How to Find Your Art Style (5 Tips)
How I Found My Art Style + 5 Tips ♡ Watercolor Leaf | Sketchbook Saturday 001
Today I’ll be talking about how I’m finding my art style while painting a leaf (the video is above). I’ll list the art supplies I used at the end of this blog post.
After two years of consistently working on my art, I feel like I’m finally finding my art style.
Two years ago I started my art business and that was when I became serious about art and practiced to improve my skills and just make art.
I started painting colorful seascapes and skies and used colorful vibrant paints. And now, I prefer muted colors and paint botanicals, flowers, animals, and insects. I haven’t painted a sky or seascape for a year and a half now. Even if you go watch my first videos here on YouTube, you will notice how much my art has changed.
There are five things that I do that is helping me find my art style and I’ll share them with you.
So the first is obvious so I’ll just get that one out of the way. And of course it is practice. If you don’t practice your craft, then you will never find your art style. I think that one is self explanatory so I’ll move on to the next one.
The second is doing an art challenge. So far I’ve done two art challenges in the last year and they both drastically improved my art and helped me become closer to finding and shaping my art style.
Last August I started a 30 paintings in 30 days challenge where I painted a small oil painting each day for 30 days.
And then in January I started a 100 paintings in 100 days challenge. This challenge I started because I wanted to learn watercolor and thought this challenge would really help me learn them. You can actually watch my start the challenge by clicking HERE.
I feel like a challenge is important to helping you improve your art and finding your style because it forces you to paint something each day.
I have some quick tips on doing challenges so I’ll share them with you:
Start small. So don’t do a 100 day challenge if its your first. I would start with a week challenge or a 30 day challenge.
Plan out your challenge before beginning. Plan out what you’ll paint each day or ideas on what you can paint.
Plan your challenge around your schedule and not during busy seasons, so for me I did the 100 day challenge at the least busy time of year for me which was January thru April.
The final tip for challenges is to block out an hour or two a day in your calendar and don’t plan anything else for that block of time. So for me, I tried to paint every day in the morning between 9 and 11 am.
The third thing that is helping me find my art style is branching out and trying something new. I only painted with oils up until this last January. I was kind of stubborn to try watercolors or anything new because I already loved oils and I didn’t want to paint with anything else.
But last winter I decided to stop being stubborn and to just try out watercolors and see if I’ll like them. And let me tell you..me learning watercolors changed everything.
It changed my business and style so much. Of course one of the reasons is because I didn’t that 100 day challenge, but it’s also because since I was trying a new medium I was also trying new subjects and this helped me evolve and shape my art style even more.
I feel like if I never tried watercolor, I wouldn’t be where I am right now. And I found that more people like watercolor than oils and I’ve sold more paintings because people like them more and because I can paint quicker with watercolors so I end up creating more art.
The fourth thing is consistency. This is huge in everything you want to improve upon. If you’re not consistent in creating art then it will take you longer to improve and to find your art style.
I think making a goal for yourself like to create art 3 days a week for 2 hours each day is good to do. So try to make some kind of goal and then block that time in your calendar and it will help you stay more consistent in creating art.
And the final thing that is helping me find my art style is patience. Patience is everything. It will take time to find your style and to accept that it will take time is important. It could take you a year. It could take you three years. You just need to accept it.
And one of my favorite quotes is this: “Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway.” - Earl Nightingale
And one final thought I want to share. Your art style will never be static. It will keep evolving and changing and that’s good because that means that you’re growing and learning.
I’d also like to say that I don’t think it’s necessary to have an art style. As long as you create what you love, that’s all that matters.
I’d love to hear your thoughts about this subject, so let me know in the comments if you have any tips yourself on finding your art style and if you’ve found your style yet and are trying to.
Also let me know what other topics you’d like to hear me talk about. I’d like some more ideas for these Sketchbook Saturdays.
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