Why do artists refuse to use references why why why.
It’s not a contest to see who can get by without them. It’s not cheating to look at a thing in order to know what the thing looks like.
You don’t get stronger or better by pretending. Nobody is impressed by the awkward whatever-it-is you just drew. Use references.
I don’t think a lot of people know that it’s not cheating. I recall seeing so many piece of art called out because they referenced a pose, someone recognized it, and then proceeded to shame them for it. There’s this belief, both by creators and the audience, that artists should just be able to translate the ideas from their head to paper, and if they don’t, it’s plagiarism, or not true originality (spoiler alert: there’s no such thing).
I myself didn’t start using references until very recently, because even I was under the impression that it was frowned upon. And that belief has seriously crippled and stalled my ability to improve as an artist.
As a restarting artist, I can confirm. I just never knew. I thought you were just supposed to know how to draw the body correctly and if you didn’t you had no talent.
(( I am going to say this again, loud and clear for everyone:
USING REFERENCES FOR ART IS NOT ‘CHEATING’!!!
If you can draw/paint without references, great! But if you need to use them, and feel that your art can be bettered by using references, please, use them! This is one of the biggest tips I can give to artists, is USE REFERENCES!
Anyone who would dare to attack someone for using references after ‘recognizing a pose’ is a dipshit, who doesn’t know a thing about art.
Do you know who else used references for their art?
Norman Rockwell
Alphonse Mucha
Gustav Klimt
Toulouse Lautrec
Vincent Van Gogh
Paul Gauguin
Edgar Degas
Gil Elvgren
Frida Kahlo
Pablo Picasso
Disney Studios
And thousands of others! So, artists! Go forth, and use references!!! ))
What do you think artists do when they ask someone to stand infron of them for 6 hours and then they draw this person. Do they cheat? Or when they place a still life and then paint it, cheating again? LOL
Soooo. I made this post originally on my personal blog (I’m eliciaforever), and it was nothing more than a little rant about a specific incident that I deleted after five minutes. But before I could delete it, it took the hell off on me, and now it has all these notes. And LOTS OF AMAZING INPUT.
And I just wanted to add in response to the above tags in particular, that shaming people for using references is something that happens to so many of us SO OFTEN. It doesn’t matter how skilled you are. People think art is supposed to be magical or whatever, and anything else is a crime. The reality of course is that art is a thousand times more deliberate than a lot of people think it is.
So yeah. Good info to pass along. Use references, kids. <3
Reblogging because I think it’s important especially for young artists to gain the confidence to use references.
Seriously, references are esssential! Use them!
HEY GUYS I NEEDED 28 YEARS TO GET THIS AND THAT’S WHY I AM NOT EVEN CLOSE TO THE LEVEL I COULD BE SO PLEASE DON’T PUNISH YOURSELF! <333
Can confirm, literally everyone uses references for at least some pieces. Using references is NOT a bad thing, and is actually a VERY VERY GOOD THING for improving your hand and eye for various subjects/objects.
using references can help educate as well.
Examples:
let’s say I need to find a 1920s vehicle but I need to understand the layout (outside of the vehicle) in order to make it work for my character to use it (seating, driving, etc). It’s nice to add more to the vehicle.
Or help understand the velocity of the human/animal bodies
Please, read this story told by the real guy, who witnessed everything on his own. He is not from BLM. He’s not a hater. But these situations made him almost cry over the unfairness. This is outrageous! How can our world carry such bastards who glory in their strength, who abuse their power? The story must be spread out to show once more that the police has to be controlled and has to be punished for their unlawful actions.
It’s the 50th anniversary of the Compton’s Cafeteria riots!!!
It was after the bars had closed and well into the pre-dawn hours of an August morning in 1966 when San Francisco cops were in Gene Compton’s cafeteria again. They were arresting drag queens, trans women and gay [and bi] hustlers who had been sitting for hours, eating and gossiping and coming down from their highs with the help of 60-cent cups of coffee.
The 24-hour eatery was a local favorite. It was centrally located — adjacent to the hair salon, the corner bar and the bathhouse — and provided a well-lit and comfortable haven for trans women performing in clubs or walking the streets in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood.
