Discovering our style - Who's in?

[RG Spaulding]

@anya-macleod That was done by John Rocco (book title is 'Camp Tiger').
The artist's name are as follows.
Top line: Aaron Becker, Don't know the artist of the house with ghosts, Sophie Blackall, John Rocco.
Next line: Aaron Becker
Bottom line: Fan Brothers, Eliza Wheeler, Dow Phumiruk, Aaron Becker

I also love art by David Weisner and Brian Floca. I guess I tend to lean towards magical realism if there is such a thing.

[jsnzart]

I'm really liking this thread, as I've also watched Lee's course, and started the assignments.

Is this thread still alive? Did someone make a new one?
Did the pandemic stop everybody from moving on?
What happened?

Anyway, my dream portfolio is loaded with fantasy artists/illustrators like, Donato Giancola, James Gurney, Paul Bonner, Ralph Horsley, Jesper Ejsing, and moving closer to children's art with, Scott Gustafson, Jim Madsen, Cory Loftis, Peter de Seve, and one of my long time favourites Jack Davis. Can't forget Frank Frazetta, and Mort Drucker.

Piecing it together, and wondering if this is a good place to put it.

[Ghadeer Nemer]

@Meta I am still discovering my style and this class is defiantly a must for me. I would love to see what you come up with. I will be taking the class after the basic classes I am enrolled in right now.

[LauraA]

@jsnzart Sure, we can keep the thread alive! I am a big fan of keeping threads alive, especially ones that lots of people participate in, because it means we can find a lot of info in one place. I say this even though, when I do a WIP thread, I often find that I get more response if I start over I think it has a lot to do with what people see at the top of their feed, because some people have their feeds set to new threads only. I don't. I just scroll through the first couple of pages of active threads.

I also think this exercise is well-worth doing repeatedly, as our styles develop. Right now I'm thinking of doing one just for landscapes, because I did one landscape I really liked, but the style felt sort of half-baked and didn't quite go with my figures.

So, go ahead and post! I'll comment on it and I bet others will too!

[jsnzart]

@LauraA Thanks. I agree, lots of good reads full of good info.

[Shyam Sailus]

@jsnzart

[PhoebeCreates]

Lee White's class was exactly what I was looking for when I was looking all over the internet searching for guidance to the question" how to develop my own style of art". It also helped me understand why everything I make look so vastly different from everything I like.

My first attempt at a "dream portfolio" a couple of months ago was not very successful. I had way too many pieces and couldn't decide which ones to eliminate. All the pieces I collected served very different purposes. They were also mostly from popular Instagram/Youtube artists who don't necessarily have published art or worked in the area I am interested in. Now that I feel like I have a better understanding of the kind of art I like, and have a slightly better understanding of the kind of industry I want to get into, I am ready to give this exercise a go again.

I have one question that I am not sure if anyone has asked before: Do we have to limit one piece per artist?

[jsnzart]

@PhoebeCreates Cool. I think many artists/illustrators can relate to that. I can.

That's a good question.
I just checked that assignment file, and it doesn't say. Might have to watch the vids again, or someone might give us the answer soon. That happens here. It's a great community.

[Heather Boyd]

@PhoebeCreates I think in the assignment one piece per artist but I have kept a few so that if I wanted to see how they drew something or solved something I could. @Norman-Morana did that.

[PhoebeCreates]

@jsnzart glad we can relate! and thank you very much for trying to help. I think I'll go with @Heather-Boyd 's suggestion and include more than one art from an artist when it's necessary.

[jsnzart]

@PhoebeCreates You're welcome. For sure! I've been doing that too, actually. It's not easy to choose.

[ambiirae]

Hopefully it’s still okay to revive this thread! Watched the first video from Lees class and trying to do the dream portfolio assignment... this is really difficult. I am trying to stick with one piece from each artist but also how do you pick?? Like do y’all just select images you like or do you wait for ones you LOVE. Do far I’ve been picking ones I really really like or love which is making it challenging. How long did this project take for you?

Here’s what I have so far

[Heather Boyd]

@ambiirae Totally fine to revive this thread. This class was good at getting me to think of my work/future work as a whole however I have made ever so many dream portfolios. I have found a dream portfolio for landscape work far easier to compile yet my focus is in children's books -I find so much harder. Currently I have gathered work that I like parts of because I have rarely found ones I like everything. And then I try replicating those parts and then altering what I would do differently. I have seen patterns and things I naturally gravitate towards and looking through old work to see what I naturally am gifted at. I can't give you a solid this is what I did and it worked.

If you like or love so many, maybe go through and ask yourself why?

[ambiirae]

@Heather-Boyd well back in college I had an art history class and one of the artists that was shown to me was an artist who did hyper realism oil paintings and I was in love. I have always wanted to be on the side of art that was realistic but you could still tell it was a painting rather than a photograph. And I think alot of these images have that realistic sleep to them but are vary clearly art.

As much a I love being on the forum amd seeing every ones art for children's books I just dont know that that is me. I feel like I have always been more drawn to the more complex and more minute detail type of work and I see so artists go that route but its more for the gaming industry than the book industry.

[Heather Boyd]

@ambiirae Many of the classes can still help you out and there are some artists here who create more realistic but still painterly work and still others who can give you feedback.

[ambiirae]

@Heather-Boyd oh i definitely agree thats why I love this site there's a great mix here and always good feed back

[Elliot]

Here's my dream portfolio, which has surprised me by being relatively cohesive in color palette. Other than color, I'm also seeing sketchy elements, watercolor with ink, layering, and a tendency to prefer spot illustrations.

If y'all notice anything else, please let me know I'm going to be studying these more closely and sharing with family and friends to see what they see as well.

[Heather Boyd]

@Elliot You like ghosts -more mysticism or other worldly. Mostly using shapes (11) but you like line as texture, line to create form and shape as well as a few outline ink work. Heikala's, Oliver Hamlin (on the broom), and Maruti Bitamin (ghost) have a lot of movement and even Aurelien Galvan's has moevment with dancing lines and Sarah Hughes's smoke in the chimney.

[NessIllustration]

@Elliot Exactly what @Heather-Boyd said! Lots of witches, ghosts, pumpkins, mystical and Halloween themes but very cute, lighthearted! If you like Aurelien Galvan you'll also love the work of David Sierra Liston

[Elliot]

@Heather-Boyd Thank you so much for your comment! It's really helped me break through a wall I've been butting up against for months. The movement and the line as texture - I think these are going to be the keys I haven't been able to grasp from inside my own head.