How to Find Your Style
How do you develop your style?
It seems like it could be as simple as reverse engineering. You figure out what you like visually and then work backwards. You figure out how to create that kind of work with materials, color and composition.
But Ep.40 guest Sari Shryack says that’s the opposite direction you should be looking.
Shryack knows that style grows organically, unpredictably, and slowly.
Style grows through deep knowledge about what you want in your finished pieces, but also more importantly in your art practice and in your life.
Put it to Practice:
Think about what you want to spend your days doing.
What do you want your studio time to look and feel like? What subjects spark curiosity in you?
What steps do you enjoy walking through to paint?
These are important to know because not all styles will fit with your answers.
For example, if you love non-representational work but you really don’t enjoy work that is super unpredictable, then it’s possible you won't enjoy the process of MAKING non-representational art.
Or if you love photo realism but really hate spending hours on one painting, then photo realism probably isn’t going to work for you.
Maybe you really love looking at paintings with a bunch of subtle grays but you’ve found that you really prefer to mix bright brights.
Just because you love how another person’s work looks finished doesn’t mean you would enjoy the steps they took to get there.
And if you don’t enjoy the steps, you won’t do them no matter how pretty the final painting is.
So finding a style is first about learning what you like and dislike. And the only way you find that is through making a lot of work and paying attention to how you enjoy (or don’t enjoy) what you’re doing along the way. And then building a practice and process that pursues what you do like. And slowly out of that (and a lot of painting) your style will emerge. A style that is built on not just a final painting you love, but through materials and steps you actually enjoy doing.
Listen to Ep.40 with Sari Shryack here.