Recently I have been expanding my learning and understanding of most aspects of my life, art being one of them. In the spring semester of 2020, I took the first real art class I’ve ever taken and in just the few short months I had I learned so much. Since then I have been continuing to learn what I can online, whether that’s on YouTube or just by listening and paying attention to artists I look up to.
In this experience of expanding my horizons as a writer and artist, I have been hearing more and more about artists needing to find a “style”. The artist community tosses the word “style” or “personal style” around like crazy as if everyone is just screaming to the world that they are an artist!
But it got me thinking, do I have a personal style yet? Am I supposed to know what my artistic style is now? How do you find your personal style?
I’ve been diving into a couple of chapters of the book, On Writing Well, by William Zinsser, and a particular chapter caught my eye, chapter 4: Style. Zinsser explains to his readers that true and captivating writing comes from a writer expressing his or her style without fear of judgment. He reassures the audience too that finding this “style” everyone speaks of takes time.
It is simply illogical to assume that you could be the fully developed and stylized version of your artistic self without the years of experience it takes to get there. Most importantly, it is okay that it takes time, it allows you to play with new creative things and experience blissful fun without the pressure of upholding a certain “personal style”.
If you are on a journey to find your artistic “style”, like me, then continue reading to see what I have been doing to discover and develop my personal artistic style.
1. Being Creative Daily
This is somewhat of a hard one but arguably the most important aspect it seems, of becoming a developed and stylized artist. Me telling you this, along with every other respectable artist out there, isn’t new information but maybe you will practice it better than I have. It can be so hard to find time every single day to create something, but I have noticed the benefits are worth the struggle.
Opening myself up to try a new medium like digital art has most definitely increased my creativity because I have discovered so many tools I can use in future projects. Even in the last couple of months, I have noticed certain styles appearing in my work and I am excited to continue developing my personal style.
3. Learning New Mediums
I would say my primary medium for creating and painting is acrylic paints on canvas (either board or stretched). I have dabbled into watercolors but nothing too fancy, and I enjoy calligraphy and hand lettering, but if I had to give one medium I use, it would be acrylic. I just love that it is opaque and dries so that if I make a mistake it isn’t too hard to cover it up.
However, a medium I hadn’t considered before six months ago has now become a medium, I go to often, digital media/art. My purchase of the app Procreate has been a game changer in my digital art practice, compared to the Windows Paint 3D I was using beforehand.
Opening myself up to try a new medium like digital art has most definitely increased my creativity because I have discovered so many tools I can use in future projects. Even in the last couple of months, I have noticed certain styles appearing in my work and I am excited to continue developing my personal style.
2. Trying New Ideas
I have always loved painting skies and mountains and oh do I love painting moons, but it wasn’t until recently that I gained some interest to start painting different scenes. Sometimes creating a new pallet of colors opens up your imagination, for example, I accidentally created a beautiful sea green color and have been enjoying creating ocean scenes. In a recent painting, I decided to go even further and try painting something I have never done before, painting people, well a mermaid to be exact.
You can see in the video, that I wasn’t trying to be perfect and I most certainly knew that this would not end up being any of my best work, but it was so fun to experiment with skin tone and body shape. More than that I learned a lot about what I could do differently in the future to improve my painting abilities. Stepping outside of your painting “norms” can be just the push you need to see more creativity come out of yourself than ever before.
3. Learning New Mediums
I would say my primary medium for creating and painting is acrylic paints on canvas (either board or stretched). I have dabbled into watercolors but nothing too fancy, and I enjoy calligraphy and hand lettering, but if I had to give one medium I use, it would be acrylic. I just love that it is opaque and dries so that if I make a mistake it isn’t too hard to cover it up.
However, a medium I hadn’t considered before six months ago has now become a medium, I go to often, digital media/art. My purchase of the app Procreate has been a game changer in my digital art practice, compared to the Windows Paint 3D I was using beforehand.
Opening myself up to try a new medium like digital art has most definitely increased my creativity because I have discovered so many tools I can use in future projects. Even in the last couple of months, I have noticed certain styles appearing in my work and I am excited to continue developing my personal style.
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