About the search for the voice and style, I recently had an interesting conversation. So I can share my personal recommedations based on my artistic experience and knowledge of art therapy, including the psychology of the creative process
1. Trite, but simply enthusiastically drawing exactly what you want (topics that are close to you) and drawing as you want to see it (as if you were the customer of your work), you can quickly discover some of your personal characteristics in the composition building, choice of colors, lines, tones, rhythm, detail.
At the same time, it is advisable to allow yourself to draw without looking back at expectations, ideas about how it should be, without judging. “Permission” is generally one of the most important factors in facilitating the creative process. Allow yourself to make mistakes, not be perfect, draw for yourself, enjoy the process, because creativity is a process. My personal lifehack was allowance to do "bad drawings” as no one can restrict for doing that, and it didn't lead me to actually do bad drawings, but enabled me for fearless experiments. Or you can remember how you drew as a child - more details on this in paragraph 9.
2. I am not a supporting of the idea of "copying from others" which is quite common, and here is my personal arguments. When we copy some solutions, we ourselves do not think about them, it's like writing off the ready answers in school. You don’t learn to decide on your own, as a result, lack of independence grows, the fear of making decisions paralyzes you, and in art making you have to make hundreds of thousands of decisions in one work about each line, object, etc.
Moreover, instead of your unique style, there is a risk of getting just a Frankenstein from other people's decisions, and your hand will quickly get used to it and then - you will never be able to find out what your personal uniqueness was, how exactly your hand would draw after some practice, how your soul and mind would express itself on the canvas, what are your true talents and originality. You will simply replace it with someone else, although close to you, but you could reveal yourself and meet yourself in an amazing adventure of creative self-discovery. Solving and making decisions about everything yourself is difficult at first, but it's just a skill, it comes literally for 10 relaxed jobs. Like with math tasks. Do not try to find a ready-made solution to express your individual view, but fight, decide, try bravely and gradually it will not be so difficult.
Watching art is important, of course, as well as developing visual perception (see paragraph 11 for more details) but it is important that it melts in your head, preferably with everything that you have ever read or experienced. And it's better to look at the whole history of art. But literally copying anything in my opinion is a road to nowhere, the best way for losing your own self.
3. Use creativity for self-discovery. Then many blocks will go away, and motivation and interest will increase. Study yourself, strengthen your personality, be interested in your opinions, emotions.
4. You can not call a style a style, but instead call it your voice, we do not invent our own voice or handwriting. We by nature have our uniqueness: from psychomotor parameters, which affects lines, pressure, shaping, to temperament, which affects the choice of colors, its contrast, the amount of detail, clarity, symmetry, and the level of expressiveness; there is our life experience, peculiarities of perception, tastes, they determine the choice of topics, on the basis of which your images arise, the symbolism of the works, objects that fall into the “focus” of your attention and then on the sheet.
Thousands and thousands of parameters that together will give your style. They do not need to be looked for outside, they are already there in you, they just need to be allowed to manifest and give time to open up to the fullest. Don't give up if it doesn't work out the way you want it to. Everything will work out. Children do not give up when it does not work out to go right away - and in the end everyone knows how to walk.
5. Do the work without pressure. Do what you can. Bring your artwork to the best state you can, but if you don't see how to improve, let go.
6. The creative process has its cycles and phases, knowing them will give you a lot, since academic studies are unfortunately built contrary to how our psyche builds the creative process, and because of this, many break down and acquire blocks in the process, lose pleasure and spontaneity, stop trusting themselves. Phase information is publicly available I believe. Search for "incubation, illumination, verification", if there are questions, I can answer.
7. Personally, art therapy helped me a lot, but it's just my case, although it seems to me that it can be more budgetary (if working in a group) and personally deeper than style courses, however, I personally had no experience of courses. In any case, I would like to voice such an alternative to style courses as a trip to a psychologist, where you get to know yourself better, gain resources, build a contact with your endless fantasy, and achieve self-confidence.
8. Learn to catch the flow state, it's not hard if you practice. In the flow, you will be yourself, without regard to all the dangers from point 1. It can help to enable the flow, for example, drawing free associations to music, especially music that provokes a slight trance or evokes vivid images or emotions in you. Play your favorite album and draw whatever came to mind. Or finding and drawing images in random color spots (like in Rorschach Inkblot Test) is a good exercise to learn to cling to the state of the flow, to feel it, to enter easily. And you need to create as often as possible in the flow state, so progress will be quick, natural and almost painless.
9. I have already mentioned the state of the child, but I want to talk about it a little more, because it is very resourceful for the creator, and creativity and the Game are strongly connected. Remember yourself as a child, activate your inner child with its endless curiosity, ingenuity, boundless imagination, openness, courage to try and learn. Pay attention to what you were interested in as a child. Learn to play again and treat creativity as an endless game where you can realize all your fantasies, go through different levels, improve your skills. Then creative development will become pleasure, relaxation, your refuge from reality, and difficulties will only please, because they can be overcome and grow and open up new opportunities. And this is a lifelong process! And in the process, you will constantly be amazed at what turns out to be hidden in you and how infinitely complex and deep you are. I say this as an art therapist, in my work this is the most beautiful thing, when people who considered themselves uncreative, boring, suddenly discover in themselves a whole treasury and wealth that they did not know about and that just once turned out to be blocked, often by critics when they were child.
Another hint: did you passionately love something in childhood, and then how did it cut off? Be sure to try to bring it back into your life.
10. Look for your strengths and learn to see something beautiful, promising, etc. in everything. The first will give you support even in case of temporary failure (“yes, the whole drawing is crooked, but I have interesting colors, a dynamic composition”) - you will be able to find what will become the basis for new tries, recognizing your strengths will give you more power. The weaknesses go away themselves, in the course of natural development, it is not worth clinging to them with consciousness! The second advice is good to practice constantly in everything. This will not only make you happier, but also help you constantly have an endless source of inspiration, roughly speaking, in every branch along the way for groceries, in every book, in every day you live. This is also a skill that is easy to develop.
A personal example, my first attempts to draw, where, of course, much did not work out as I wanted:
But I realized that I was inspired by the forest, a kind of borderline experience of being between worlds, and I also gravitate towards dark colors, and tendencies to endless repetition of elements , symmetry, using a lot of details. I also realized things that I don’t like - the colors seem cold, the details are clumsy, sloppy, not filled with love. Having done these works, a lot of things cleared up in my head. And I just allowed them to be made, no matter how strange they were, trying to express my feelings and draw what I myself would like to see (although at that time it didn’t work out)
What I came to later - an example from the portfolio
I still have room to grow and develop, but now I feel a balance and harmony between what I have in my head and what I get.
11. By the way, visual thinking is also trainable and can be developed, then there will be a virtual photoshop in your head, where you can sort through the options for compositions. Meditation with visualizations, active imagination according to Jung, and so on help in the development of visual thinking. And if it’s quite simple, then before going to bed you can close your eyes and imagine anything, try to keep the images in your mind. The simplest thing is to imagine that you are walking along the path and looking around. Gradually, you will begin to see more and more things, virtually interacting with them. It may not work right away, but if you practice regularly, the brain will become better at coping. In addition, it improves sleep and mood :)
I hope my experience and observations were helpful. I do not plan to make secret posts, as I want to openly share all the information. But you can thank me by subscribing here or making a one-time donation in the goal section!
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