Feedback are often feared and perceived as trouble, especially at the start of our journey.
They make people feel as if they’ve been rejected. Or discovered as frauds.
Instead, they’re actually providing the ingredients we need to finish baking our perfect cake, as I like to think about it.
Let’s see together:
- Why are they one of your best allies;
- How to separate good feedback from harmful ones;
- Why did they put us in a defensive state.
I’m going to present some important background now. I think it’s important to understand better some mechanisms of our fear of feedback.
But, if you don’t have much time today and you want to go to a more to-the-point section, you can use this menu:
- Feedback in a workplace
- Why using feedback correctly makes you the best art employee
- Differences between good and bad feedback
WHY ARE FEEDBACK FEELS SCARY?
Let’s start with a normal human experience. You go to school for the first time.
At home, is perfectly normal for you to think in a certain way, believe in certain things, have all kind of certainties. Then you go out. Your world gets bigger. You discover other kids may see things in a different way. Maybe they have dinner at a different time of the day. Or they have different rules for bed time. Or they believe orange, and not green, is the best color of it all.
The world gets bigger and people points of view and opinions start multiplying around us.
Then now let’s shift our attention towards art.
To many of us, art is both a way to:
- Totally express ourselves, free our imagination. Bring out what we can’t with words or other means. Visual art is our mean. Is our way. It becomes a pretty intimate way of convey our whole personality.
- A way to connect with others. We found one of our passion and strength and we want to use it to communicate with people. It can be to get recognition of our efforts, of because we want to be understood. It can be a way to broke the ice with other people, where words would make us feel anxious.
In high school I was very shy and it was difficult for me to interact with kids who’s interests were so distant from my own.
But I knew they liked my drawings.
So I started taking the habit to bring always with me a folder with all of my drawing inside, so that I could “casually” expose it every now and then and try using it as an ice breaker to prompt a conversation.
It’s fun to look back at it today. I met random people everywhere that way, even on the bus and on the train.
Since our art it’s so deeply intertwined with our souls, it rapidly grow to become a part of us. It’s so natural to think of what we do not just as our creations. It’s part of us.
At the same time, when we decide to share it with others, to connect with them through it, it’s also a window on us.
And that can be scary.
We start locking ourselves in the present moment together with it.
We no longer consider:
- the future – when we’ll be better than today.
- our past – remembering all we have learned and how far we’ve come.
And receiving another person negative feedback can shake us deeply. Because that person can’t see who we were yesterday. They can’t see (or at least we feel like) who we can become tomorrow.
It feels like that moment is everything.
That we’re receiving a judgment on that piece of art that is going to define our entire being as artists.
What we did in the past doesn’t count.
Our future is compromised.
Goodbye cruel world, this is the end. We tried.
…
Ok, maybe let’s step back from the high melodramatic note we just reached and get back to the first day of school.
HOW OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH FEEDBACK IS SHAPED DIFFERENTLY DEPENDING ON OUR AUDIENCE
To the moment we discovered that with other people comes other beliefs, other point of view. Different taste. Different ways to react to the exact same emotions.
The way we live our art is often the way we live at home in our early days.
It’s our bubble.
It’s comforting, it’s safe. It’s a happy place.
And that’s completely ok!
We need to have a home to go back to, in order to feel connected to our art.
To feel safe within it.
But the moment we decide of using this wonderful part of ourselves as a tool to communicate with other people around the world, is the moment we need to accept compromise and new perspectives.
Well, not always with the entire world.
You can be a local artist, find your niche, paint and draw exactly what you like and resonate with people who are exactly like you.
Which is wonderful! There is not only one way of living as an artist.
It can takes time but if it’s what you want is wort the effort I believe.
It can be a mean to pay for your expenses. Or it can not.
It can be just an act of love you sharing with others, occasionally. You decide what it is after all.
What you can’t decide, is how other people will react to your art.
I want to clear any misunderstanding here.
You can learn how to create art that communicates effectively certain universal ideas and emotions to other human beings.
But
You can’t force people to adapt to what is your personal view of the world, to your personal taste, to your own life experience.
You can find kindred spirits.
But if you want to talk to a vast majority you need to learn how to navigate the appropriate art language you need.
Basically when what kind of audience we want (small or a vast) we are setting the rules of our game.
And to be successful in that game, we need to follow them.
FEEDBACK IN THE WORKPLACE – NAVIGATING CHALLENGES
Let’s now jumps many years into the future – Highly probably, your present!
You now decided you want to become a professional artist.
You studied and put a great effort in curating your portfolio. It may be at a school or you may be a self taught artist.
A school has the advantage to get you more used to feedback faster. Is not exactly the same that it’s at work, but you get many different points of view, from teachers and from students as you.
You start to get used to the idea of not anyone seeing things with you eye to eye, which is both upsetting and tremendously helpful.
The school is there to allow you explore and grow. So there are not a huge amount of limitations set.
