New month, new thread, and I couldn’t be happier about how last month’s one turned out, and the engagement with this newsletter in general (we’re now 300+), so THANK YOU.
This month, following this week’s letter on style, I have a burning question for you all : Has your style ever changed, and if so how ? Was it a conscious choice, or overtime ? How did it impact your work, how did you feel about it or how was it received ?
I was about to tell you I don’t think mine did, but then I went and looked in my archives…
2018 - one of the first images I made before starting work as an illustrator.
I blame the 5 years prior without drawing once for the clumsiness of my work back then. After studying anthropology for 5 years at that point, I had lost most of the skills I had learned from art school, but I had also forgotten all about style and how to find one, which was I think the best thing ever to start a career in illustration.
2022 - One of the latest images I made for Spectrum News with AD Rebecca Horne.
So how about you ? I’d love to read your stories of style changes or continuity, the reasons behind and the feeling about them !
I swear my “style” has changed almost every 6 months. It’s always evolving and shifting, new things becoming my obsession, and others falling by the wayside. I’ve always felt strained between wanting to find a style to create consistency, and feeling trapped by sticking to a style, limiting my ability to explore. That being said, I feel like the last year or so I’ve found a way of working that has allowed for some consistency in my work, while still allowing my practice to grow and expand. It’ll probably be different in another year again haha!
I can totally relate, I feel the trick to convey an idea of consistency to the audience/clients while still having room to explore and experiment is such a fine line to walk. Have you identified what changed for you in the last year ? Was there a key revelation on how to balance these two poles ?
My style as an artist has definitely changed in the last few years. I used to be kind of a perfectionist, sitting down once in awhile to make one work of art. I would fuss and stew over it for days, trying to get it just right. After years of teaching children art and encouraging them to embrace mistakes and appreciate different styles, I started listening to my own advice. I started seeing art in everything and sketching just for fun and not an end product. My work has gotten looser as I have freed myself from others expectations and my own. I feel more creative and open to new ideas and styles.
Focusing on the process, getting rid of expectations... These are all such hard things to do in the current context ! I've been thinking a lot about this feeling of "trying to get it just right" and how much often it is linked to ideas we have of other people's perception of our own work. Thank you so much for sharing !
I'm a little late for the conversation, but I made a dramatic change in my style 13 years into my career, the style I still carry today. I had a deep unsatisfied feeling with my art but I wasn't sure what the problem was. So i decided I was just take exploratory classes. The first one was a silkscreen class and I was immediately won over, it was like an eye opener. I worked on a new portfolio for a year and then presented my work at l'Actualité magazine. I thought if they hired me, I was good to go, and they did. That boosted my confidence and I went on to build a solid career around that style. I am 13 years into that style and am now looking to "expand" my style. The difference with the previous time is that I was looking for my voice. I found it in the silkscreen style. Now, I want to be able to diversify how I express that same voice. That is what I am now exploring. I feel I always need to be growing, and that that happens through exploration. I can't be "stuck" in a certain place.
Not late at all, we have the whole month to chat :)
Now that it's been so long do you know what made you feel stuck with your previous style ? It's interesting because I first wanted to ask people if they felt there style was restraining or freeing them, and your experience seems to speak to these 2 aspects. I love how the "déclic" for you came from a technique, it really shows how these things are intertwined in our work, technique - style - voice, etc. Also, what would be the difference between style and voice in your experience ?
In my previous style, I felt my technique was limiting the way I expressed myself. I had ideas in my head that were not coming through the way I hoped on paper, but it wasn't clear how I could achieve them. It created a lot of anxiety. It was like I wasn't able to say the words I was thinking. It's in that sense that I felt stuck. Yes, the discovery of the silkscreen technique inspired me to find the form of my visual language, it helped me develop my drawing capacities as well.
I think style and voice are intertwined as well. The style is not only the form but the approach, the manner, the thinking - and that is what a "voice" is made of. When one sees an artist like Picasso who created through various mediums/approaches to express his ideas, one can think that a voice can permeate through different styles of drawing, palettes or mediums. This inspires me to explore drawing in different techniques and explore mediums to push the bouderies of how I can express my vision of things. That makes me feel free.
I swear my “style” has changed almost every 6 months. It’s always evolving and shifting, new things becoming my obsession, and others falling by the wayside. I’ve always felt strained between wanting to find a style to create consistency, and feeling trapped by sticking to a style, limiting my ability to explore. That being said, I feel like the last year or so I’ve found a way of working that has allowed for some consistency in my work, while still allowing my practice to grow and expand. It’ll probably be different in another year again haha!
I can totally relate, I feel the trick to convey an idea of consistency to the audience/clients while still having room to explore and experiment is such a fine line to walk. Have you identified what changed for you in the last year ? Was there a key revelation on how to balance these two poles ?
My style as an artist has definitely changed in the last few years. I used to be kind of a perfectionist, sitting down once in awhile to make one work of art. I would fuss and stew over it for days, trying to get it just right. After years of teaching children art and encouraging them to embrace mistakes and appreciate different styles, I started listening to my own advice. I started seeing art in everything and sketching just for fun and not an end product. My work has gotten looser as I have freed myself from others expectations and my own. I feel more creative and open to new ideas and styles.
Focusing on the process, getting rid of expectations... These are all such hard things to do in the current context ! I've been thinking a lot about this feeling of "trying to get it just right" and how much often it is linked to ideas we have of other people's perception of our own work. Thank you so much for sharing !
I'm a little late for the conversation, but I made a dramatic change in my style 13 years into my career, the style I still carry today. I had a deep unsatisfied feeling with my art but I wasn't sure what the problem was. So i decided I was just take exploratory classes. The first one was a silkscreen class and I was immediately won over, it was like an eye opener. I worked on a new portfolio for a year and then presented my work at l'Actualité magazine. I thought if they hired me, I was good to go, and they did. That boosted my confidence and I went on to build a solid career around that style. I am 13 years into that style and am now looking to "expand" my style. The difference with the previous time is that I was looking for my voice. I found it in the silkscreen style. Now, I want to be able to diversify how I express that same voice. That is what I am now exploring. I feel I always need to be growing, and that that happens through exploration. I can't be "stuck" in a certain place.
Not late at all, we have the whole month to chat :)
Now that it's been so long do you know what made you feel stuck with your previous style ? It's interesting because I first wanted to ask people if they felt there style was restraining or freeing them, and your experience seems to speak to these 2 aspects. I love how the "déclic" for you came from a technique, it really shows how these things are intertwined in our work, technique - style - voice, etc. Also, what would be the difference between style and voice in your experience ?
In my previous style, I felt my technique was limiting the way I expressed myself. I had ideas in my head that were not coming through the way I hoped on paper, but it wasn't clear how I could achieve them. It created a lot of anxiety. It was like I wasn't able to say the words I was thinking. It's in that sense that I felt stuck. Yes, the discovery of the silkscreen technique inspired me to find the form of my visual language, it helped me develop my drawing capacities as well.
I think style and voice are intertwined as well. The style is not only the form but the approach, the manner, the thinking - and that is what a "voice" is made of. When one sees an artist like Picasso who created through various mediums/approaches to express his ideas, one can think that a voice can permeate through different styles of drawing, palettes or mediums. This inspires me to explore drawing in different techniques and explore mediums to push the bouderies of how I can express my vision of things. That makes me feel free.