Better is subjective

 Something I thought about while drawing this one, what is actually "better"? It's not "if it's in the right perspective", unless your goal was to get the best perspective possible, and so on and so forth. Yet, the more I think about it, the more I realize I've been going about it the wrong way. I always thought art with strong fundamentals was better, because for a long time, my goal as an artist was to learn realism/fundamentals as best as possible because I heard that was the best way to learn. Become super strong in the fundamentals, then just adjust to any style you want after that. 

 But that suggests fundamentals are inherently better than anything someone actually prefers, or at least it's the norm and what people like is a deviation from it, but I don't think that's true either. What people have called the fundamentals are just rationalizations of what everyone thinks make's things appealing or work, but the problem is that that all stems from personal appeal as well, so it is all subjective.

If someone likes art with depth and someone who like's art that's flat, no one is in the right or wrong, it's just preference, and I think that extends to all aspects as well. The problem is that modern artists, particularly western ones, have built a narrative that goes something like "if you want to get better at art, study the fundamentals". It has to be the most common piece of advice I heard from artists while growing up on the internet, and now I'm almost certain it's not good advice.

The proper advice, I think, one should give is to learn what you want to learn. If your favorite art prefers flatness over depth, and shines with over-saturated colors, then go learn that. Make your own observations of what YOU like because no one is going to make them for you. It doesn't matter if that person's drawing is more realistic or impressive, does it make you happy? Do you get as much enjoyment out of that realistic portrait, or the art from the child's book you can't forget? And who cares what people think of your tastes, you weren't drawing for them anyway.

Worst case scenario, you'll end up someone like me who's visual tastes are warped because you let someone else decide them for you rather than having the confidence to do like what you wanted to like. If I had to give advice to my younger self, it's stay away from the fundamentals. Just draw what you think you like, then work from there. Find how other people's observations can help you, whether they count as "fundamentals" or not. Don't spend years studying aspects of art you're not interested in or at the time.

After thinking to myself, I think I'm the opposite, I'm always trying to work from what people said was ideal, then towards what I like. I want to get to a point where I don't even think about the fundamentals, I just draw the shapes and lines I want that I find pleasing from raw emotion and appeal, with no logical analysis. I've been drawing seriously for 9 years, I expect it will take some time to deprogram myself, so I'm guessing it will take another 9 years.