Limitations we need to get used to in a work environment, like:
- The style of the project. Unless you’re called to set a style from scratch, which is an unlikely occurrence if you’re a junior, you will have to work within the rules established for the project.
- The audience of the project. Different audiences means different expectations. You can’t decorate a room in Animal Crossing the same way you would do it in Call of Duty. And you can’t approach a 2D feature film for young adults like a 3D tv series for preschoolers. Content and language changes.
- Technical limitations. Sometimes we just want to make the most enchanting forest, full of colours, sparkling leaves, intricate details. And then we need to accept that all those beautiful details (or many of them) needs to go, or the phones will melt, machines will stop run the program, connection will not be able to carry data in real time. Sometimes, we just can’t have it all.
The fact that we cannot have it all is another problem in itself.
As artists we want to show what we can do best.
We don’t want people to see something mediocre. We want to be the best peacock we can be, make the wheel and show all of our colours. After all, we studied so much and put so much effort into shaping our career and getting that job!
Instead, we’re asked to do something plain. A chair. A room. Something.
But – we are tempted to think – we can make it plain but also pretty / cool! We can make it shine more!
Nope. Needs to be plain. And it NEEDS to be, because that is exactly its role in the project.
I, like many others, was terrible in the beginning in keeping my assets simple. I was constantly going the extra mile, trying to make it pretty, or special, or to show off some painting skill. It was my greatest source of trouble.
Keep it simple!
It took me a while to recognize the value in simplicity. You can’t have special, if you don’t have plain as well.
Everything is important and cover a specific role in a project.
So, I went on a really long introduction. I believe it was necessary to better understand what will follow, so thank you for sticking with me until now! 🙂
Remember this list about feedback in the beginning?
- Why are they one of your best allies;
- How to separate good feedback from harmful ones;
- Why did they put as in a defensive state.
WHY IS FEEDBACK ONE OF ARTIST’S BEST ALLY?
Simply put, they can save you – and everyone on the team – time (and get you more positive feedback at the end of your work).
One of the classic mistakes we do is to be scared of feedback.
To be scared of its consequences, to be more exact.
The reason is connected to our inexperience.
Inexperience is not a bad thing. It’s natural. No one at work started already a guru of their own craft.
But it can make you second guess yourself, and there lies trouble.
We know where we want to go with our piece. But – maybe – we still not know exactly what is the route to follow to get there. We go on experimenting, like we did during practice. And, let’s be honest. Not 100% of the time we manage to actually get the wanted result with this approach.
At home is different. We can enjoy the travel through art, the sperimental approach. Maybe the result is a bit different from what we planned? But every now and then is even better than our original intention. So we’re happy.
But at work there is no room for our personal research (well, there is some room for sperimentation, but not on every single task!).
We need to be intentional and deliver the needed outcome.
THE GOOD NEWS IS, WE DON’T NEED TO CARRY EVERYTHING UPON OUR SHOULDERS.
Unless you are in a small personal project or on a very young team, you will probably have someone with more experience around you. An Art Director. An Art Lead. A senior artist. A Creative Director. If there’s not, maybe just someone who have in their hands the vision for the project.
Remember. It’s your assignment. But it’s the company project.
Everyone wants you to succeed.
And they went through a long selection of portfolios before taking you in. When you feel scared, always remember this.
The best art employee IS NOT THE ONE WHO DELIVERS THE BEST PIECE OF ART.
I mean, sure, that is always nice.
THE BEST ART EMPLOYEE IS THE ONE WHO:
- Communicate effectively with the team
- Prevent problems
- Deliver in time the asset the team need
So for example, you don’t have to rush from sketches to final painting before showing something.
Select the sketches you like the most, then write down why you like them in relation to the brief.
Talk about what inspired you to go in a certain direction. And then ask if they like that direction.
If they like it: Fantastic! You proceed in that direction.
If they like it but they would like to change some aspects of it: Amazing! You prevented a communication problem at the very start and have enough information to iterate and deliver the sketches everyone will be happy about.
If they don’t like the direction: You just avoided to spend hours on the wrong track, well done! As we stated in the beginning, each one of us have their view of the world. Your ideas may not always align with the one of your project directors. But is good to know immediately. The more data you get, the easier will be working on your following assignments.
Follow this same pattern every time you get the sense you’re forcing decisions that shouldn’t be solely your own. The more you will progress in your career and the more freedom you’ll get, but communication will always be your most important soft skill.
Communication is not asking for help.
Communication is being sure that everyone on the team is aware of the progress so far and happy for it to continue.
When you don’t communicate effectively, you’re at risk of creating an awesome piece of art.
One that unfortunately is not what the project needs.
And that’s a weakness.
Because makes the company lose money – if it needs to be redone – or makes you a person people can’t fully trust to work on its own.
Because working on your own doesn’t mean you never interact with others.
You are not disturbing if you check with your team lead and your colleagues.
You are communicating important information.
WHAT IF THE FEEDBACK IS ABOUT HOW SKILLED YOU ARE AS AN ARTIST?
Some of the feedback you’ll receive may be as well about how you can improve your art in that specific contest.
