The following post is an interview of Amanda (for the sake of anonymity on the web I won't be revealing her real name). I considur her a credible interviewee because she has experieince in the arts. Her experience in art comes from Greiner Middle School, and Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts (both are schools that specifically help develop artistic skill). The school, or rather University, that she currently attends is Southern Methodist University (SMU). At SMU, Amanda majors in engilsh; however, she continues to work on her drawing, and does so in her spare time.
Me: Do you have any experience in drawing?
Yes.
Me:How many years have you been drawing?
15 years.
Me:How many of those years would you say were spent developing the skill?
8 years.
Me:How have you applied this skill?
Mostly character design and webcomic projects.
Me:What do you think makes a good artist?
The fact that I want to improve; I feel like you can't be a good artist if you don't want to improve or listen to criticism.
Me:Do you think natural talent automatically makes someone good at art, or does it only give the person with the talent a head start?
It just gives the person a head start.
Me:Do you think practice plays a role?
Yes.
Me:Have you ever followed an art tutorial (it can be something like, a photoshop tutorial, or a literal how-to-draw tutorial)?
Yes.
Me:What specifically did they teach?
Ummm, it basically helped me improve coloring techniques, to help me remember about light sources, learn new things for certain types of art techniques I wanted to try
Me:Did you think they were helpful, and if not what would you have changed about it?
No, I think they were helpful.
Me:Did you find it easy to follow (meaning: too much or too little info)?
Yes.
Me:What do you think makes a good tutorial in general?
It has to be informative, have pictorial examples, and the artist has to have a fair amount of skill. Like, if your art is low-quality that makes you a bit less credible.
I appreciated the insight from someone with a lot of artistic talent, but it seemed like most of her answers were shorter than the questions you asked. In the future, try to let your subject answer more open-ended questions and less yes/no questions. I think it'd give them a better chance to expand on the questions and provide even more information for the readers.
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