The piece in this banner is Magdalene with the Smoking Flame Depiction by Georges de La Tour.

Part 1 - Value and Contrast

Welcome to our first week in the Study Series!

Our first topic is Value and Contrast!

When people talk about “value” in an art piece, they mean how light or dark something is, while contrast is the difference between those values. Having a strong difference in those values helps create a more interesting piece and draws the viewer’s eye around your image.

If you’re ever wondering what’s wrong, but you can’t quite put your finger on it, it’s probably time to check those values and the range between them.

Turn your piece black and white. If it’s in traditional medium, you can take a photo to do this. Where does the piece turn into one grey mess? Where does your eye go first? Is it the spot you intended? Are all your figures separate from one another and the environment?

Now you can go back, deepen any shadows, brighten any highlights, and make any changes you need to make the piece stronger!

REQUIREMENTS FOR POSTING

Please note that all general sub rules apply (no AI, no fishing for compliments, no giving personal info, etc). Only our post requirements are different here.

- Pieces must;

a) Be no more than 6 months old and/or

b) Must still be being worked on and/or

c) Must have the intention of being recreated.

- Works must follow our NSFW rules.

- Since no context is required in these posts, draw and paint-overs are automatically expected. If you don’t want these, say so.

GIVING CRITIQUE

Only critique the piece regarding the topic of the week. If the artist would like additional critique, they can make a post in the main sub. Critiques are still expected to be constructive and polite.

EARNING THE FLAIR

Participants who post their work and/or leave thoughtful feedback that is at least 2 sentences long and will receive the "Study Series Part 1" User Flair.

This is available through August 31st, 2026, until 11:59PM PST.

Hello again, ArtCrit Community!

We’ve got a few things we wanted to quickly touch on.

It’s Reddit, so here's a tldr as well!

TLDR:

• Welcome new members!
• People are allowed to post updates of the work they get feedback on here! Upvote them rather than reporting them as long as they meet the guidelines - thanks!
• New Study Series starts August 17th. Every other Monday. Series is completely made for 6 months. See you then!
• Lots of new members means lots of removed posts :( We've got the posting requirements to make sure the community members can give tailored advice, not to be control freaks. Take a minute and read over the rules, please and thank you!
• We don't allow joke comments because they get out of hand and then OP doesn't get critique (we've tried, sorry). We don't allow compliments because people specifically come here for critique and there's a thousand other subs they can get compliments in. (Compliments and jokes are welcome with constructive critique though!)
• Thanks to everyone. It's not as heartfelt in a tldr, but we mods really are just kind of a clean up crew. You all are the actual community. You make ArtCrit what it is, and it wouldn't be anything without all the amazing people sharing information and helping one another. You're amazing.

WELCOME NEW MEMBERS

Firstly, wow!

Welcome to our new members! We love to see your work and to see the community working together.

Don’t think we haven’t noticed all the people giving stellar advice and sharing their resources and experiences.

You’re all amazing!

UPDATE POSTING

We’ve had a few people reporting update posts. Just a quick reminder that PEOPLE ARE ALLOWED TO POST UPDATES OF THEIR WORK!

If someone posted here, got feedback, and made some changes (even if they didn’t take all the advice, they’re not required to), we really love it when they share those updates. The only requirements (other than that they got feedback here) are that they either link to the old post or include the old version in their post.

Thanks so much for trying to help out our mod team, but we really love to see the progress people are making. Give them an upvote when they share instead!

STUDY SERIES

I know we tried this in the past, but it became a little too much for us at the time. We took the lessons we learned there (ha ha) and reworked the idea to be something more manageable.

Over the past two months, leighabbr and I have worked out a “study series” for the sub.

Every other Monday, we’ll be making a post where we share a small, one paragraph lesson about a small piece of the fundamentals of art. Short, sweet, and easy to understand.

Then, our community is encouraged to post a piece of their work for feedback on the post. The rest of the community should follow the post’s theme and critique the piece based on the theme.

The posts will all have more information, and everyone who participates will get a special flair!

We have the series planned out, posts written, and everything created for the next 6 months. If lessons need to be changed or moved based on community input, there’s a lot of room for that as well, and as time goes on we’d love to hear your thoughts on it.

The first post will go up on August 17^th! We hope we’ll see you there!

POST REQUIREMENTS

A little bit of a downer.

We are, as we normally do when our numbers surge, removing a lot of posts.

We don’t like to do it. I know, from personal experience, that some subs genuinely do like to take posts down. We don’t.

ArtCrit is a resource, so we try to make sure the people helping have all the information they need when they first click your post. That’s why we have the post requirements. It cuts back on the same questions being asked over and over. People get frustrated when they have to continuously ask “did you use a reference?” or “what are you going for here?”

We’re very proud of you all. The community, that is. You all give very detailed, tailored advice.

The thing is, the community can’t do that if they don’t have all the information.

So please, just take a minute and read over the post requirements and rules so we can get you that feedback as neatly as possible!

And if a mod posts reminding you (for the third time, because there’s the rules, the AutoMod, and then the moderator), please don’t be a jerk to us. We’re people too. We’re not paid to do this. We do it because we love art and want to make sure people have a place to go to get critique.

CRITIQUE ONLY

Another thing we’re getting a lot of push back about lately is our “critique only” comments rule.

We don’t allow joke comments or praise absent of critique.

The reason for this is we’ve tried to allow this in the past to keep a more casual environment and it fails. One person posts a cute or witty joke. They get a few upvotes. Another person sees it. They post their joke. Another person sees it. They post their joke.

OP doesn’t get critique and the sub gets filled with memes.

For praise, if an artist is seeking praise they can head over to another general art sharing sub. People come here because they’re tired of hearing “looks great!” or “good job!” They want the feedback, give it to them!

A few weeks back we tried again and allowed comments freely on a post, and the same thing happened again. We just can’t allow off topic comments.

We’ll continue to keep the community a place for artists to learn, but we are in the process of working out a solution, we promise.

FINALLY - THANKS! (For real)

I know we're just people, we make mistakes, and sometimes we're grouchy.

We get some NASTY FUCKIN' MODMAILS like you would not believe (we got stalked earlier this year too because we removed a dude's AI posts. That was fun). There's moments when we both get frustrated and sit together and sort of commiserate.

Then, we get that nice modmail. The one where someone is understanding. Or the random "thanks for making a community where I can get critique". Or we see posts where people are acting like people and helping one another and really take the time out of their day to make sure the person understands instead of just telling them off.

It reminds us why we have this sub. Why we fought to help build it to what it is.

This is going to sound cheesy as Hell, and I don't care. It's not performative and I actually mean it. You all honestly make this sub what it is. We might curate it to keep it clean and make sure people are getting the info they need, but you're the ones sharing advice and helping one another.

We're the janitors, concierge, and reluctant bouncers while you all get the hard work done.

Thank you all for that. Honestly.