Finding your art style is a priority milestone to achieve for many and can seem a daunting quest that feels like it could take a lifetime to achieve; Especially as a newbie to the art world – with so much initial confusion of how exactly to practice artistry, constantly wondering if you’re “doing it right” being creative that is, it can feel an intimidating process trying to navigate finding your art style. For those that do have some understanding of art but haven’t yet found your art style, this can be a very frustrating process after a while of feeling “unsuccessful” in your aim, but I encourage you not to give up on your quest!!! 

As a newbie, it may seem like you’re at a disadvantage for finding your art style any time soon, but what if I told you exploration is key; A curiosity to experiment and learn (focus on understanding the different mediums and methods for practicing artistry, figure out what works well and what does not work for you). Research/surround yourself with knowledge, find inspiration, play/practice and along the way you’ll figure out what you like and don’t, which is half the battle to finding your art style.

Finding your art style is a challenging task as it takes an unknown amount of time for each person i.e we all have different starting points with what we’ve been exposed to or know naturally, so, skillsets will vary from person to person. It’s not just about your starting knowledge and skill level (as to how long it will take to find your art style), it depends on you like the choices you make on your journey for example how much exploration you do, will determine the rate at which you get to finding your art style. Exploration allows for awareness which is what finding your art style kind of is, it’s being aware of your artistic processes and to do this you should explore in various ways. If you don’t explore in various ways, then you’ll be stuck trying to figure out what feels impossible because you won’t have a full picture to complete the puzzle. What I mean by that is it’s not enough to only research and practice the art fundamentals, sure it will improve your skills which is amazing but there’s more to it than just doing that.

To have found your art style means you’ve figured out your preferences; what medium(s) you enjoy creating with, the theme(s) present in your work and methodologies that inspire or work for you. So as you may have guessed, practicing exploring is really the way for you to become aware of your preferences (which makes it easier to understand what your art style is) p.s it’s an expression of a time period but can change as you/things change.

For some of you, you may already have an art style and just don’t know what to look for yet…I think it’s important to understand that finding your art style is like the process of learning handwriting: we had to learn how to write and practice lots n lots, before we could begin to recognise what our handwriting looks like and finding an art style is very similar. With learning and enough practice, you’ll eventually see a pattern forming of how you create and what your work looks like. Try compare and/or find similarities within the overall body of work you have created e.g colour(s), theme and medium(s) – that’s not to say you can’t have a vast variety of works that don’t appear to be cohesive, like I said your art style can change and just because you’re not aware of what your art style is, doesn’t mean you haven’t already exhibited an art style within your works; you may have explored several art styles along your journey but it’s understanding how you like to create and the skillset you have that makes your art style. Like handwriting being very similar to someone else’s – art style could be too, because you’ve arrived at the same preferences e.g realism using oil pastels, but by the same token neither will likely have the exact same “mistakes” or qualities due to differences in people producing i.e different product brand, different skill level etc.

Finding your art style is not about being the best of the best skill wise, in my experience when you’ve figured out your art style and understand about art styles, you’ll realise you had something at one point that was amazing but because you’ve changed due to whatever reasons you’re unlikely to be able to produce in the same exact same way (because you’re not that person in the same circumstances anymore)… Long story short enjoy the journey as much as reaching the end goal!

It takes hard work, determination and courage but, achieving finding your art style is oh so worth it 🙂

Till next time soul crew,

Stevie x