How do I find my art style?

Have you ever asked yourself, “How do I find my art style?” or “I make so many different things, how do I pick just one?”. This is a common hardship for many emerging artists and balancing this exploration with intention is key. On today's episode we discuss the process of exploring multiple art styles during your creative journey while staying focused on your goal of creating a consistent aesthetic.

Balancing Multiple Art Styles

We get the question all the time from other emerging artists: “How do I find my art style?”, “I make so many different things, how do I pick just one?”

If your art is a hobby, having multiple styles is totally fine! But if you are looking to create a business, this can be confusing for your audience. For the ladder scenario, the goal is to create a style that you want to be known for.

But, how do you explore and balance multiple styles of art at the same time?

If you are a self-taught artist, the styles and classes that you have to choose from is like an unlimited buffet buffet - there’s so many choices!

Exploring a broad foundation of styles and techniques is an important part of the creative journey to learn what you like and don’t like. In academia this phase is actually required!
But finding a style that you connect with will take TIME and INTENTIONAL PRACTICE

Narrow It Down

Once you get this broad foundation, you’ll want to evolve and narrow it down what you connect with. Narrow it down to 2 or 3 styles and see what happens when you FOCUS. Which styles evolve? How do you feel about the work and the process of making it?

Be cautious yet considerate of outside opinions. Do you LIKE the work? Try to avoid making work just because it “seems” popular.

This exploration phase will look different for everyone.

Adriana’s Approach: Explores using similar color palettes and techniques, but applied to different subject matters
Jackie’s Approach: 2: Explores related subject matter and concepts but it takes form in different medium

Action Items if you are struggling to balance multiple styles:

Select 2 or 3 and create 20 pieces of each
Learn from the process
Be honest with your motivations, what you like, what you don’t like
Write down what elements you want to carry across your work and keep them visible.
Then... see what happens!
Focusing in will result in a less overwhelming process
Manages your own expectations
If you have other ideas during this exploration write them down and save them for later

And remember, this is an ever evolving process! So just keep exploring :)

“If you hear a voice within you saying, ”You are not a painter,” then by all means paint… and that voice will be silenced.” Vincent van Gogh

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