Determining what your art style is, and yes, you already have one!
Lately, there seems to be quite a bit of talk in the art community about art style. If you are going out of your way to develop it, read on, because you likely already got it!
Comparison Is Your Bane
One thing I love about Let’s Make Art is that Sarah Cray starts with the oath below. There is nothing wrong trying to learn from another artist. However, whatever you create is your own and it’s best not to compare.
The Let’s Make Art oath:
I promise to be kind to myself.
I promise to not compare my work.
I promise to have fun.
Visual Art Style
When you think of art style, you may think Picasso, Monet, Van Gogh, etc. It’s natural, because each of these artists had a very unique style. You can tell it’s a Picasso or Monet. So a lot of people think unless your artwork is easily identifiable, then you don’t have a style. There is a lot of debate on that; I even had some people come to me and say I don’t have a style, or my art isn’t even art, because I do portraits. They think unless my portraits look a certain way (like Andy Warhol’s pop art), then it’s not art.
There was a period of time when I thought my art wasn’t art because of these remarks, which are very damaging for an artist. Funny enough, people who said that to me cannot draw. Since then, I take whatever they said with a grain of salt.
Recently, I learned from professional artists who explained what an art style is, and the danger of purposely sticking to one. It was quite enlightening, because art style isn’t just visual, but also how you work it.
Your Way of Art Is a Style!
First, how you go about working a painting or drawing is already your art style. Personally, if I do a portrait, I almost always sketch out one eye on the left first, then the nose, then the other eye. With the nose down I can gauge the distance to the other eye more accurately.
I never use any grid method to draw. I just draw. That is my style. 🙂
Your Preferences Are Also Your Style
Your preferences in subject, medium, surface and colour palette also contribute to your style. For me, I am more of a faces/animal kind of artist. I tried out landscape painting but it was not for me. In addition, I like painting loose florals in watercolour.
For coloured pencils, I prefer softer pencils like Prismacolor Premier. Again, this is my style. As for drawing surface, I prefer vellum because it allows a bit more layering.
I love watercolour, coloured pencils and sometimes pastels. Sometimes I do mixed media with watercolour, alcohol markers and coloured pencils.
For watercolour, some artists prefer cold press, some prefer hot press. Unless I am doing detailed portraits, I opt for cold press with a bit more texture because it can take in more water than hot pressed paper.
As for colour palettes, if I am painting stylised art, I prefer turquoise, pinks and purples; for realistic portraits, I stick close to the reference photos for the colours. Realism is a style. 😉
Sticking To An Art Style
There is some debate whether it’s a good thing to be super adherent to one visible art style. For example, there is this artist I like and bought a painting from. He has a very distinct style which you can identify easily, but if you own one piece, you own them all. His paintings are beautiful and each goes for at least $8-9K, but they all look the same.
I understand if that’s what sells, then he’s doing something right. However, there is the danger of phoning it in, simply repeating the same style and using similar composition in every painting.
I am not a professional artist so I tend to do something different every time, but I understand if you make a living out of it, you have to do what sells. The choice is completely yours.
Lately, I started to do loose watercolour florals. They look similar but I don’t mind. 😛
What is your art style? Do you stick to it?