This usually makes ring in an artist every possible shame-alarm and panic follows.
Breathe.
Remember what I just said. Everyone wants you to succeed. You’re there for a reason. You’re not just fall into an office by chance. Even if your imposter syndrom would very like to convince you that is the case.
Feedback on our skills from a colleague is a precious treasure you’re receiving because:
- It’s your fast track for improvement – Nothing makes us progress as much than having to solve problems on a work together with someone who already overcome those same issues. If you learn to listen you will grow your tool arsenal and become a great artist in half the time you would have done by yourself!
- You are building trust – The outcome you want is not proving everyone you’re god without their help. You want to prove you are someone capable to listen and make progress thanks to positive communication.
I’ve seen so many times people close themselves into their assignments, not wanting or actively seeking feedback. They just want to be sure that, until the very end, no one will ask them to change anything. They don’t want their process to be changed, interrupted or critiqued.
Sometimes it’s for fearing to be exposed in what we don’t feel confident about.
Sometimes there is a little bit of arrogance lying there, telling us that we have the experience, the years of study on our back. We know better than anyone else what we should do on the task.
Yes… and no. You are the better possible person to offer ideas and come up with solutions, to act on them and to deliver a great outcome.
But when you work on a team it can’t be a one man show.
Why?
Again, back to the school example in the beginning.
Because we would apply to our work solely our point of view. And it can be right but can easily be wrong. We need to learn to accept other people inputs and different ways of reading the same assignment. Different ideas on how to produce the best outcome.
Every project needs a clear vision. We need to support the person who’s is in charge of coordinating a project.
Our role is to collaborate and ensure our work contributes to the larger harmony, not a chaotic mix of contrasting styles.
AND WHAT SHOULD WE IF THE FEEDBACK IS WRONG? – GOOD FEEDBACK VS BAD FEEDBACK
Let’s establish first what we mean with good or bad feedback.
GOOD FEEDBACK is when you approach someone telling them: “I don’t think this is working BECAUSE ____” and you follow that with “Something that could solve this issue is ____”.
Basically you don’t limit yourself in only point at a problem.
You tell them why something is a problem and suggest a possible solution (or a range of).
BAD FEEDBACK is jumping in on someone works and stating you don’t like it without providing a why or any other possible direction.
It is the kind of feedback that puts the personal preferences of who’s giving it at the very center of the issue.
It arises a problem without offering anything in exchange, not even an explanation you could start from to iterate a new solution.
If you meet people who are not experienced in giving feedback, don’t immediately assume they are acting with mean intentions.
Ask yourself the questions. Why is this not working? Do you have any idea in mind on how to solve this? Let’s think about it together!
Creative minds at work together are an asset, not a weakness.
You’re not telling your employee you are weak. You are telling them you are a communicator.
If they don’t have an immediate solution it’s ok.
Be sure you understood everything they are trying to communicate you first.
Then tell them you’ll put together some ideas and present those to them.
Finally, you don’t necessarily take every feedback onboard. Sometimes, you will receive it from people who don’t know enough about the brief and the circumstances, don’t know the deadline and limitations you have.
Always listen – you never know who may have a great input – and then decide professionally, depending on the circumstances you’re in!
Communication is key.
It’s not about you surviving on your own.
It’s about You bringing your expertise to the table and using it to get at the finish line together with your team.
We’re not in school anymore. Is not everyone for themselves.
We’re creating something amazing, together with other talented people.
And people have different views of the world. Different preferences. Different solutions.
Communications can create a bridge and connect all those experiences together, to find the strongest, more suitable outcome.
WHAT CAN WE TAKE FROM THIS ARTICLE THEN?
Feedback as an Ally
Feedback isn’t rejection—it’s a guide for improvement and collaboration. Embracing feedback saves time, prevents missteps, and accelerates growth as an artist.
Separate Good Feedback from Bad
Good feedback provides clarity, reasoning, and suggestions, while bad feedback is vague or overly personal. Both can be addressed productively with communication and curiosity.
Overcome Fear of Feedback
Fear of feedback stems from tying art too closely to personal identity. Shifting focus to learning and teamwork transforms feedback into an opportunity for growth rather than judgment.
Communication is Key
Being an effective communicator—sharing ideas, aligning with project goals, and seeking alignment early—is more valuable than creating a flawless piece of art.
Feedback in the Workplace
In a professional setting, feedback ensures alignment with project vision, audience needs, and technical constraints. Effective use of feedback strengthens trust and collaboration within teams.
To wrap it up
Feedback is a tool to help us grow, not a measure of our worth. How do you approach feedback in your artistic journey? Share your thoughts or experiences in the comments below!
If this article resonated with you, help support Be That Artist by sharing it with a fellow artist or creative. Let’s keep the conversation going and grow together as a community!
✏️ Elisa Moriconi – that’s my name! – is a concept artist and illustrator who’s intent is to help artists navigate creative careers. That’s why I created this blog. Learn more at bethatartist.com
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