A critiquing service for artists.

This group has been created for the purpose of helping out our fellow artists by way of giving professional criticisms to artwork. Unlike other sites, we do not require you to be a member for our services, all you have to do is give us a note (making sure to read the simple submission guidelines below) and you'll recieve your critique. No strings attatched, no obligations, etc.

Our staff (you may find them listed Here) is available to handle all mediums and styles with the exception of Authored Works (ie: poetry, prose, fiction, etc)


February 03, 2007

News Article
I have set our Critique CheatSheet as well as basic rules with constructive criticism into the News section of deviantART. Hopefully, those who read it will find it useful.

You may read the article here: [link]


We are currently still backed up, mostly in Traditional Art (2D), though we have a couple in other areas as well. We are still not taking more submissions until we have our critic staff back up to par.

If you are interested in being part of ProCritique's Critic and/or Administrative staff, please note us with your intentions at your earliest convenience. I am still waiting for return critiques from a few who are interested in joining our staff.




Before submitting work, please read our Group Rules.

To submit a piece of work for critique simply send us a note with a link to it. We also request that when you submit a work that you place the title and the media it was done with in your note - this will make it easier to give to the proper critic and to file in the gallery later. Please do not just give us a link to your gallery but to the specific work that you desire a critique on. We also ask that you restrict your submissions to one or two at a time so that we can get to everyone's work equally.

For continuity, here is a sample note for a submission:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To: ProCritique
Subject: Submission

Body:

<insert link to your specific work>
Title- (name of your work)
Media- (ie photography, pencil, oil paint, etc)
Critic- (not necessary if you do not have a critic preference)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you wish to have your work critiqued by a specific critic, send their name as the critic you most want for your work as set out above. If the critic is available, your work will be passed along to them. Please send your work in a note to ProCritique, not to the critic themselves. Our critics list can be found Here.

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DISCLAIMERS

An artist who submits artwork to ProCritique is to take critiques as constructive and honest criticism. As such, you may recieve a critique that has suggestions to improve your artwork. These are not to be taken as an offense, but as a suggestion on improvement. If you do not feel that you can accept an honest criticism, we suggest that you do not submit your artwork for Critique. By submitting a work, you have agreed to this disclaimer and the group rules.

Affiliated Groups

Critique Groups

Art Groups


Our Sister Group: A directory of Traditional Artists on deviantART

Attention our many people:

Due to lack of volunteer critics and admins, ProCritique is still down and may remain this way for a while, though we do plan on one day starting this service again. If you have any questions or concerns, go ahead and note me at ~darkartificer.

Sorry for the inconvenience

-Mel

Attention our many people:

We are temporarily closed for the summer.

The amount of people available to critique vs. the incoming traffic is still rather off. We do hope to fix this hopefully in August.

To see more information about the club, just look at our journal.

-Mel

WELCOME TO PROCRITIQUE
A critiquing service for artists.

This group has been created for the purpose of helping out our fellow artists by way of giving professional criticisms to artwork. Unlike other sites, we do not require you to be a member for our services, all you have to do is give us a note (making sure to read the simple submission guidelines below) and you'll recieve your critique. No strings attatched, no obligations, etc.

Our staff (you may find them listed Here) is available to handle all mediums and styles with the exception of Authored Works (ie: poetry, prose, fiction, etc). For authored critiques, we suggest ~WeCritique

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NEWS
February 6, 2005

Well ProCritique is back on track, sort of. The number of uncompleted submissions has been somewhat reduced (to ~10) and I have finally managed to get the gallery completely up to date. We still have a big critic shortage though - we desperately need more photography and digital critics especially as we still have a few submissions from as far back as November that remain un-critiqued. Needless to say that is not a good thing.

If anyone would like to be a critic please send a note to this account. You may find some rough guidelines Here and you might also like to look through our gallery of completed critiques.

Obviously with so few active critics critiques are going to be slow going out. If you submit or have submitted works (especially photography) to ProCritique we apologise for the time it takes but please be patient, you will get your critique eventually.

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SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
Before submitting work, please read our Group Rules.

To submit a piece of work for critique simply send us a note with a link to it. We also request that when you submit a work that you place the title and the media it was done with in your note - this will make it easier to give to the proper critic and to file in the gallery later. Please do not just give us a link to your gallery but to the specific work that you desire a critique on. We also ask that you restrict your submissions to one or two at a time so that we can get to everyone's work equally.

