How I made Art Camp | Hacker News Reader

How I made Art Camp

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17 pointsnoahbradley4 comments

This idea of "better artist" and even "better girlfriend" (seriously, the linked article talks about a "better girlfriend"!) is very simplistic. So artists change over time, sometimes improving, sometimes going off the boil.

It's far from inconceivable that a good, critically-applauded "naive" artist would be turned into a pedestrian, cliché Dungeons & Dragons artist by this kind of course.

I don't think anyone goes into this Art Camp with any illusions but it would be good if Noah threw around the term artist a bit less and made it very explicit which skills he is talking about.

(I'm not sure about the romantic ideal of the artist as a unique individual, but I do feel the need to defend the idea that art should be personal and not about conforming to conventions, aesthetic or capitalistic.)

And the issue of subscriptions? The Wikipedia page has this to say in favour of the subscription model:

"The subscription model should align customer and vendor toward common goals, as both stand to benefit if the customer receives value from the subscription. The customer that receives value is more likely to renew the subscription and possibly at an increased rate. The customer that does not receive value will, in theory, return to the marketplace."

I'm not teaching people to do art like mine--I'm teaching them representational art as a whole. The fundamentals of those skills can be used to take your work in just about any direction you'd like. If someone doesn't want to do representational art, well they probably wouldn't sign up in the first place.

I'm not sure if you have much experience with the course, but I talk for hours during it on how to develop your own personal aesthetic and point of view in your work.

I am a huge proponent in individualistic art. The last thing I want to see is a bunch of people painting like me. Hell, I don't want that if only for the reason that I don't need the competition.

But doing master studies, basic drawing studies, plein air work, self portraits, photo studies, etc. will not sap the "individualism" out of someone's work. It'll just improve their technical competence.

Just a few thoughts. :)

Great story, glad to hear it worked out. Would be good to see/read a little more detail on the analysis part - i.e., any email analytics, any refunds, how many hours you put into it.

Also, did you ever consider a monthly subscription, working with artists to release new lessons routinely?

Edit Sorry - just thought of it - would recommend course referrals / testimonials on your site...

Thanks! And yeah, I considered many times to switch over to a subscription model. But I wasn't convinced that the numbers would actually net higher than what I was doing here. I've got a friend/"competitor" in the same space as me on a subscription model and we've exchanged numbers before. I don't know that one is better than the other.

And yes! It's on the list of things to do. Need to put those referrals on the site sometimes soon.

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