What is Entertainment Art?

There are 2 types of Entertainment Artists:

1. The Traditional/Digital Live Artist who entertains an audience 'live' where there is an immediate gratification leaving both the entertainer and entertained in a win-win situation.

This Entertainment Artist is an artist who is in the truest sense a 'traditional artist' who makes drawings/sketches in the presence of a live audience. He/she who purely uses pencils, paints, pastels etc. on paper, canvas or wood respectively.

Like you see here my very talented Live Entertainment Artist friend "A renowned Italian Humorist Roberto Mangosi making one of his enjoyable art performances to an audience in Rome:

 

The picture below is from one of my small performances yesterday at a Dubai BNI meeting (part of my 60 sec. pitch) with their Regional Director Mr. Bijay Shah who accepted the honor of being my audience-participant to help in the making of my quick live caricature. 

My Live Art is a bit different where I allow any member of the audience who wishes to volunteer to participate in my performance to demonstrate the fact that there is an "Artist Gene" in every human being where anyone who may think he or she does not have it in him/her "the artist material" at the end of the show will indeed be pleased they were able to contribute in the making of a drawing worthy of a display-piece.

 
2. The Entertainment Artist who creates works to Entertain an Audience via media, by way of Animated Films, Commercials, Short Stories where there is a certain amount of rehearsal. This is not a live performance and hence the gratification happens once it is released to a wide audience.

Here the artist is one who relies on digital tools too but has advanced traditional skills to use these tools so that with these skill-sets flourishes into visual development artists, art directors, character designers, environment designers, production designers, or any of the other plethora of designers in the entertainment community (these entertainment art positions as quoted on laafa.org).

Funny I did not realize all through my journey as a Creative.... Right from my first job as an animator in the early 90s I was wanting to carve myself a niche as an "Entertainment artist" forgetting the fact that I was already one, many years ago.

All my life I have anyway been asked to perform making portraits and caricature at parties....getting little time to actually do the typical childhood playtime pranks. That became very a convenient escape from any emotional hassles if I had to deal with any in the growing stressful world we live in. Entertainment Artists have a blessing to get into their own blissful world of illusion which they create with their pencils.

Pleased to see you again on my posts. Be back in a while with some more food for artistic thought.

A Disgruntled Designer whose Passion is Art

Hello again this is my typical art-space when I practice my dearest passions.

However....

For the first time I am stepping out of this rosy-rosy world I would like myself to always stay as an artist to voice out my 2 cents so as to request real Artists .... "Please don't contribute to the world of Starving Artists."?!

Just an hour ago I was taken aback by a sad statement made by an associate who should be a mediator to put designers at a better wicket....entertaining clients to conduct business by unpaid designs in order to help kickstart a proposal. I decide not to quote anything from his words because I am still an active member of the industry.

I am glad my niche keeps me safe from this kind of batter-y!! I guess. But thanks to such shockers, it encourages me to take some action....Diversification has continued to be my main soup for a while now and I don't regret it.

In the past couple of years, though I am humbled by the fact that fans for my art have grown... astronomical have been the requests for free or pro-bono work I have received. If people love art they must want to pay for it, right? If people love an artist's music they must want to pay for that goodwill. Then...How so, is it not?!

In 2012 alone, I have received the following asks-for-free: 

• 26 requests for free work from the general public. (2 I could afford to do.)
• 4 free requests from friends and relatives (1-1/2 of which I could afford to do.)
• 4 free requests from live new clients wanting to test Design skills unpaid manhours.
• 3 free requests of logo-design/redesign stating "this should be a child's-play for you a pro".
• 2 free requests to do concepts for pitches absolutely free with no payment guarantee.
• 2 requests for charity. (1 I did for a deserving cause.)

Don't these good Samaritans in search of free-to-work-artists ever think that authorized artists are doing this job for a living? After the job is perfectly done after tens of changes, then...artists have to worry about a a disappearance-without-paying-act which happens all too often whether large corporates or not unless held by strong legal papers. Where there is no jurisdiction ever covering artists....Where is the answer to that?!

My take!

Now hasn't the whole world got an over-dose of hitech art, animation etc etc. and pleasure of watching it at down-to-earth prices or no rates. Thanks to the fancy words of crowd-sourcing, 99designs, elance etc etc.

As we speak.... there are many animators even in Hollywood out of jobs for a very long time. So those who have jobs let's count our blessings but realize this is not a blessing in disguise...it's time to find better blessings :o) A Hollywood animation studio is getting 70% of their animators filled by students who they will not pay a cent. The Students' incentive is that they get to work in a Hollywood Studio. The business house's incentive is? They have 70% of their animators working for free. 

Dear Design students - after your 2-year free work experience with your ex-Hollywood Studio employee certificate, what salary-scales would you new animators' community ever get? Congrats! you would have officially set your bar so low that you have made the whole global design community a commodity.

My take!!

Art & Design & Animation with computer tools coming of age is now taken for granted that.... nobody has the time to differentiate between quality or mediocre work. Unfortunately for true artists! You may want to take the red carpet march out rather than be ushered in... while you still have the spirit.

Perhaps you could do well building your own gallery and housing your pieces in it.

My take!!!

... to people who are truly passionate about doing art (this maybe a "Note to self" too to constantly keep nudging me back to reality) is to just keep it as your passion "FOREVER". The moment you depend on art alone to make a living....the way things are panning out!? You don't want to hate your passions... do you? That would be killing your own spirit!! FOREVER.

I would be glad to hear your thoughts too. Before I stop may I ask of one thing.... do not be in a hurry to make judgements yet... we may not generalize and make inferences based upon this post for.... 

I am just throwing these pointers your way to ruminate upon. It is still a hypothesis as it still depends upon the Art of the Artist to handle such ugliness to come out of it in handsome colors. But until then the Artist must have strong options to fall back on.

Thank you again for sharing my thoughts.