How to Find Your Own Style
Escapee Speaks:
How to Find Your Own Style
Do You Take Enough Chances?
Or, do you find yourself working from a place of fear when creating an Illustration or a Painting? Are you afraid of making mistakes, bad choices, or wrong turns?
If so, today I encourage you to take renewed ownership of your work, and steer it in any direction you choose. Remember that it all comes from you. Remember that you only have this moment to create the way you have always dreamed of creating. Give yourself and your art the greatest gift of all by taking chances, pushing limits, and breaking rules.
Be reckless.
Be bold.
Be brave.
After all, that is how personal styles are truly created.
By declaring yourself an explorer, you will allow yourself the freedom to live within your work, and to let your personal truth rise from it in the form of inspiration and beauty.
Nothing will please you more.
Escapee has spoken.
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Who is this Escapee guy anyway?
I find the information you put on your site invaluable. Thank you for being a beacon of finely illustrated light.
I agree, this stuff is all very inspiring. I find the article about the importance of working on “Personal Projects” when you spend too much time on client work is useful, too. And it applies to more than client work. I am at college, and as much as we are given free reign on our “self initiated project”, once you’ve chosen your theme you have to stick with it, and I find myself having all sorts of new and interesting and diverse ideas that I can’t use in the SIP, so time management is even more important if I don’t want to feel stifled by the project work.
It’s all about balance.
That’s definitely something I need to work on. D:
I can’t thank you enough for putting together this site. I have just found it today and from the little I have read, it will be a true source of knowledge and inspiration. I am a student and have recently made a career change at 43, to become a web and Interactive designer ( scary ).
Thanks again for sharing :)
Thanks Tony! Welcome to EFII. Any requests for future topics?
Thomas
I find myself consistently trying to figure out my own style. I love so many styles, and feel I’m all over the place. Right now I’m a student so I’m forced to try different techniques that I’m not used to, which is good. I’m trying to get it through my head that if I stop worrying about it, I will actually start to see my style develop, but comparing my work to other illustrators starts to bring up anxiety about what makes my work me.
Hi Thomas. Thank you very much for the post on this subject. I have been in illustration for ten years now, and I find myself exploring all kinds of styles and techniques. It was actually quite refreshing to read that you encourage people to try many different things to find their own styles. I do so many different things, and I like all of them, so working in one style always feels very limiting to me. Your view on this is going the opposite direction, and that is, as I mentioned, very refreshing to me.
Techniques can be studied and copied. It is very useful to experiment with many techniques and media. But in the end I think vision is even more important. Why would someone want to hire YOU and not someone else, that can also make illustrations using the same technique…
So how do you find out what you are about? What is it that you want to communicate with your art. I think that your style becomes more personal when you put your heart and peronality in it.