Blue Period - The Dichotomy between Talent and Hard Work

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I will never forget my art teacher telling me that saying talent as a compliment is basically a slap in the face. That's why I always complement people on their skill or the work they've put in, rather than their "talent."

I cried listening to this. The same way I cried reading the manga. This doesn't just hit art students but everyone struggling with their career

I agree, also "smart" is one of them too. I worked my ass off to get straight A's (used to be a straight F/1.8 GPA student) and I am annoyed when people say how smart I am, when in fact I have adhd and dyslexia so I spend 15 hours studying a stupid math problem until I get it. I really appreciate how you explain this to people to spread awareness

My little sister is ridiculously good at art for her age. Constantly I hear her being praised for her talent and her gift, but I saw her drawing daily before she got to that level. It's her dedication I praise her for. Talent is just Passion + Practice, that's something I didn't realize for a long time, but I think everyone should know. Your ability is due to your hard work and dedication to it, and with enough dedication you can develop any skill, even one that seems so far out of your reach.

This manga... is so realistic. I understand the MC and relate to it so much bcs I also studied STEM in highschool. I was considered as a "smart" student. I have been doing art since I was in middle school as a hobby I enjoy. So, as a senior year student, the thought of enrolling to art school crossed my mind. But people around me said: "You are smart, you should be a doctor and study medicine. Studying art is not worth your time. You are going to be jobless. Plus it's expensive. Don't you think it'll be a waste? Studying medicine is better." But at the end, I applied to an art school and got accepted last month. However, this didn't end my anxiety. Because studying art and doing it as a hobby, it's really different. Doing art for hobby is all fun. You just... doing it for yourself when you are bored. But studying it? It really gave me more pressure as I found myself (who usually being the best one in STEM subject) being at the bottom. This situation made me compare myself to others. I envy those with "talent"... I struggled so much. Reading this manga made me realize I shouldn't cry about being "talentless" and I should practice harder! Also thank you for your video and analysis. It's good!!! 😭😭🥰 (Edit: Thank you for the heart-warming replies. I didn't expect my story got so many likes. A little update on my journey. I actually applied to 2 universities. One with art major and one with communication. And I suprisingly got accepted in both (Art first and the the communication). Since the communication major one is more cheap and considering that I love it too as much as I love art, I sadly decided to drop the art major off. But I'm still as passionate doing art and still dreaming of being a professional artist! Enrolled into art school or not, this video is still so impactful for me! 🥺❤️)

talent compliments can sometimes also be like, "oh youre so talented, i could never" which puts the artist in a position of having to comfort the other person for not having that skill.

To be very honest, this manga saved me from falling into the abyss. Though art and design are 2 different spectrums where sometimes they connect, it's really hard to push forward being a designer. Constantly thinking of creative solutions often leads me to burnout. What I was lacking in my life was motivation and like the art teacher rightly said in the manga "Kids who don't have passion for something, they won't be motivated". This struck a chord and it really helped me get out of the dark room.

I remember I was doing an academic drawing of Apollo's head and I just couldn't get to capture his character's shapes right, I thought that I should ask to leave the class for today, but then I felt like that would be slacking and I stayed. That was one of the worst decisions of my life. I feel everyone watching me and seeing that what I draw looks awful I held my tears all that time in class. Just as I left the school a bursted into tears and couldn't stop no matter how hard I tried. My face gets really red when I cry, so I took 1 hour walk home instead of bus. If 5 years ago someone would say that it happened to me I wouldn't believe them. I redid that Apollo's head next time it looked much better but I think that's not the best of me. Every time I hear word talent towards my works I think I'd cry remembering all the hours I spent drawing and scraping my art. Blue period will always has a special place in my heart. Thank you for that amazing video and sorry for venting.

After watching this I have an even greater respect for all the artist who put the time and effort into following their ambitions.

Can I just say your editing is breathtaking

It’s why blue period holds such a dear place in my heart, as a med student (primarily dealing with stem and requires lots of studying) who loves art like writing and drawing. All those requires hard work and willingness to improve yourself, sometimes making a fool of yourself to learn things you aren’t familiar with. It’s why i relate to yatora and many characters in blue period, their struggles are so real and it motivates me to do better as a student and to make stories that i and other people can see themselves in my own approach. (This video also introduces me to blue period and witch hat atelier a year ago, so thank you so much for making this video!)

My partners mother said I was “talented” in the sense that I was born with the ability to just draw. When I told her that no, I was not and put in years and years of work and studying, she completely brushed off what I said and said, “You still have to have the natural born gift.” No. No one is just gifted the ability to draw. Everyone can draw. It is a skill that requires a lot of patience, studying, practice, and most importantly, time. Yeah, some learn faster than others, but anyone can reach master level of drawing if they put in the time to do so. I honestly hate the word talented. I have had so many people say it to me while brushing off my hard work. I wasn’t like a lot of artists who say they were always drawing. I didn’t start drawing until I was 12. It never interested me until a friend of mine who was younger than me came into my life and she was so good and made a lot of comics that it inspired me to want to do the same. At that time, I could only draw stick people. Now I can do photo realism along with my own stylized art style. So, when people brush off my hard work as something I was “born with”, it really bothers me. Another thing that bothers me are people who say realism doesn’t require as much skill as stylized art… Most people that I see that can do stylized art can’t do realism that well. They both require different appearances when drawing, painting, or whatever. Realism I find much harder and much more time consuming than stylized art any day.

