Art Myth #5: My work isn't as good as other artists' work

Look at these two quotes: 

'Comparison is the enemy of happiness, stop measuring yourself against the world' - Seth King. 

'Comparison with something that is better is the thief of joy. Comparison with something that is worse is a joy - full of relief and gratitude! You cannot always choose what happens to you or your circumstances but you can always choose your attitude by what you choose to compare your experiences or circumstances to and therefore how you will feel!! We can make any experience either a heaven or a hell by what we compare it to. Our emotions are 'an inside job!'' - Theodore Roosevelt.

In this final essay we'll look at a common problem - when people judge the worth of their own art by comparing it to the work of others.

Don't do it!

And here's why:

Have a look at these four portraits of French musician and film maker Serge Gainsbourg. One is digital, two are painted and one is made of felt. 

Which do you like the best?

The digital piece is by me. The portrait top right is by Simon Gurr, and bottom left by Joan Xavier Vázquez. The sculpture is by the wonderful Feltmistress. 

I wonder why you chose the one that you did? There must have been something about it that appealed to your personal taste. 

As we've discussed in previous essays, the validity of a piece of art isn't measured by gallery-worthiness or monetary value; most of the great painters and sculptors were unappreciated in their own lifetimes and many died in penury. Some were abused, imprisoned or even killed for being different from the mainstream. But they persevered because they had self-belief. And many are now revered for showing us a new vision, for opening up the definition of what art is. In many ways, we celebrate them for proving the point that all art is valid and that anyone can create it. Warhol’s pop art, the Impressionists’ light and airy canvasses and Henry Moore’s abstract reclining figures all broke new ground when they were first exhibited … but not because they were beyond the ability of most of us. It was because they were different and exciting and new. The artists were confident enough to make them, despite the prevailing fashions. As the result, they helped to redefine what art is. 

Breaking the mould is important. Not being the same as other artists is important. 

I firmly believe that one of the big reasons people believe they can’t create art is because they make the mistake of comparing what they produce with the work of other artists, particularly ones that they like. Artists are their own worst critics. Even polymath Leonardo da Vinci, on his deathbed, declared: ‘I have offended God and mankind because my work did not reach the quality it should have.’ 

Ouch. 

But what standard of quality was Leonardo measuring his art against? Only one that he had put in place himself. We sabotage our own confidence by entering a competition that doesn’t exist. 

Let’s imagine a person called Karen Smith. Karen is a huge fan of Beryl Cook’s happy paintings of chubby people having fun. So she sets out to paint just like her. And she's immediately set herself up for disappointment. By comparing her work against Cook’s, she’ll believe that she's somehow failed if it falls short of the mark. She’s come second in a competition that she should never have entered and can never win. The very best she can hope for is a draw (no pun intended). 

But look at it another way ...

What she can create is a 100% Karen Smith piece; inspired by Beryl Cook maybe but as unique and valid as anything Cook ever produced. 

Elvira's Cafe by Beryl Cook

To put it another way, I can’t paint like Dali but, conversely, Dali couldn’t paint like me. 

This ‘comparing yourself to others’ business is why I believe so many ‘how to’ art books fail. What they show you is not how to paint or draw like You, but how to paint and draw like the author. And if they provide a step-by-step ‘paint along’ guide, what you will eventually produce is a finished piece that probably isn’t quite as good as the author’s original. That can only mean disappointment surely? 

If our imaginary Karen Smith enjoys painting and is happy with what she produces – that’s all that matters. Her art has worth. It only loses that worth in her eyes if she compares it to another artist's work and marks it according to how similar it is. It's her lack of self-belief that is skewing her perception and making her see a problem that isn't actually there. If she'd never seen a Beryl Cook painting would she be happier with her own work? Of course she would. The ‘competition’ wouldn’t exist. 

Kindergarten children don’t compare themselves to other artists. They are ignorant in the true sense of the word. And ignorance, as we all know, is bliss. 

When Picasso first shifted an eye to the wrong side of a painted head, he didn't think to himself, 'People are going to hate this'. Even if he did, he did it anyway because it felt right and to Hell with what the rest of the world thought. He wasn't comparing his art to some benchmark of public opinion. He painted for his own satisfaction. He painted what he felt inside. Creating art is making something from nothing; it's an expression of our personalities. And because we're all different, the art we create is all different. A Degas doesn't look like a Chagall. A Basquiat doesn't look like a Banksy. 

Even conceptual pieces carry something of the artist with them. It's all very well saying 'Anyone could put a shark in a tank' but they didn't, did they? 

Damien Hirst did because it's a very Damien Hirst idea. 

