believe what most people longing for popularity on dA are really after validation and friendship. TanyaSimoneSimpson beautifully wrote about the subject of popularity on dA (or rather the desire for it) in her essay “Popularity…A Refreshing View” check it out here:

Activity vs. Community    When combining millions of artists working with different media, style, experience level, etc. being here can become overwhelming and finding your "place" can seem almost impossible. Throughout the last few weeks I've noticed more and more people asking "how can I be more active?" and "how do I get involved in the community?"
    These are both the same question and completely different questions at the same time. Though the answers to both are quite similar if not the same the difference between activity and community is huge! We're going to cover the answers and difference to both of those in this article.
The Basics
    There are three basic ways to being active on dA and getting involved the community. Everything after this will actually lead right back to these three things.
  Commenting: is the best and most effective way to particicpate in our community becaus

Awesome artists which criminally low pageviews!So I'm doing a feature (even though it might actually get very few views cuz I'm a terrible deviant... anyway...)
It's official DA is one of the toughest crowds to break into. I recently found these awesome artists with freakishly awesome art and freakishly low pageviews, below 10,000 pvs this is a crime people! (9 ene)9
So (at the cost of embarrassing myself) here I go:
:iconstrenerus:
Check out his awesome art:


And 
:iconzombiram:



And
:iconlimsh:
(Okay this one has 16k pvs but that's still pretty low because their art be like this-



If this feature gets no views, I hope that at least you three will have found each other... wow that sounded artistically romantic er e-e) 

Challenging Yourself to Become a Better ArtistLike others here, I get asked a lot of questions about my art, my process, techniques, and my inspiration. One of the questions I get asked that makes me both smile and laugh is, "How did you get so good?" Half the time it's a rhetorical question, and the other half is people genuinely wanting to know how to get better at art.
The answer is deceptively simple: I challenge myself and maintain a positive attitude.
RISE TO THE CHALLENGE
Now you might say, "Well, everything I do is a challenge, I'm not that good yet." But that's not what I mean. Of course getting better at art is challenging, and even when you're what others might consider a master, art never stops being a challenge.
But what I'm talking about is specifically setting goals for yourself and taking on projects that you KNOW are going to make you struggle. The projects that you KNOW are going to make you want to give up and do something else.
I find that a lot of people sort of stick to a specific niche and never reall

So, finally I'll post some samples of the following article I linked at the beginning:

There are two outcomes of the process of judgment: fact and opinion.

• Fact is just a description of observed situation/object. "The fruit is poisonous for humans", "the animal is very aggressive during mating season". Facts are observations confirmed by many people—everyone who doubts them can go and check themselves. The result will be the same (and if not, it was never a fact). A fact exists objectively and it doesn't need to be described to come into existence—deadly nightshade is poisonous for humans no matter if the human is conscious and able to judge;
  
• Opinion is a fact with a personal value added. "This pizza is delicious", "this is the most beautiful forest ever". The value is created in the mind of the observer and doesn't exist outside it. When many people share the same opinion, it may look and be treated as a fact ("strawberries are tasty", "roses are beautiful"). 

Do you remember the first time someone judged your work positively? That euphoria felt great! And the first negative judgment? Maybe you even stopped drawing for some time (or forever!) after this. No doubt judgment is very powerful, but where does this power come from?

The answer is simple—we are the source of it. An unconscious being doesn't care about judgment, simply because it's not able to care at all. When you care, you let something into your mind. When you post a drawing, you care a lot! You've spent a lot of time on it, you love it, and you want others to feel the same, so you open your mind to their opinions—ready to receive positive energy from them. Unfortunately, negative opinions use exactly the same channel, bringing negative energy. One negative comment may overcome ten positive ones because it's so unwelcome! 

Alas, you can't draw energy from positive comments and ignore negative ones. As I said, they use the same channel, and you can either open or close it.

They Know Better

We cheat ourselves a lot. In drawing it manifests a dangerous belief "an opinion becomes a fact once it's said aloud". Of course, it's not true, but this kind of thinking opens the channel to draw a lot of energy from every positive comments. They mean so much because with every positive opinion the picture becomes—in fact—more and more beautiful!

Few people draw for themselves, some draw for money, but the vast majority draws for praises. It feels so good when others appreciate our work! Unfortunately, the better it feels, the worse it gets when a negative comment comes to play. A positive opinion gets you high for a few minutes, but a negative one wrecks your day and undermines your self-confidence.

That's how we reached the important conclusion. The less confident, the more prone you are to treat opinions as facts. It's because a person with low self-esteem values opinions of others higher than theirs. You like your picture, someone comes and tells it's ugly, and suddenly you feel bad—the person destroyed your satisfaction of the picture with a simple opinion said aloud! And that trembling when you post a picture and don't know how others will take it? It's as if it was kind of voting and the value of the picture was at stake!