From Compton’s “you could walk to Woolworth’s to buy [fake] eyelashes, and it was two blocks from the airline bus terminal,” where Tamara Ching says many drag queens and trans women would go to change from male to female clothes. Ching is an Asian-American transgender woman who grew up in San Francisco. She frequented the Tenderloin during the 1960s and has lived there since 1992. “Everybody that lived in the Tenderloin ate at Compton’s,” Amanda St. Jaymes, a transgender woman who ran a residential hotel nearby, said in a documentary, Screaming Queens, which chronicles a confrontation with police that marked the start of a movement toward LGBT rights.
Compton’s management didn’t want the cafeteria to be a popular late-night hangout for drag queens, trans women and hustlers. Workers would often call the police at night to clear the place out. The Tenderloin, where sex work, gambling, and drug use were commonplace, was one of only a few neighborhoods where trans women and drag queens could live openly. Yet they were still regularly subject to police harassment and arrested for the crime of “female impersonation.”
A view of Gene Compton’s cafeteria In San Francisco’s Tenderloin District. In 1966, the eatery was the site of landmark confrontations between police and transgender activists.
And when a policeman in Compton’s grabbed a drag queen, she threw a cup of coffee in his face. The cafeteria “erupted,” according to Susan Stryker, a [trans, bi] historian who directed Screaming Queens. People flipped tables and threw cutlery. Sugar shakers crashed through the restaurant’s windows and doors. Drag queens swung their heavy purses at officers. Outside on the street, dozens of people fought back as police forced them into paddy wagons. The crowd trashed a cop car and set a newsstand on fire.
“We just got tired of it,” St. Jaymes told Stryker. “We got tired of being harassed. We got tired of being made to go into the men’s room when we were dressed like women. We wanted our rights.”
If the famous Stonewall riots in New York City were the origin of this nation’s gay rights movement, the Tenderloin upheaval three years before was “the transgender community’s debut on the stage of American political history,” according to Stryker. “It was the first known instance of collective militant queer resistance to police harassment in United States history.”
Stonewall is often thought of as an uprising of gay men. In reality, “it was drag queens, Black drag queens, who fought the police at the famous Stonewall Inn rebellion in 1969,” wrote lesbian novelist and playwright Sarah Schulman in a 1985 novel. “Years later, a group of nouveau-respectable gays tried to construct a memorial to Stonewall in the park across from the old bar. The piece consisted of two white clone-like thin gay men and two white, young lesbians with perfect noses. They were made of a plaster-like substance, pasty and white as the people who paid for it.”
While the legacy of Stonewall was whitewashed, the rage and resistance of the San Francisco group went largely unremarked — even among each other.
“We didn’t think this was a big deal,” Ching told me. “It was a natural thing for people to do back then, to protest.”
Besides memories of police and patrons who were there that night, the only record of the riot that survived into the present is a short article by gay activist Raymond Broshears. He wrote it for the program of the first San Francisco gay pride parade, in 1972. Decades later, Stryker found his account and began to seek out the whole story. Her search for people who had been in the Tenderloin back then who spent time at Compton’s or took part in the riot led her to Ching, St. Jaymes and another trans woman named Felicia Elizondo.
Ching grew up in San Francisco. She recalls hanging out with beatniks on Grant Avenue and began doing sex work as a teenager, in 1965. “My mom was an alcoholic and she let me run the streets and do my own thing.”
Ching wasn’t at the riot that night, but she knew Compton’s well. “It was good to go and be seen and talk to people about what happened during the night. To make sure everybody’s OK, everyone made their coins, everybody’s coming down off drugs and didn’t overdose, and that you didn’t go to jail that night,” she said.
“Compton’s nourished people. People would sit there for days drinking a cup of coffee. I would buy a full meal. I don’t cook and I loved eating at Compton’s — it was like downtown.”
The Tenderloin in the 1960s was a red light district and a residential ghetto. Stryker told me that the neighborhood was a particular destination and home to “young people who maybe had been kicked out by their families and were living on the street. And trans people who could lose a job at any moment or not be hired, who wouldn’t be rented to, who had to live in crappy residential hotels in a bad part of town, and who had to do survival sex work to support themselves.”
