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For artists who plan to go professional with their skills, there inevitably comes a point where someone will ask about your signature style or artistic focus. Apparently you must have this recognizable style whether you are are a painter, dancer, singer…whatever. I’ve always found this a very troubling issue, because at first it seems so restrictive. That you have to work in this style forever and you’ll never grow and learn anymore. Or maybe finding your style is more figurative in the sense that you have to find yourself and when you believe in yourself, all your work will be tied together naturally. Somehow it has to naturally happen and before you might even know it, others will already have noticed your style in your works.
I read a few articles online, Finding your Style and Finding a Signature Style and in the end feel sort of ambivalent about the whole topic. I suppose my only conclusion is that you can’t find it…it really finds you. It’s like growing up…you can’t just decide to do it…it happens gradually until one day you realize, hey, I’m a big kid now. (Something like that!) I suppose now is the time to look back and really go through my own body of work and see if there are threads that tie everything together. I’m still so much in the experimentation stage that I find it hard to tied together all my whimsies and fancies… What are your thoughts on artistic styles and a signature style? What’s your style?
Posted on January 29, 2010 at 4:06 pm | thoughts + discussion
Hello fellow explorers and creative minds! My name is Linda, aka tortagialla - a nickname my adorable husband dubbed me meaning "yellow cake" in Italian. I'm your not-so-typical Californian girl who took the plunge and moved to the Tuscan hills of Italy. Now I'm living my dream designing, illustrating and crafting full-time. You can contact me via email linda [!at] tortagialla [!dot] com
Thanks Linda, for sharing these links.
Having lunch at work, so can’t elaborate much, but I appreciate your post.
Hi Carmen – Thanks for stopping by definitely…love to share links and see if we can discover something together!
Great post. I believe you’re quite spot on about letting the style happens naturally. Though I’m new in the pursuit of drawing, I’ve come across same type of question from other artists’ blogs. Almost most of them agree that you can’t force this to happen. An artist needs to let the style grow. Another way to look at it: YOU (your SELF) is your style. A lot of the time, I think the ability to name a style is more for communication, i.e. so that people who don’t know you or have very little understanding of art will have a better grasp of what you’re doing or talking about. Just of 2 cents of thoughts …
I guess it is one of those elusive…you can’t grow up any faster type of things. It’s also true that it’s more about definition. If you have to write an artists statement for example and explain things, easier to have some term or something people understand. Of course, I realize it’s always hard to explain oneself…we are complicated people after all…ahha… thanks for your comments!
I don’t know that my style has any name—it is just me. Mine.
I do notice that my “body of work” (oh brother…) has a certain look to it and seems to gel nicely together. At least it appears that way to me….
I think my color choices have much to do with how it all blends together.
Once in awhile I step out of my usual range and that has a bit of a surprise effect. Not necessarily bad—just noticeable.
What I do notice with jewelry displays (‘cuz thats what I make…) is that if too many different “styles” are all displayed together, that does have a jarring effect—my eye can’t seem to find any place to settle. Weird.
And that is my two cents worth!
Hi Pam, I totally feel lost at times as well…it’s not easy to have to define yourself in a few words. Similar to having to give yourself a title…artist, designer, mixed-media artist? Hmmm… sometimes it’s hard to find the right terms. I suppose if we look back at our body of work we can find the threads that tie it all together…it’s difficult for me because I go off and experiment a lot and it seems all over the place! Thanks for your thoughts…maybe we have to label ourselves in periods…as we move from one stage to the next!
What a great piece. Okay first I want to know how you doing???? Are you resting??? Hope that you are not completely bored out of your mind just yet. I know what it’s like being in the hospital. Apparently you still have your art on you mind and you will be getting back to that soon enough, but for now just rest. Yes I agree with you about the whole style thing. I have been asked this question so many times and each time I really don’t have this really big answer. I do agree that I think you style finds you. To me, it’s what do you like to illustrate? What media really allows you to express yourself to the full??? What inspires you??? I figure if you keep doing these things you will develop a style. I love children. I am retro. I adore anything from the 1940′s to the 1960′s. Anything with brown, orange, pea green, pink, and buttery yellow. I have had many art directors say I have to many styles. I don’t want to be confined to just one thing. I love all media. Whether paper, paint, canvas, or cardboard. I just like what I like. I know I like your work he h e he he he!!! Well I hope that you will get some rest and take goooooood care of yourself. Hope to hear from you soon.
Take care
hugs
V
Hi Vanessa – Thanks so much, I am doing much better. More mobility and really anxious to get back to “normalcy.” It’s definitely a bit annoying when you can’t be as physical as you want to be…don’t want to get too ahead of myself of course. I am home now and just resting as much as possible and watching wayyy too many videos, hehe. Oh – I totally know what you mean by being confined, don’t want to pigeon-hole yourself, even though everyone expects you to be able to define your work as a particular style. Seems like the issue of having a style, but then always staying fresh seems to be at odds with each other!
I definitely agree that your style finds you. I also think that you can’t force it. I feel like it happened for me quite by accident—at one point I was doing a million different types of things—collage, painting, word art, photography, sewing, drawing. Then one day, my husband noticed that I was always drawing with a black pen when I was just doodling. He asked me why I never used that medium when I was really making a piece of art. From then, I started doing more and more pen and ink, then through some different projects and making lots of art, I arrived at my current style that seems cohesive, although it encompasses a couple different types of work—some more abstract and pattern-based, and other more based in simple illustration with lots of hand typography. I think maybe there is too much pressure to “find” a cohesive style though. I think it will happen when it happens, and even once it does, it’s always good to be experimenting and trying new things so that you don’t get trapped in one type of work.
So true…I’m like a little kid who WANTS it NOW! Maybe it does take someone else to see it, because you are so involved with your own experimentations..hmm…interesting idea. Your art in pen and ink is definitely your style – you notice that it’s blue bicicletta right away! I think it’s good to have variation and experiment still…like how the masters go through periods as they experiment and grow!