Discovering our style - Who's in?

[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.

[Elliot]

@NessIllustration Thanks! I do love spooky cute (And got married on Halloween even lol) And you're right about David Sierra Liston - thanks so much for the rec! I wasn't familiar with their work.

[VeronicaMui]

This is such a hot topic on my mind for the past year and I would looove to get in on this discussion. I haven’t made up a dream portfolio yet, but I’ll start watching Lee White’s video on that and get started! I heard on the creative pep talk podcast the idea of putting together a small Pinterest board or something on images of any kind at all that feel like your true self, that even you as a child would have been excited about because those images all speak to the very deepest and rawest part of you. That idea definitely got me thinking about my art more than ever before.

I was super frustrated when I started pursuing illustration about two years ago. I’ve been an artist for forever, mostly in fine art like oil painting, and I’m decently technically skilled, but ever since I was little it was always irritating to me that I didn’t know how to actually CREATE an image that was my own. My teachers always had me copying copying copying...which is important to learn the technical skills, but I never learned how to make something that I wanted to make. So I ended up not even knowing WHAT it is that I want to make? I’m not sure if this is because I didn’t go to an art college, maybe other people have had other experiences, or maybe it’s just my age talking now, where I’ve experienced a bit more life and want a little more out of my art than a pretty image...but I do feel like I’m not alone in feeling like this.

SO, anyway, I’ve always kind of thought that if I liked the look of a piece of art and it took technical skill that I was able or believed I would be able to achieve, then that’s the type of art that I should make. So when I started working towards making illustrations I thought I should be doing watercolor or pen and ink, or some mix of that. But the only issue was that I hated making them! I hated messing with the watercolor, I hated the paper, I hated dealing with the drying, I hated how long it took and how precise I had to be! I hated the prep work for the ink, but also hated it when I made mistakes if I skipped the prep. I really almost quit trying.

I had to really step back and try to analyze what it was that I actually enjoyed doing..I couldn’t even remember because I hadn’t payed attention to that in so long. I’d been pushing through a process that I hated, hoping to get rewarded with a good image. And when I really thought about what I loved DOING instead of what kind of look I loved, then I started making progress. I think that the actual process of making the art has to be just as satisfying, if not more satisfying, then seeing the finished product.

Now I’m leaning into playing more often. I’m trying methods and colors that I wouldn’t have used before. Also, I find it helpful to remember that technical skill is not everything. One time I exclaimed to a friend of mine “Oh, I hope one day I can paint like ‘so and so’!” And she replied “well, you never will. Because you’re not ‘so and so’”. Of course I took that as a blow, but the more I thought about it, the more I was thankful she said that to me. You will never be someone else, you can only be the best and truest version of yourself....And the world needs that because they’ve already seen Sargent and they’ve already seen Maurice Sendak, but they haven’t seen you yet!

Anyway...I ranted about that a lot longer than I thought!

Can anyone tell I’ve been cooped up in this house too long?

[Elliot]

@VeronicaMui I am doing a lot of what you’re doing right now, I think. I’m having a lot of fun playing with techniques and mediums I’ve never delved much into before. But this particular class helped me refocus a bit on one aspect of things - start honing in on a primary style even while I dabble.

Sounds like you have a bit of a leg up since you’re more familiar with the deeper technical side of several mediums/techniques. Even if that means knowing what to avoid We’re often as much defined by what we aren’t about as what we are about!

I’m having fun messing around with mixing mediums in my sketchbook today. I need more deliberate texture though. Getting close!

[VeronicaMui]

@Elliot I really like where you’re going with that! Nice colors and textures.

This is what I’ve been leaning into most recently, I hate doing backgrounds so I’m trying to figure out how to create vague ideas of backgrounds...I’ve got a lot more work to do on that! I’ve really been enjoying making stencils, I used a handmade stencil and a pastel pencil to make the heart pattern on the dress and I’m really liking that. It’s overwhelming though to think about how much studio time I need and how many pieces I need to create to make progress! With three little ones at home constantly and having to do homeschooling as well now I just don’t have that much time. But, all we can do is make sure we’re getting into our creative spaces on a regular basis and making SOMETHING. At the end of a year it’s always gratifying to look back through all the hundreds of pieces of paper you’ve gone through and realize that you are making progress. Every bit helps.

I’m really inspired recently by Erin Catia Chien, Komako Sakai, and Erin Stead. I’m finding the best I can do right now is study my favorites and do master copies because I haven’t found an art teacher who teaches this kind of loose emotive style that I want to emulate.