Watching someone who's your friend develop in their art is so cool because like damn. I helped and sometimes influenced that! I watched them develop their artstyle! I very unhelpfully cried on the floor with them over hands!
I'm nowhere near an expert artist, but watching people who recently picked up art do things I did and be able to comment on it and help is just so cool and I think different levels of 'artist' should interact more.
Heck, I have a few friends that are much, much more experienced than me, and I can still relate to them. Because no matter what 'level' you're on or how "good" your art is, we're still all drawing silly little things on paper. And we all had and will continue to have old outdated art, when we didn't know about something like anatomy or consistent proportions or colour pallets or lineart.
And when a friend doesn't blindly claim you're the second coming of god with your flawed art or call it ugly but instead offers criticism, you take it to heart. Because they're your friend.
When they acknowledge artstyles and personal quirks on your art that define you and support that, you slowly start to realize; hey, maybe my art is good.
Because art isn't good depending on how many likes it has, it's good if you think it's better than last time, or if you put in so much effort and are pleased with the result, or if it's a gift for a loved one and they positively freak out and make it their profile picture on everything for 6 months.
Art is only good if you're growing with it. What other people think comes after.
(This post became utterly incomprehensible after like the second paragraph, but here it is nonetheless)