“We sold ourselves because we need to make a living but we sold ourselves because we wanted to be loved,” Elizondo says in Stryker’s film. Ching told me sex work in the Tenderloin empowered her. She had a job with the government but still worked the streets at night.
Whether for survival, pleasure or some combination of both, sex work left women vulnerable to violence and put them in closer contact with police. But even those who weren’t hustling had frequent encounters with law enforcement. St. Jaymes, who ran the residential hotel, told Stryker she was arrested frequently, even though she wasn’t a sex worker. “If we had lipstick on, if we had mascara on, if our hair was too long, we had to put it under a cap. If the buttons was on the wrong side, like a blouse, they would take you to jail because they felt it was female impersonation.”
“The police could harass you at any time,” Ching told me. “They would ask you for pieces of ID. You had to have your male ID if you were born male and didn’t go through a sex change. They would pat you down, and while they’re patting you down, of course they’re feeling you up,” she continued. “They would arrest you and put you in the big van, Big Bertha, and drive you around town. When they turned a corner they turned sharply, so people would fall. They’d go over a bump, fast down the hill and make you look a mess by the time you got to the booking station.”
Police relations with the trans, drag and gay communities in the Tenderloin reached a boiling point in 1966. Across San Francisco resistance was in the air. Local anti-war protests were gaining momentum. Civil rights activists and religious leaders at a Tenderloin church organized to bring government anti-poverty resources to the neighborhood. A group of radical young queers calling themselves Vanguard started pushing back against discrimination by police and business owners. After Compton’s management started kicking them out of the restaurant, they picketed outside on July 18, 1966. Viewed in the context of 1960s activism, identity politics and anti-poverty efforts, the riots that occurred a few weeks later seem inevitable.
Though it can take decades to understand motivations for a particular riot or movement of militant resistance in the streets, there are plenty of instances when a group’s anger and frustration over injustice is later celebrated as a civil rights victory. We have a parade every year to commemorate the Stonewall riots — three nights when rioters burned down a bar and tried to overturn a paddy wagon. Now that [Caitlyn] Jenner has told Diane Sawyer, “I’m a woman,” and Oprah interviewed Janet Mock, we can look at a charge like “female impersonation” and see the Compton’s riot as another act of resistance against injustice. One day, history books, pundits and academics could very well talk about the recent unrest in Baltimore or Ferguson the same way.
Right after the Compton’s episode, Ching heard about what had happened. “To me, nothing was out of the ordinary,” she told me. “We lived to survive day to day. We didn’t realize we’d made history.”
It’s my job to listen to the voices of POC women and men about racist and bigoted treatment of POC fictional characters (as well as of real POCs). It’s my job to listen and understand their point of view and support them. It is NOT in my right to fight, argue, or defend shitty writing, saying that “it was logical character development” or it “moved the plot forward.”
Why is this so hard for people to understand?
jessica rabbit is literally a sex symbol though she can't be asexual?
she is in romo with a rabbit because he makes her laugh and aside from using her looks to get things out of people she literally never once shows interest in anything or anyone sexually through the entire movie and is clearly appalled when anyone makes advances towards her like there is canonical evidence that jessica rabbit from the classic motion picture who framed rogger rabbit is an asexual character
I am here as fuck for this. Jessica Rabbit for new asexual icon.
“She can’t be asexual because she’s hot tho”
“I can only see her as a sexual object so I can’t imagine her not wanting to have sex with me.”
I’ve always remembered the line “I’m not bad, I’m just drawn that way” as Jessica’s admission that while sexualized, she isn’t inherently a sexual entity.
I mean hell, literally, her line before is “You don’t know how hard it is being a woman looking the way I do.”, to which Eddie responds; “You don’t know how hard it is being a man looking at a woman looking the way you do.”
I think that’s pretty damning evidence to her asexuality. The whole plot point with Jessica is how everyone is either convinced she’s sleeping with every human and toon around, or why does she stay faithful to Roger.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit does a great job at satirizing Hollywood/American culture and ideals when it comes to appearances. It also does a great job at hiding some really well thought out challenges to how we look at others in plain sight.