I love the sculptures of Anish Kapoor and Henry Moore, the scratchy and savagely satirical pen drawings of Willie Rushton and Ronald Searle, the clever draughtsmanship of W Heath Robinson, the ebullience and child like fun of Leo Baxendale, the lush canvasses of Walter Langley … and so many others. But my art could never be mistaken for any of theirs. The fact that I love all of those artists doesn’t mean that I should be able to create art that looks like theirs. How could I? I haven’t had the same life experiences as them. I don’t see the world the same way that they do. I don’t think like they do. Therefore, why would I ever expect my artwork to look like theirs? However, I can be inspired by them. And I can learn from them. 

Although my work doesn’t look like the work of my favourite artists, there are little clues to my influences. The way I draw hands has some similarity to hands by Rodney Matthews. The way I draw hair looks a bit like hair drawn by Brian Bolland, and so on. That’s because, before my personal style evolved, I spent a lot of my time copying them. Yes, I said the C word. The other C word. These essays are all about laying old myths to rest and this is one of the biggies: 

Copying is cheating.

No it isn’t! Copying is good!

Okay, so copying someone’s work and passing it off as your own is a bad thing. That's plagiarism. Copying someone’s work and claiming it’s an original by the artist is a bad thing too. That’s called counterfeiting and you can get locked up for it. But copying in order to learn is a good thing. Copying is how we learn almost every skill we have, whether it’s cooking a roast dinner, putting up a shelf or tying our shoelaces. I know chefs who got their start by copying Delia Smith and Keith Floyd. I know painters who learned by copying Bob Ross and Nancy Kominsky on TV. I know comic artists who learned their trade by copying the greats like Gil Kane and Jack Kirby. The very action of copying makes you familiar with the shapes and techniques used by other artists. Do it enough and those shapes and techniques become second nature. And, guess what? You have a lifetime of influences and a unique personality and, faster than you know it, you’ll develop a style that is yours and yours alone. Then, you’ll naturally start to impose that style on the techniques you learned by copying and soon your work won’t look like another artist’s work anymore. 

And now I’m going to take you one step further by suggesting that … it’s not even a bad thing to trace (horrors!) artwork or photographs. Trust me, you won’t be the first artist to use tracing as a tool to create art. It’s been going on for centuries. Canaletto used a device called a camera obscura – basically a giant pinhole camera that you stand inside – to project an image of the outdoors onto a canvas whereupon it could be traced. Many of his most famous Venetian landscapes started life that way and his camera still survives to this day in the Correr Museum in Venice. Sir Joshua Reynolds also used one and recent evidence suggests that Johannes Vermeer may also have done so. They were in common use by many artists. 

The camera obscura remained in common use for centuries along with a portable version called a camera lucida. There were also Claude Glasses (sometimes called a ‘Black Mirror’) that reduced a landscape image to a small tonal version that could be copied, scaling grids where pictures are broken into smaller squares and then the detail transferred by hand to larger corresponding squares. And there was the pantograph, a mechanical concertina affair that allows the user to make an exact copy of an original or to make a larger scale copy by the simple act of tracing the original. 

Then along came the magic lantern, the slide projector and the overhead projector. And these days we have data projectors and lightboxes and many artists use them to sketch out their artwork. 

Learning to make art takes practice. It's a skill just like any other. If you're learning to ride a bike you attach stabilisers and they give you a degree of support and confidence while you attempt to find your balance. Copying and tracing perform the same role; they are your art stabilisers and you use them until you have the confidence to create the work without help. I suppose, if we were to take the broadest possible interpretation of copying, any kind of realist artwork is copying. In portraiture you’re copying a person, still life is copying objects, and landscape is copying the real world outside. That said, the artist will usually stamp their originality into the piece; something that identifies their work from others. A Constable doesn’t look like a Monet and neither of them look like a Pissarro or a Sisley. 

So, trust me, it’s okay to copy and it’s okay to trace. Both of them will increase the range and depth of your skills. Both will develop your fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination. Whether it’s from life or from photo reference, it’s fine. And copying the work of other artists is fine too … as long as you’re only doing it for yourself and not with the aim of selling it. By copying, you learn to ‘see’ how artists achieve the effects that they do. In time, you’ll find yourself cherry-picking skills and techniques you like and you'll learn how to do them by copying. Eventually, you won’t need to copy any more. The stabilisers will be off and you’ll be riding all by yourself in your own unique style. 

Oscar Wilde once wisely said: 'No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.’ 

Don't compare yourself with others. Celebrate your original vision and your unique creations.

Be proud.

Be happy.

Make art.