Opinions are pieces you use to build your self-confidence from. However, it's not very solid construction. If you take everything from others to build it, sometimes you'll be fetched a log, and sometimes—a burning torch instead. When you believe everyone but you is right, you can't choose the material—you take what they give you, because they know better. One torch given instead of expected timber will easily destroy everything you've built so far.

When Praises Become a Fuel

"So what, am I supposed not to listen to them at all? Praises are what drives me to draw!". This approach is very dangerous, too. When you draw for praises, your goal isn't to be better—only more appreciated. It may go hand in hand, indeed, but there's a risk you'll take the path of least resistance and copy/trace, draw fan arts only, or stick to one, well-tested style. Because development is a path of trail and error, and errors are something that you, praise-junkie, can't stand. You'd rather draw another pony for your fans and get a lot of positive feedback than post an experimental piece—maybe better in technical sense —and receive a faint reaction.

Yes, praises are addictive and drawing for them only is an addiction. Imagine that someone, a complete stranger, tells you something like this:

"Seriously, you're one of the best... no, THE best artist I've ever seen. Your style is totally unique, not so boring like others'. I can't stop looking at your works, you put so much effort in them and all of them say something about you. I don't know how to explain it, but I can see your personality in them. I can't wait to see more!"

What do you feel? Adrenaline, euphoria, a sudden boost of motivation? Do you feel more alive than a few seconds ago? Is your heart beating faster? It feels good, doesn't it? The better it feels, the more likely you'll fight to get a chance to feel it once again. That's how psychological addiction works—the praise becomes a drug for your brain!

There are many "brain drugs". Without them we wouldn't do anything at all! All the actions beneficial for survival are pleasant to induce us to repeat them, but not all the pleasant actions are beneficial for survival. Drawing for praises may, in some cases, make a great artist out of you. After all, we all start with this! However, there must be a point when you realize what's going on with you—you must set a new goal and forget about what your fans expect from you. 

There's no future for a praise-junkies. They will always crave for attention, for positive comments, more views, more signs of admiration. And at the same time, one negative comment is enough to ruin their day. They'll defend themselves from them, trying to convince you your opinion is invalid—"it's my style, you can't judge it!", "what do you know, you can't even draw!", "yeah, because you know how dragons look"... 

"But if I stop listening to them, why would I draw?". To be a better artist. To find a job that will make you fulfilled. To feel satisfaction of your own self-development. To have a purpose in life. To value your art yourself, and not to depend on others to make it valuable. After all, comments have only as much power as you let them. It doesn't mean you should stop listening to everyone who tells something about your art. Listen to them and pick the meaning you need—an advice how to be better.

What is Critique and What isn't?

There are many less or more formal definitions of critique, but let's create one based on what we've been talking about. Critique is an opinion based on logical facts. There are also opinions looking like a critique, but in reality they're based on very unstable beliefs. When you decide to abandon praise-addiction and use comments for your own development, you need to learn how to distinguish them.

There's a base behind everything we say. We aren't robots, we've got emotions, what makes the transfer of information complicated, and the actual meaning—ambiguous. To understand what someone really told us, we need to take a deep breath and move emotions aside. It may not be possible in the heat of the moment, so if the comment is really "hot" to you, take a break and come back later. It's easy when the comment was written, but with a spoken one you need to relax at the same moment. Don't be defensive, nobody can hurt you with words unless you let them. 

Dismantled Opinion Loses its Fangs

That's what we need to do—dig, and dig, and dig, until we get to the very base of the opinion. We need to find the fact and see if it's worth paying attention to.

Positive Critique is Still Critique

We tend to think that positive comments are default, then there's a critique that's not so nice to hear. However, there's no difference between good and bad comments—they're all made by judgment. When you say "that's just a practice sketch, please don't judge it", and then respond with "thank you so much!" to every positive comment, you're cheating. It's like you said you don't want any guests that day, and then honestly welcomed those who came. There's a twisted reasoning behind it!

Why wouldn't you want positive comments? Because when you wait for comments to validate a value of your art, even lack of them is some kind of feedback. It's something between "not bad" and "not good". If usually you get a lot of nice comments under every picture, and suddenly the viewers stay quiet, there must be a reason behind it—probably they have nothing nice to say, so they don't!

When you say "no critique please" and because of that get only positive comments, you may start to believe your work is flawless. It works on unconscious level, so you can't fight it. It's because lack of negative comments usually means there's nothing negative to say about it. It's what's hidden behind "don't judge me"—"don't say it's wrong". "No critique" can't be a shield not to hear negative things about your art!

Judge-positively-only attitude is clearly visible in nude art photography. "She's so hot" is a good comment, but "She's too fat" is met with an defensive response. Why is first opinion right and the other wrong? They're both about judging the body of the model instead of the photo. There's no difference between them—and no need to say "thank you" after any of them.

One more thing: negative comments are usually played down by suggesting that the commenter doesn't have the knowledge to judge the art. Surprisingly, no knowledge is required to comment positively! How is it possible? Now you should know the answer.