Some time ago, I answered a reader who asked a question about finding their artistic style. You can read my answer here.
It’s been a few years since I wrote that post and when I came across it again, I decided it was time to revisit this subject and perhaps expand on it a bit.
Before I begin, I want to say right up front that the subject of “style” is wide open. There is no one person or committee that decides what artistic style is. Sure, there are trends in the market, but they don’t define style. They reflect what’s currently popular.
Artistic style is also intensely personal. No two artists have exactly the same style. That’s because no two artists have the same combination of experience, skill, interests, or goals. We’re all unique, and those uniquenesses show up in our artistic style. That’s why, for most artists, style is something that “just happens” as they make art. That’s what happened to me.
And styles can change as you grow as an artist. I’m also ample proof of that.
So let’s talk about artistic style.
Artistic Style: What it Is
In essence, artistic style is your unwritten signature on your artwork. Style is all of the things that make your artwork yours.
Vision
That begins, of course, with your artistic vision: The things that make you want to recreate them as artwork.
For example, for 40 years, my vision was horses. Almost every painting had something to do with horses. Most of them were portraits, but horses found their way into almost every painting I did for over 40 years. Horses were a recognizable part of my style.
Your vision may be flowers or babies or rolling waves. Your vision may include a lot of different subjects, but it’s still part of your style.
Depiction
Second is the way you depict those subjects. Of course we tend to focus on the obvious things such as impressionism, realism, illustration, and so on. There’s no question that the way you draw things does affect your style. By that measurement, my style involved painting horses so they not only looked like horses, but like the horses I was painting.
But style is more than even that.
You see, your color choices, the way you put color on the paper, and the paper you use all contribute to your style. It’s how you depict your subject.
Composition
Composition also plays a role in style. Some artists like simple compositions, with one subject and a plain background. Other artists like complex compositions that give you something new to find each time you view the art.
And some artists like to hide things in their compositions. Initials, for example, or symbols, or even hidden objects.
The arrangement of the composition is also important. You can give twenty artists the same scene to draw, and you would end up with twenty different works of art. That’s because they would also compose the image according to their preferences. Some would create a centered composition, some would be offset, and some would be totally outside the usual. You would have twenty different styles based on the same reference photo.
A Few Examples
All of the things I’ve mentioned above contribute to style. So let’s look at a couple of examples.
I use a lot of earth tones. That may seem natural given my horsy subject. But earth tones are also my favorite colors, so I have a lot of them on hand, and they find their way into all of my work. Even when it isn’t obvious.
But I once knew an artist who didn’t paint horses that way. She used a lot of color; many colors I would never have considered. Purples and pinks and blues and so on. That was part of her artistic style.
Todd Baxter is a top-notch artist who works in colored pencils and oils. All of his work is beautiful, but his signature style as far as I’m concerned is his method of using only one or two colors on light-colored Canson Mi-Teintes paper. Whenever I see one of those, I know Todd is the artist. It’s a distinctive style and, combined with his attention to detail and compositional decision-making, clearly identifies him as the artist.
Less obvious but still a style is starting every piece with an umber under drawing. That’s what I do with a lot of landscapes and many animal portraits.
So What Is Artistic Style?
There are a lot more factors in artistic style than I’ve mentioned here. But if you boil down everything I’ve mentioned in this post and in the post I mentioned at the beginning of this article, and all of the countless other things that I didn’t mention, artistic style comes down to three words: That certain look.
You probably know what I mean. It’s difficult to define, but you know it when you see it. There’s just something about an art piece that tells you a certain artist created it. The signature is confirmation of that certain look.
Believe it or not, your artwork will also have “that certain look” after you’ve created enough pieces. Unless you have set out to develop a very specific style, you will one day look at the body of your work and you’ll realize what your style is. It will just happen.
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Good article! Still not sure I have a style but maybe I am getting there. I tend to love lots of color. Maybe that will be part of my overall style someday. I hope someday if I do acquire a “style” that someone will let me know because I may be clueless. LOL!
Gail,
I never gave a thought to style. I just painted what I liked to paint the way I liked to paint and that was enough. Then one year, someone asked why I didn’t have anything entered in the county fair art show. I asked how they knew I didn’t and they said they didn’t see anything there that looked like my work!
So you probably already have or are beginning to develop a style.
And yes. It is quite possible that someone else will have to tell you about it! We artists don’t often seem capable of seeing things like that!