Finding Your Style

By their styles, do your recognize the artists who did these three portraits?

What about these three landscapes?  Can you recognize by these styles who painted each of them? 

Even if you don't know the artists by their work, you can see within each work a distinctiveness, something that sets each artist's work apart even though they might be influenced by the era in which they painted.   

WHAT MAKES STYLE

All my life I've been fascinated by listening to the different ways pianists play Beethovan's Moonlight Sonata.  Even more fascinating is that when you familiarize yourself with master pianists, it's easy to recognize their playing without being told who the performer is. The same is true for artists: when an artist has command of skills and composing principles, their work is recognizable from across the room.

So, how is this possible?  

Style is not something we invent.  It is our natural "handwriting."  It is the result of being in command of our skills to the point that we no longer have to think about the "how to" and delve straight into responding to what we see, interpreting it in a way that pleases us.  To try to force that to fit into a trend or to how another artist might do it is to truncate our own artist's voice in favor of imitating a style.

IT'S ALL ABOUT BEING NATURAL

Below the word "artist" is written by seven different people. The same word communicates seven unique interpretations.   Each style derived from thousands of repetitive strokes over the course of one's lifetime, writing without thinking about how it's being done.  Today, the mastery of these strokes creates the word "artist" as a concept.

 Just as our handwriting evolves over our lifetime, so does our painting style emerge with every brushstroke we make.  When first we began to form letters, we did so deliberately, carefully forming their shapes.  As we became comfortable with the skill of writing, we no longer had to think about forming the shapes.  The thoughts transmit themselves through the shapes.  Today, those who know our handwriting will recognize it as ours unless we distort it.

So it is with our painting style! 

Creating Your Style

(Note:  Henceforth, content from each Composing & Drawing Tip Newsletter will appear here each Saturday morning.  If you are subscribed to both, feel free to unsubscribe from one of them to prevent duplicates arriving via email.)

During the twenty-four years of our private art school, we held a student show at the end of each twelve-week session.  Amid these, responses to student work that delighted me most were people asking how many teachers we had.  Folks couldn't believe that the diversity of styles had emerged under the same teacher.  Even the first quarter drawing students' work was already showing a unique style.

 

What I have noticed among all performers, whether artists or athletes, is that those who excel and reach greatness have a unique style, unlike any other.  An example is evident in baseball pitchers.  Craig Kimbrell, Tom Glavine and John Smoltz each have baffled one hitter after another, yet each stance and pitch is totally different from the other.

 

There are three kinds of styles:  the imitated style, the evolved style and the hybrid style.  The imitated style comes from the performer's intentional adapting a style of someone else.  The evolved style is often called "self-taught" because it is one that comes naturally to a person without any conscious influence.  The hybrid style mixes all that comes naturally mixed with influences by what one sees in or is taught by others.  What we notice is that the style of our greatest performers is most often hybrid.

To the question of how does one find one's style, the real answer is by not trying.  Those who do try eventually lose their natural expression to mechanical imitation, but those who focus their attention of developing the skills required for masterful performance will evolve their unique style without trying. 

We are not to worry about whether our style gets influenced because whatever we identify with in another's skill set is inherently ours to begin with, otherwise we would not recognize it nor desire it. A skill is universal, it is how something gets done.  It is not a talent, but an ability.  In the long run, when our focus is on developing and practicing our skills, each of them will become our own.  We will grow our own signature use of it.  And out of that our style emerges.  

The Question of Style

A question asked most often by emerging artists is "How do I find my style?"

Style--that unique characteristic that links an artist to his or her work.  Where does this characteristic come from? How is it that anybody familiar with Charles Reid or Jennifer McChristian or Carla O'Connor can recognize one of their paintings without seeing a signature?

Look at these three paintings, one by each of these three artists:

Charles Reid     Watercolor

Jennifer McChristian   Oil

Carla O'Conner   Water media

Each is the same subject matter, the female figure.  The art critic would describe in detail how each style is different from the other two and unique to the artist who did the painting, but I don't want to do that.  You can see their differences for yourself, and if you go to their websites, you can see how each of their styles is uniquely expressed in these paintings.  No, what I want to address is how artists acquire their styles.

The single thing Reid, McChristian and O'Connor have in common is that each of them knows how to paint:  they know their craft. They have learned and matured their skills.  They can paint without thinking about how to do it.  So, before a style can fully emerge, an artist has to be so comfortable with drawing and painting that no conscious thought has to be given to the how-to of it.

Developing skills to this extent requires practice, lots of practice.  And here is where artists lose the advantage enjoyed by musicians, actors, poets, and all other performers. That advantage is that the practice sessions are distinct from the performance.  Evidence of the struggle gets left behind the scene.

Not so for painters:  we have our practice pieces starring us in the face.  And there's always somebody wanting to see what we've done, leaving us vulnerable to their comments.  Nobody has to hear a musician's practice nor hear an actor's rehearsing nor watch an ice skater's workout, but once an artist has done a practice painting, it's there to be seen as if it's the final statement.

Because of this one thing, too many emerging artists think every piece must be a masterpiece.  They are not given the leisure of practice pieces.  In fact,  too often their teachers neglect to remind them that class work is practice, not performance.

The irony of all this is that true style emerges and evolves during the act of doing.  It cannot be contrived nor intentionally invented without being faked.  In fact, if style is forced or invented intentionally or cloned from another artist, it cannot last because it has no where to go.  I admit a slim possibility that an artist can evolve out of an induced style into his and her own uniqueness, but there's a danger of getting stuck only to reach a dead end.

It is safer and less stressful to just allow syle to happen within the act of doing.  While skills are being developed, the artist's uniqueness can emerge if it is allowed to.  In fact, developing your own style is the easiest part of becoming an artist.  You don't have to try to do anything at all beyond adjusting your attitude about it.  Allow yourself the leisure of practice. Lots and lots of practice.  Learn your craft and the style will follow.

Style is nothing more than the artist's natural response within and to the entire process of painting.

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Note:  The idea for this tutorial came while listening to Robert Genn being interviewed by Leslie Saeta and Dreama Tolle Perry on their blogcast, Artists Helping Artists.  You can listen to Robert's interview by going HERE.

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If you have something you'd like me to address in these weekly tutorials, send me an email at dianne.mize@gmail.com and I'll be happy to give it my best shot.