How do you develop a 'style'?

[shan_85_newbie]

Hi guys!
Im having trouble with the concept of a personal style. Im told everyone has their own style but Im finding it hard to see what mine is. Every drawing I do seems to be different. Some are 3d, some 2d, some realistic some astract.. depends what I feel like, although I havnt really mastered any of them :S
Any comments/suggestions etc?
Thanks!! :)

[Improv]

Hi guys!
Im having trouble with the concept of a personal style. Im told everyone has their own style but Im finding it hard to see what mine is. Every drawing I do seems to be different. Some are 3d, some 2d, some realistic some astract.. depends what I feel like, although I havnt really mastered any of them :S
Any comments/suggestions etc?
Thanks!! :)

How do you develop a personal style?

Practise, practice, practise.

Once you get some experience you'll notice that you seem to prefer certain tools, techniques, styles, etc. Go with what works for you, that way your style develops naturally.

[Aged P]

Painting stays fun if you don't develop a style!

Just paint and paint and paint. If, and when, perspective and portraits become dead easy, look around for something new. I've been painting and drawing for 50 years and it's what I plan to do eventually. :)

Develop a palette and a technique by all means.
This usually means selecting, from the vast number of things that Artrage can do, the colours and methods that please you.

If someone from this vast pool of talent makes you think. "Wow!", try something similar.

Once again, just paint everything.

[shan_85_newbie]

Thats really good advice guys thankyou!
sounds like i have a lot of time and work but also fun ahead.

[Selby]

i think part of it is finding somethings just wont work for you at all....they are like swimming in treacle .... others arent so hard or are more fun and seem to flow


Selby

[ingie01]

Style is not a commodity. It is not something you can copy. It is the sum of you and as you develop/change so will your style. Once it is possible to disreguard your shortcomings and just enjoy the activity of art making then you will have a "style".

[Stephen Lo Piano]

I would suggest; just keep on painting and experimenting. After several years of working at it you might look back upon your work in the progress of years and see a pattern of style developing.

[Cédric Trojani]

Hi guys!
Im having trouble with the concept of a personal style. Im told everyone has their own style but Im finding it hard to see what mine is. Every drawing I do seems to be different. Some are 3d, some 2d, some realistic some astract.. depends what I feel like, although I havnt really mastered any of them :S
Any comments/suggestions etc?
Thanks!! :)

Two "rules" to create your own style :

1 - draw
2- see rule #1

Do a lot of illustrations, don't think about the style. Just try to do your best and have fun. One day, you'll find more easy and more efficient to draw in a specific way and that will be your style. I think an artist is ALWAYS buidling his own style. I draw with some different styles and it took me 36 years to build them (although I start using some only a few months ago, I wouldn't have use them if my personnal history was different)
Don't forget, when you finish an illustration, that the most important drawing is the one you havn't already done, the one that will come after and when you'll have done it, the most important will be the next one. If not, you'll do industrial products and not artistic material

[shan_85_newbie]

wow thanks for the big response guys. I have found your responses very reassuring. i was stupidly worried i had somehow missed out on one :oops:

[royblumenthal]

Hiya Shan...

Definitely all of the above.

I'd like to add to the responses...

For me... 'my' style came pretty much from loving the tools I was using.

The first tool I reallllly got into was a ruling pen, using India Ink on paper. (A ruling pen behaves very much like a brush when you want it to, and is extremely precise when you need that. It's a draughting tool. The kind of line I get out of it looks a bit like Ralph Steadman's stuff.)

For years, I did only portraiture in a Daler-Rowney acid-free sketchbook. I have about twenty of those books.

My rules are:

o Do not tear anything out.
o Do not throw anything away.
o Do not get precious about anything.
o 20 percent of what I draw might resemble something cool. 80 percent will be rubbish.
o Look at other people's art. Even art you don't like.
o Imitate other people's art. Especially art you don't like.

I discovered a love for colour when I got my palmtop computer. I downloaded a little piece of Japanese shareware called Mobile Atelier, and literally exploded my world. I stopped carrying the sketchbook everywhere, and started wearing cargo trousers with multiple pockets to accommodate all my gadgets. I made hundreds of drawings on the palmtop. And my style definitely 'evolved' to embrace colour. I find that line is STILL the love of my life. With colour enhancing that.

Nowadays, I'm a firm fan of the tablet pc. As far as I'm concerned, I'll ALWAYS purchase tablets from now on. The first package I tried was Corel Painter Classic which came free with the Wacom tablet I bought some years ago. Painter was very disappointing, but it WAS the first release of the package, and it WAS rather cruddy.

Then I tried Alias Sketchbook Pro 2.0. Awesome. Fell in love with it. Wow wow wow. A leap forward in the evolution of my style. Then, with added exposure to Sketchbook Pro, and a quick attempt at Corel Painter 9.5, I realised that Sketchbook was missing the thing I needed most... painterliness.

I read about ArtRage on the web somehow, and downloaded the freebie version. And loved it immediately. I can't recall how long it took me to purchase the full version, but I think it was a matter of a day or two. And WHAM! My personal style took another leap forward. Wow.

---

I think the gist of what I'm yakking on about is that -- for me -- the tools themselves bring me joy. And because of that, stuff in my 'personal style' gets liberated.

Go forth and flourish.

Blue skies
love
Roy

[Sethren]

I'd say my own style is part anime and part realism but now i am trying to shoot for more of the realism/less exaggerated part. I still have not decided on what medium to use, i am debating on oils/air brushes or just straight markers and pens. I tend to think my look is rather odd. My foregrounds are 3D but my backrounds are more 2D with some wierd mock perspectives. I started with colored pencils then moved into colored chalk but that is as far as i went until Digital Art caught my eye. i tend to trace alot and this helps to follow lines. A quiet place helps and sometimes soft music. As a child i had a very bad temper so i threw alot of my old art out and much of it were these crazy city scapes on large poster paper that i had worked on for days with thousands of tiny windows so do not ever get angry no matter what circumstances are involved because even as adults we can throw things away.

I have been trying to learn how to draw people for about 20 years now, still can't do it but i am certainly not giving up and never will. Alot of it has to do with focus and disciplining oneself to stay with it and just not giving up.

For better words my style is my own without doubt but it reminds me of anime at times but with the lack of the extream elements of anime like large eyes and crazy anatomys. Without doubt it is all me from my own way of approaching it.

I think if one has a clear way of focusing without being discourged then there are less of a chance trying to mimic others peoples work and be inspired from ones own approach.

[Improv]

Why do you need a style? Is it any good? If your personality is showing in what you are doing, I like it...it is honest. Every picture tells a story - the best pictures tells the story of you and your uniqueness...I hope that is what you are looking for...

You're right. You don't buy a style, find it on the internet or copy it from someone else. You are your style and the style is the sum total of who you are and what you've lived and experienced.