Art and honesty

Honesty is such a vital moral quality of our lives. 

 Being honest about your technique. 
I know artists who keep their secrets by themselves - they work alone, never showing or explaining what they know. I'm quite the opposite - nowadays I try to pass along the knowledge/tips that I know, because I see no reason not to. Why choose to be selfish and greedy, never helping others who may need it?  (edit: yes, sometimes people won't share anything, because It's their own art and they can do whatever they want with it, it doesn't make them a bad person and it's completely their own choice)
I tend to make lots of livestreams (on younow - as much as I can) and some youtube videos. I spent some time sketching in park in summer and I just adore how people will communicate with you - share their life stories or thoughts about the artwork. It's like taking others on creative journey with you, not hiding anything.
Also I don't understand why few people who colour/add light effects digitally on traditional media drawings and don't mention it in description. Why lie to your audience, why trick them, so when they try to achieve similar effect with same tools, just are not able to do it (because it's impossible) and then feel bad about themselves. 

Being honest about your promotion methods. 
I've seen people in da to have bots on giving llamas, favorites, watch, comments. That's surely a method to gain exposure, but I see no sincere care about their watchers in that way. Whenever I give a llama/fave/watch I do it by clicking on profiles, spending quite a lot of time - discovering new awesome artists, making their days a bit better with a random&cute llama. It's a longer process, but enjoyable and I respect other artists - also by writing these journals and hoping that they would help someone who reads it along the way.
I've seen also people making a lot of fake accounts and then faving their own stuff in order to get in the front page. Don't quite get the meaning of that. I guess it helps to get some more views, but what's the point if large amount of them are not even real. 

Being honest about your intentions. 
Some people tend to use each other for popularity. I really can't stand those who remember about you when they need to promote/follow their stuff. I had that situation with my old "friend", who decided to write me after a year to share his social media account. 

I also really don't like people being nice - giving complliments, praising your art and after that assuming that you would give away your art for free (not like you would need money for food and art supplies anyways). 

Being honest about what you create. 
Reminds me of something that happened a few years ago - I was in this Latvian social media site and there was this quite popular artist (among the 'not so extensive audience in there"). I was like - oh, so cool that she makes cool artworks and shares them with others. And then one day she posted an exact copy of other very famous deviantart artist's work. She used a different technique, but basically copyied the drawing exactly as it was in the original one. Also there was (of course) no mention or proper credit of the artist, who actually made it in the first place. So I wrote in the comments, asking why she copied it and without any permission or credit posted it as her's (with a link to artwork). And then her "so called fans" just blatantly attacked me - "if she puts her signature on it, that means she made it", "It's normal to copy other artists work, I do that all the time" or "you are just jelous and can't draw yourself". 
The worst thing was that she was actually selling the piece, for quite a lot of money and that, as I after that discovered, she was "ripping off' many artworks of other artists as well (one of them was a digital painting, where she copy-pasted the whole character from existing deviant artwork and then filled a background a bit). 
Therefore I no longer post there like anything and use other sites to post my stuff online.

You have to be honest to yourself too.

Are you spending enough dedicated time on your art? Are you trying the best that you can, challenging yourself, pushing your boundaries with every new piece?
Are you slacking off when you could spend your time more wisely? 

It's not easy to be honest - to yourself and others. The right choice may not be the easiest one - so be cautious about what you do and what decisions you make in your creative journey. 

So, how about you - what are your thoughts about art and honesty? 

This week I found some lovely resources - amazing and cute artworks (adore the inktober related ones) by Vivian on her tumblr, awesome collection of foreign and Russian artists work in this website, a lovely blog, with so many useful art/illustration related links and posts by kirileonard on  kirileonard.com/blog/, this cool list of British Library blogs on various topics from European studies to Medieval manuscripts for research and this inspiring video where filmmaker Andrew Stanton ("Toy Story," "WALL-E") shares what he knows about storytelling -- starting at the end and working back to the beginning.

a

P.S. I quite frequently post some sketches and artworks in my art tumblr - snowmarite.tumblr.com/. and I have a weekly Music Sunday post on aerismade.blogspot.cm/  and weekly 8 songs playlist.
and a youtube art channel. 
(and I make livestreams on my younow channel) 
and I have a society6 store and etsy store too