How do I find my style?
How do I find my style?
I spent a lot of time thinking that I had to have one style and stick to it, but this always left me feeling frustrated because I firstly didn't know how to find it and whenever I thought I'd found it I wanted to explore something else and this got me thinking that maybe I hadn't found it. So here are my tips for finding your style:
Pick your medium...
I think it's first super important to pick a medium that you enjoy - mine is gouache and watercolour. I tried out acrylic and oil, but they were far too messy for me to ever really enjoy, so personally they were not for me. That's not to say that I would never try them again, but in the pursuit of finding my style I knew it was important that I chose something that I could be consistent with and the only way I could do that was by choosing a medium that I liked.
Don't jump about...
One of my biggest problems is jumping about from style to style - I would create something radically different each time and this wasn't helping because I wasn't exploring the style properly and bringing my own touch to it. So instead I looked at my creations as a series - each building on the one before. I find it helpful to look at the previous days painting and analyse what I thought was and wasn't successful and take these thoughts into consideration when working on my next page.
Give yourself enough time to find your true creativity...
Building on the last point - you need to be patient and give yourself enough time to explore and enjoy the style you're working in. When I studied fashion at uni, my tutors would always tell us to do 100 designs minimum - the first 75 would be boring/basic/unimaginative...because well, we didn't have to work very hard to get there. It was only as we reached the 100th design that we would start to find the magic. And it's the same now... you need to give yourself enough time to develop your ideas and really reach your creative potential.
I'd love to know if any of these pointers help you find your style!
Let me know in the comments.