For continuity, here is a sample note for a submission:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To: ProCritique
Subject: Submission

Body:

<insert link to your specific work>
Title- (name of your work)
Media- (ie photography, pencil, oil paint, etc)
Critic- (not necessary if you do not have a critic preference)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you wish to have your work critiqued by a specific critic, send their name as the critic you most want for your work as set out above. If the critic is available, your work will be passed along to them. Please send your work in a note to ProCritique, not to the critic themselves. Our critics list can be found Here.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

DISCLAIMERS
By requesting a critique, from this point (July 24th) onward, you automatically provide us permission to use your deviation as a preview image for that critique in our gallery.

An artist who submits artwork to ProCritique is to take critiques as constructive and honest criticism. As such, you may recieve a critique that has suggestions to improve your artwork. These are not to be taken as an offense, but as a suggestion on improvement. If you do not feel that you can accept an honest criticism, we suggest that you do not submit your artwork for Critique. By submitting a work, you have agreed to this disclaimer and the group rules.

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Links: Critics/Affiliates | Critique Standards | Group Rules

Affiliated Groups
Critique Groups

Art Groups


Our Sister Group: A directory of Traditional Artists on deviantART

Every Critique from this group is expected to be in-depth and thorough. As such, every critique should be more than one paragraph long. How a critic chooses to present a critique in style and so forth is up to them. Remember, you're doing this to help out a fellow artist; give tips and pointers for problem areas and don't forget to mention the positive aspects of a piece.
_______________________________________

Typical things you'll want to address in Critiques:

Form/Composition

Color

Contrast

Fluidity (how the eye moves along the piece)

Proportion

Subject Matter/Social Context

Form/Composition
Taking in account the entirety of the piece, how the placement of the main subject is in relation to the background and other focus subjects. Here are a few examples of what you would ask yourself while critiquing with the main question: What Makes This Artwork Interesting?

Odd angles
Interesting lighting
Focus on a not normally focused detail
The expression of the focus (if a face)
Placement of the figure in reference to the total piece (just being in the middle tends to be boring)


Color
Color harmonies or clashing, the overall use of color or lack of color in black and white or sepia works to convey an emotional state. Here are commonly used color references:

Monochromatic (one color + highlights/shadows)
Complimentary (colors that when mixed makes brown ie: green and red)
Clashing (colors not normally meant to be with eachother ie: neon green and lemon yellow)
Primary (red, yellow, blue + highlights/shadows)
Secondary (green, orange, violet + highlights/shadows)

When considering color, ask yourself this:

Do these colors help convey an emotional response?
Do these colors hurt the art rather than help it?


Contrast
Contrast is determined by how dark the shadows are and how light the highlights get. In photography this is determined by lighting and filters, in dry/wet media, it is determined by how dark/light the artist dares to go. In pencil especially, contrast is important to show detail and to make things appear 3D. If the pencil isn't dark enough, the picture will have a very low contrast and details will be lost.

Note: Contrast will differ from critic to critic by their own preferences, however it is shown that professional artists tend to go for higher contrast than lower.

Fluidity
Fluidity is how well the subjects of the work come together and lead the viewer to each subject, being a part of composition/form. If the eye doesn't follow to the next part by color, actual sections of the primary subject, or any other binding force, it just seems to float and doesn't have any ties to the rest of the picture.

An example of which would be the hair on the main subject, being a portrait, flowing into the background and touching a flower, which would be the second subject.

Proportion
Proportion is how something relates to something else. When a subject is out of proportion with the picture, it tends to look uneven, or even noticeably wrong. Proportion is very important to anything that deals with non-abstract subjects.

In photography, proportion is rarely a problem unless the camera isn't working properly. Examples of proportion in action:

Parts of the body in relation to the rest of the body (like head in relation to the body)
The size of a subject in relation to the size of its secondary subject (like a bee on a flower)

Subject Matter/Social Context
In the majority of cases, the subject matter of a piece of art is made to convey a message or envoke an emotion to or of the viewer. The availability to reach the viewer is Social Context. If this piece was made for all to enjoy or for a certain genre that only a few would understand. The questions you would ask yourself include the following:

What is the message/emotions that you as the observer take away from this image?
Do you think that this was what the artist's intent was, and if so, how succesful was it?