"talent is basically how fast you can learn or understand something, it doesn't determent your hard work" my 2nd year high-school math teacher Mr.Abraham

this really touch me...being an artist as a hobby and going to art college to get a career within. I feel every single pain.

This is why representation in the art community is so important, so many of us didn’t even realize that these struggles are normal, because people dismissed our hard work for talent, so much to the point that we believed it

I really like art. Ever since I was young I have always been attracted to lines and colours. I have also been complimented by teachers and friends that I am talented in art and has the tendency to pick up things more quickly than my peers. However, I was also born in an Asian country to a set of a conservative family. Every time I came home with an excitement to showcase my art, a little part of me always died whenever my family brushed aside my works with complimentary dismissal words such as “That’s very nice but you don’t have to bring your artwork home, it clutters our home.” to sometimes straight dismissal of “waste of space”. However, I was still allowed to buy art supplies and create them, just if I give the piece away afterwards or discard them. So, the notion of an artwork always have to have purpose to other people or its useless has begun to grow by then. But still, there was this sweet dream that one day I could become an artist and create art for a living, that I never told my parents for they wanted me to go through stereotypical “safe” jobs. But then my brother went to uni to major in photography which is a closely related major to art and I thought “will my dream be able to come true?” But years passed and he graduated but eventually did not work in art related job. My parents started arguing and the financial strain from my brother’s private art uni tuition fee is evident on our family’s economy. So I started high school with pressure from my parents that again art is not a stable major and it is useless to pursue my talent there and to keep my grades stellar instead. I knew at that point that my parents would never allow me to pursue art related majors, but i still dreamed. I started doing volunteer photographic and digital designing in my local youth community as an outlet for my passion. My parents were okay with it as long as it is a hobby, so I pushed myself to the limits creating works and arts. Then my high school graduation was looming and I had to choose a major for uni. I had debated architecture, graphic design, interior design, multimedia arts, and other artsy majors that doesn’t really screams pure art as a way to soften the impacts to my parents. But in the end my plans never succeeded and I had to settle for studying to become a biomedical scientist, a STEM major. I still haven’t been able to fully put down my attachment to art so I dedicated 18 kg of my baggage for my art supplies. It is sad that the only times I ever used them is to take study notes and to make greeting cards as my mindset of creating purposeful art is very hard to change. I cried reading blue period and my youtube history is full of art related videos for a future that I wasn’t allowed to dream of. I am sad to see my “artistic talent” dwindling down to being just an “aesthetic” person. But this is my choice and I felt like I have betrayed my “talents” and myself. Your video truly hits home and as a person who gave up on arts I just hope that there are other people that are stronger than me and does not give up due to social pressure. Sorry for the unnecessary life ramblings and story. I just wanted somewhere to pour my regrets and lingering feelings.

I'm tearing up because that hit so close to home. Imma just share some shit even tho no one's asking lmao. As a child, I've always found STEM subjects simple and quite robotic. "As long as you remember the method and put the effort to remembering them, you'll find yourself in a situation where life is just as simple and robotic" was my mindset all my life. I never had bad grades because of this, but my way of living that time was pretty monotone to say the least, like it wasn't sad, but it wasn't particularly happy as well. I mean, I was able to watch anime, read books, or maybe even draw random sketches, but all of them were just hobbies of mine and none of those were things i was passionate about. I guess, until I heard a certain pianist moved me through his playing. I was ashamed for even thinking of *crying*, because "why the hell would i cry over a random piece?". After thinking about it, I realized that playing the piano is something I wanna do with my life. From that moment on, I worked to achieve skills and technique I never had. At this point, I'm so fucking frustrated about my lack of "talent" and I'd usually summarize it as "It's because you have no talent that you can't do it" but ohoho, how wrong I was. I'm still bad af, but I know that practice takes hard work. Plus, I know that I'd have to give it up eventually since I'm at least aware that I need to face reality soon enough.

This made me realize how much effort my friend, someone who’s good at art, put into her drawings. I haven’t read this manga, but I do plan to after exams lol, but I can already feel how close this will hit. Before my friend was even as good as she is today, she didn’t even how to draw anything. When we first met, I was into art as a hobby and something to do to pass the time in class, and I introduced it to her. I didn’t really need to put in the effort to draw somewhat mediocre, so she always saw me as someone better at art than her. As the years passed by, I took a more STEM and academic-based path in school. She took a more fine arts path. Everyday she always drew something new and different than the day before. Slowly I saw her art grow, but I never realized that she was always drawing something at all times. Every time she was on her phone, it was a piece of art that she liked or a new challenge to draw. Soon, very soon, she was so much more better than me. I always thought that she was just talented, but I was clearly absorbed into my own thoughts and feelings to not come to the realization that the reason why she was so much better was her effort. 1 year, 2 years, 3 years and on she never stopped drawing. I now have so much respect for the time she now puts in. Thank you for listening to me talk.

I relate to this because I’m 16 and people always ask me how I’m so talented at drawing and I say “I’ve been practicing since I was in kindergarten for hours and hours”, and I feel like all of the hard work I did really paid off