Digital Art Newsletter - December

Dec 19, 201219 min read

Deviation Actions

Published: Dec 19, 2012

2.2K Views

Less than a week for christmas! hurray!

It's that time of the month again! No I'm not talking about my period, if it was my period you all would be dead by now... ehmm I mean, here are the current going on in the community regarding Digital Art!

Project Educate

It was time for Digital Art over projecteducate the first week of the month. I want to thank all of you who supported the week, be by reading the articles, commenting and faving as well as taking part in the events. In case you missed them, here are the articles published during the week:

Opening Article

Introduction to the Digital Art categories

Digital Art VS other categories

Walkthroughs, an alternative way to learn

10 tips and tricks not very known about Photoshop

What's up next? It's Vexel Week next January 7th to 13th 2013! Presented by the most awesome TheLastHuzzah Keep an eye on his journal as well as the projecteducate group for more info.

Goodbye 2012, up to 2013!

I want to take a moment and just give a big THANK YOU to all of you for your support during these first months for me as a volunteer for Digital Art. It has far exceeded my expectations and that's always good.

The last weeks of the year will be a little quiet due the holidays but starting January a lot of initiatives, old, new and renewed will make a come back, so stay tuned!

Talking about which, I want to share you my vision for the rest of my term, what I want to achieve for this awesome gallery and what I'll be working on during 2013.

Since I became the Digital Art CV I set myself primarily 3 goals, and divided my efforts to achieve these with some activities, events and article series, some of which you already know and others are on its way to be released, these 3 goals are:

1 Give you exposure

I understand it can be difficult to get noticed in a community as large as deviantArt, no matter the art form you execute, and I consider part of my role as volunteer to help give exposure to the relatively unknown art that deserves to be seen. What am I doing to achieve this?

Daily Deviations are of course a very effective way to set a particular piece in the spotlight, however as you may guess, I can't possibly feature every single suggestion I receive, for the very simple reason that I receive far more suggestion than I can feature. For that is why I started my Digitally Delicious series, which are composed by both DD suggestions and art I find myself.

I also actively use my tumblr account to promote art outside DA and it has proven to be very effective in many occasions.

In 2013 I'll start a new series which will be powered completely by the community. YOU will be the ones who will decide which art will be featured and the reasons for it. These new series also will be the continuation of a legacy from a former volunteer from some years ago, so keep your eyes peeled! Hopefully it will be an interesting move.

2 Foster a Feedback Culture

Another thing I notice the community is hungry for, is for feedback, which shouldn't come as a surprise, after all that's one of the core reasons why DA exists: we are a COMMUNITY, not a portfolio site where people share their art and that's it, we comment, discuss and critique over the art shared. However and once again, sometimes getting the desired feedback in a community this large can be challenging at times. So what to do?

Inspired by projects like Feedback Frenzy which I find amazing, I'll try to develope activities not only to offer critiques myself, but also encourage the community to give those critiques.

It already started with the Critique Extravaganza during Project Educate, hopefully more activities of a similar fashion will follow.

Also, our own RezaBisuto started with the Monthly Digital Art Critique Thread that will be open and renewed every month, similarly to the ones for Literature and Photography. You're of course encouraged to go there and participate!

Aditionally, starting january Live Critique Nights will come back to dAmn, with the help of other volunteers.

3 Offer fun activities for everyone to get involved

Of course it's also about having fun! 2013 will see a series of fun activities and contests.

Project Educate saw the returning of Sketchmatch, hopefully this will become a recurrent event in our official room communityrelations so stay pending for future anouncements!

I really want to hear your ideas of other ways these goals could be achieved! The purpose of a CV is not to work alone towards the community, but to work alongside the community. So let's work together!