I completely believe that Jessica Rabbit is an asexual romantic (hetero/bi/pan/etc not sure, and to be honest, I don’t know if that part is important, as she’s married to the toon she loves).
I LOVE this headcanon <3
This is important!
This headcanon is just so perfect I had to draw it
#JessicaRabbitForAsexualIcon
YES. THIS!
Sexy but not sexual IS A THING and needs support an encouragement. I am so sick of sexy-shamers. “If you didn’t want to be sexualized by me you shouldn’t have made yourself look sexy.” NO DOING IT FOR YOU, BRO. (Not that Jessica had control over how she looked, but for the rest of us, you know). And who’s to say that she wouldn’t want to look like she does even if she HAD control? More power to her! I’ve idolized the character since I first saw her as a child. She has so much power and CONTROL when she chooses to wield it, working with what she’s got, but also just happens to show absolutely no sexual interest in anybody. You use that system to your advantage, girl! It’s your turn! And you don’t have to be part of it to do that if you don’t want to! <3
Why even call this a headcanon? It’s more Actual Canon Text than assuming she’s sexual. I mean she married a rabbit ffs.
When I read about Orlando, I was surrounded by straight people. Well meaning straight people, yes, allies, yes, but straight people all the same.
I was surrounded by straight people because I was at my house with my husband and my daughter. I spend a lot of time around straight people (thats what I get for marrying acishet man), but I noticed it more today than I have any other morning. When I heard the news, I started counting down the time until I could be around queer people.
Being a bi woman means occupying a lot of weird liminal space. In that way we are very queer….we don’t fit well into boxes. Too gay to be straight, too straight to be gay, we are often locked out of the resources and support meant for the queer community due to biphobia and erasure while being pornified and objectified by the patriarchal male gaze of heteronormative culture. It’s no wonder that bi women are suffering from such a serious mental health crisis.
Being bi comes with the double edged sword of “passing.” Because I’m married to a man, and because of my high femme gender presentation, most people will assume I am straight. I do not have to worry that when I hold my spouse’s hand in public that someone will beat me. I do not worry about the state refusing to recognize my marriage. I do not worry about losing my job for being queer. I do not worry that a car driving by will roll down the window and scream slurs at me about my orientation.
But the horrible thing about “passing privilege” is the closeting, the erasure. And never have I felt that so keenly as I feel it today while I mourn Orlando.
“Passing privilege combined” with bi erasure and femme invisibility means that unless I tell someone “I’m queer” they will probably assume I’m straight. It means that when I come out to people, they don’t get it, I don’t fit the narrative they are used to hearing. It means straight people make jokes about “Spring Break” or “Katie Perry”. It means straight men ask if they can watch. It means that people, both gay and straight, DON’T BELIEVE ME when I say I’m gay. It means coming out over and over and over and over again…sometimes to the same person. It means I get dragged back into the closet every damn day. It hurts every time, but today in light of this already bleeding wound, biphobia and erasure is excruciating.
It means I feel alone a lot.
I feel alone today in this household of straight people. Sympathetic straight people, yes, allies, yes, but straight people nonetheless.
I feel alone when the queer community talks about fighting back against homophobia with kiss-ins. Kissing my partner produces no hateful response from society (a privilege). So…where is my resistance? I must be doing this wrong.
That’s where the guilt enters in. The deep, deep isolating guilt that comes from internalized bi-phobia.
Am I allowed to feel this devastated, this full of rage?
Am I gay enough to be this upset?
Am I appropriating the grief of real gay people?
It hurts. On top of the pain and grief of loss, on top of the “that could’ve been me, that could’ve been my friends”, on top of the psychological terror, there’s also the sinking feeling of self-doubt.
Thank God for the radical queer community, the people who helped me heal from some of my guilt about not being “gay enough”. They came through for me in the past, and they are coming through again, reminding me of who I am. Reminding me that I count. Reminding me that I am enough, that my emotions are valid, that my existence is resistance, that I deserve to be here.
“How are you?” my bi friend texted me.
