Finding your style
The key is to never stop looking
When artists talk about finding our style, what does that mean and what are we supposed to do once we find it?
Ever since I was little I’ve always loved trying out new things, learning new crafts, getting to know different materials and experimenting with drawing and painting techniques. However, learning one skill never made me want to keep going at it forever and ever, but rather move to the next unfamiliar thing and give that one a try — half the fun of finding IT was looking for it in the first place!
Last December I took part in a traditional end of the year Instagram post called Art vs. Artist, where artists present their most relevant work from the current year in a 3x3 grid. I pulled together characters from different projects I’ve worked on in 2024, all digital art, and the first thing that jumped at me was my colour palette. My style has changed over time, I’ve moved away from very detailed and polished drawings towards messier and rougher lines but my colours stayed the same, whether it was a picture book illustration, a greeting card or a middle grade book cover.
Can a signature colour palette be a style? I recently had my personal styling and colour analysis done and what do you know, “my colours” match my illustration palette! In my colour wheel there are warm mustardy yellows and rusty reds, also olive green with teal and navy blue — how’s that for Art vs. Artist!
Another element that defines art style is drawing technique. My early illustrations were mostly pen and watercolour and when I got my first iPad and started learning how to draw in Procreate, I was immediately hooked by endless possibilities tablet offered and with lots of practice my digital style became very polished and detailed. After a while I got restless again, longing for unpredictability of traditional techniques, uneven watercolour splotches, wonky pencil lines and smudgy pastels. Now my challenge became finding a way to recreate those lines and textures in Procreate.
One way I achieved that was by no longer using the “undo” button and too many separate layers for each part of the drawing — having the possibility of constantly going back and deleting every little mistake, made drawing feel like an endless rehearsal instead of a final performance. With bolder, wonkier lines and less perfect colour blending I could recreate the spontaneity of my paper sketches in digital illustration. (you can read more about this process here).
Next experiment: collage
I’ve always admired the art of collage and paper cutting, layering different textures and colours of paper, using minimalist shapes and clean lines to achieve strong graphic effects. Tablet is a great tool for collage style illustration, it’s so easy to play with repositioning of the elements (no glue, no mess) and trying different colour ways. Here’s an exercise from a while ago, using H. C. Andersen as inspiration for book cover illustrations.
These exercises came to my mind recently when I was making a board book cover and was looking for a simple style that would match vibrant and contrasted aesthetics of baby books. I wanted a grittier, less sharp look so I drew my shapes with a rough, chalky brush and gave them some depth with different textures. As I experimented with these restricted tools and simplified, flat shapes, my colour palette also shrunk and became more minimalist, tighter. The result is a surprising shift from anything I’ve drawn in the last few years and I’m loving it!
Have I made full circle and found MY style or is this only the beginning of a brand new quest? Does discovering a new style mean I have to abandon my previous one? I don’t think so, not as long as I love making art in any of them. And the search doesn’t stop here. There are so many things left to discover and I’m not done experimenting — so stay tuned and I’ll tell you all about my next style adventures as they unfold!
This was
’s monthly question, you can read about other members’ style quests in our June Substack edition.And join us tomorrow, June 16th, for another LIVE chat where we’ll talli mor4 about this topic - register below to get the invitation to free Zoom session.
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