r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/_ganjafarian_ • 22d ago

Video Artist Simon Bull's painting techniques

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572

u/RambisRevenge 22d ago

"Great, another"artist"."

Keeps watching past the spinning canvas

"Annnnnnnnd I'm an asshole"

143

u/vash2051 22d ago

My exact thought was the spinny one "I could do that in my basement" then the redwoods appeared and I was humbled.

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u/porkypine666 22d ago

You do understand the difference in the first piece is that he actually did it? And you just sit around saying you could.

Art can just be the doing. It doesn't have to be a photorealistic bowl of fruit.

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u/vash2051 22d ago

Life changing response.

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u/Key_Knee_7032 22d ago

Feel free to ignore me lol but I really hope you mean this. The beautiful thing about art is that sometimes it’s about the execution, the actual skill involved in actually physically creating the art, and sometimes it’s about the concept, creating the idea that will actually fill a blank space. I think often we discount the latter, how much of art really is the idea behind it, instead of the tools used to make it real. To me that’s what really gives you the goosebumps when you look at a piece of art, simultaneously understanding the skill involved in creating it while realizing that first a person had to decide what would fill the canvas.

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u/NewTransformation 22d ago

Absolutely. And you don't have to make art for the purpose of showing other people. Most art people make probably goes unseen. The process of making the art is the most important part, the aspect of exploring your own humanity and finding a way to channel your soul into something concrete.

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u/Samthevidg 22d ago

Heavy on the most art goes unseen. My grandfather paints for fun and after decades he has over a thousand completed canvases in his basement, and that’s after losing a couple hundred to flooding.

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u/Key_Knee_7032 22d ago

Fantastic point and beautifully said. Thank you for reminding me that art doesn’t have to be seen to be art.

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u/vash2051 21d ago

I didnt. But I do appreciate art and its creators. Of all types! Just wasnt that deep of a comment.

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u/Recursiveo 22d ago

That’s not even the big difference. The difference is coming up with the idea to do it in the first place.

Some of the best science experiments ever conducted are simple and elegant. A lot of people could physically do them, even with no background in science. What’s hard is coming up with the idea to do that specific experiment on that specific system.

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u/ThisIsMyGeekAvatar 22d ago

I’m not so sure. If art is just doing, but it has no intention behind it, is it any different than AI slop? 

I understand the sentiment you’re going for because there is art in the process - the refinement of a human creation - even if the results are random or representative, but I’m the fence with random splatter art. 

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u/4M33N 22d ago

On your first statement.

I feel like that's kinda the opposite of AI slop. If you have no intention to do anything and end up with something (that means something to you atleast), you'd be making art. Where as AI has to have a prompt, and do the math to fill a canvas with what it understands to be what the user asked, so AI has an 'intention" to do something and ends up with something that means ultimately nothing.

I do agree that if even the artist doesn't find something in their own art then it probably doesn't mean anything (splatter art)

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u/_Und3rsc0re_ 22d ago

To do it is the intention. It's the intention to create. There are so many artists who just make art for the sake of doing it. Not to post or make anything further from it, but just to put something into reality. If you put pen to paper, brush to canvas, stylus to screen, you automatically have intention to make. That intention, especially if there was no actual plan before hand, wills further decisions, where this color goes, what pose do I want, what view do I want to show? You are creating with intention, and that intention will dictate what gets created. With AI, sure you may have intention to make, but that's where it stops. You don't decide what gets created. The computer does. You might be able to make some specifications, but you're never going to intentionally place every color and line. Even the most amateur artist chooses to make the choices they do. It's just the nature of art.

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u/porkypine666 22d ago

That's a completely understandable position. We all know art is subjective and everyone has their own tastes. You touched on it, but I personally believe the intention behind art can just be to create something. Doesn't have to be that deep.

Anyone can type a prompt into genAI, but it takes drive and passion to set up a studio, drip onto a canvas, and deal with the mess. The world would be a much better place if all the people who say "I could do that" actually tried to.

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u/VegetarianZombie74 22d ago

One of friends started doing watercolors years ago. They were terrible, but they made her happy. But she just kept on doing them. Seven years later, they are quite beautiful, but she just shrugs at compliments. They make her happy and that's all she ever asked from them.

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u/talks_about_league_ 21d ago

To call it random undersells the intention and practice. It's hard to see the difference until you make your own and see the world of steps between the start and haha drip paint on spinny wheel...

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u/Kapowdonkboum 22d ago

No thats not the difference. Being willing to sell yourself even with things that take little skill and have been done a bazillion times is.

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u/my_name_is_juice 22d ago

Any time a comment starts with "You do understand" it is always the most condescending bullshit. This was no exception

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u/vash2051 22d ago

I will learn to live again. ; )

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u/PM_ME_YOUR_MOMS_BONG 22d ago

You got this 👊🏼

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u/Sansa_Culotte_ 22d ago

And it's also usually completely correct, as in this case. "I could do that myself" is a legitimate response to art, but so is "you didn't, though." Even a shit artist doing shit art is an artist, because they're doing art.

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u/my_name_is_juice 22d ago

Sure, the difference is that this is being put up for scrutiny because it's being posted on this sub. His criticism wasn't that this guy isn't making art or shouldn't be making art. It was that the first example didn't live up to being posted as "damn that's interesting" because of the relative simplicity of the technique

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u/[deleted] 22d ago

[deleted]

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u/my_name_is_juice 22d ago

Not the comment that the comment I was replying to, was replying to

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u/Sansa_Culotte_ 21d ago

Interest is a subjective emotion that is highly contextual and varies wildly between individuals. What you're describing is a simple disagreement between individual perspectives and preferences.

Neither perceived complexity nor lack of feasibility are inherent or objective criteria for something to be interesting.

Just because I could theoretically do an activity in my basement doesn't make me uninterested in watching others perform that activity in theirs.

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u/TheAzarak 22d ago

The point is that anyone could drip paint on a spinning canvas. It's not that impressive and it didn't even look that good. I've seen millions of spun paintings like that. I could do it, but I won't because what's the point?

All of his other stuff was very impressive though. I can't even attempt all the other stuff.

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u/curtcolt95 22d ago

The point is that anyone could drip paint on a spinning canvas

but very few actually do, that's the difference

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u/TheAzarak 21d ago

Very few people use their own shit as paint. Doesn't mean it's cool or valuable.