“I’m so, so angry.” I texted her back, “But then I feel guilty like…am I allowed to be this upset? Maybe I should only be like, 50% sad.” I tried to make a joke about it, but she knows.
She knows.
“You get to be 100% sad, Elle. Because you are 100% queer. And because I am 100% sure that there were bi people in that club, too.
Bi erasure shouldn’t be another effect of this violence.”
Bi erasure shouldn’t be another effect of this violence.
I’m still wrestling, during this grief, with my own internalized biphobia. I still feel on the outside of everything most of the time.
But that is why we have community.
To remind us that there are a lot of us, here, on the outside.
To remind us that those of us out here, on the outside, can at least be out here together.
To remind us we aren’t alone.
So I’m passing this on to you:
You aren’t alone.
Bisexual people, pansexual people, polysexual people, any non monosexual people, when you worry that you aren’t gay enough, when your identity is erased, when you feel like you don’t fit anywhere….you are not alone.
Asexual people, intersex people, people who are often left out when we say LGBTQ+ or even QUILTBAG but really mean just gay and lesbian….you are not alone.
Trans people, when your achievements and contributions to leading this movement are ignored, when the poster child for Gayness is a middle class smiling White Cis Gay Man with a Family, when you fear for your safety as anti-Trans legislation steadily climbs…you are not alone.
Queer and/or trans person of color, when your struggles are pink washed and the Rainbow Industrial Complex ignores you and does violence to you…when you are on the outside, you are not alone.
Undocumented queer people, when straight people focused on immigration reform erase your struggles by leaving you out of the conversation, when white gay people say abolishing ICE is not part of our Gay Agenda…when you feel isolated and forgotten, you are not alone.
Latinx queer people, Black trans performers, when the media erases that the majority of those killed in Pulse were part of your community, you are not alone.
There are a lot of us on the outside here. We are on the outside for different reasons, but here we are, out here.
Together.
And I couldn’t ask for better company.
Recently I've been experiencing pain after sex. I just can't figure out why. The pain starts the next morning and lasts anywhere from 3-7 days. It's a dull ache & soreness inside my vagina. I didn't always get this feeling, not even after my 1st time. Once, after several hours of activity, I had this pain even in the back of my throat (from oral?) and my anal area (he didn't even penetrate there, just put a bit of pressure). My mom and I are both concerned! Lol! (I am 18, if that matters.)
Thank you for your question. Pain and soreness occurring the day after sex and lasting for several days could be a sign of an infection or something medical going on. We are not health care providers here at Sex, Etc. so we cannot diagnose symptoms. We recommend you visit a health care provider for an evaluation. Locate a provider near you with our clinic finder.
I hope this helps.
Pain during sex and pain after sex is not normal. Like @sexetc says, seek medical care.
if anyone would like to learn a couple tricks for carving pumpkins:
- dont cut out the top to scoop out the seeds, cut out the bottom instead. this way the pumpkin doesnt cave in on itself and lasts longer
- sprinkle some cinnamon inside at the top after carving. this way when you put the candle in it smells like pumpkin pie
this is the quality content I wanna see on my dash
According to everydayfeminism.com, here are 9 ways you can support intersex youth! It can include letting them tell you what being intersex means to them or advocating for their rights in the doctor’s office. Respect them.
The main example of bi erasure is that the Orlando shooter is being called gay because he tried to date men, but the fact that he’s married to a woman could make him bi?
I just read a really good analysis of how all the stuff that makes people say he’s gay sounds like a premeditated plan to carry out his assault:
“Yeah, the Orlando shooter frequented Pulse long before his attack and set up a grindr profile. That doesn’t automatically mean he was a self loathing closeted gay man. If anything, it just means he was carefully planning his attack and trying to lure in vulnerable gay men to abuse…..because he is an abuser……and that is exactly the kind of behavior we should expect from a violent bigot.” And more:
I totally agree that it’s bi erasure for everyone to automatically assume he’s gay if he sets up a Grindr profile or went to Pulse recreationally though. To listen to people, you would never think bisexuals are the largest part of the community and are statistically a better guess.
Anonymous
