I was talking with Michelle this evening about "style" - that is, an artist's means of expressing themselves in a unique way that is instantly recognizable to others. The illustrators I like to keep an eye on all have very strong styles that distinguish themselves from other artists. I told Michi that I didn't feel I had a style all my own. I believe it's probably because I don't draw often enough to discover what it is that I find to be uniquely me.
When I do get around to picking up a pencil, I feel a need to study, improve my draftmanship and anatomy, learn about line and color, perspective, appeal, design, lines of action, dynamic poses... then I get overwhelmed and don't feel like drawing anymore. When I was little I didn't care about any of that stuff. Now I peruse other blogs and I get this feeling of inferiority, like I should have tried harder, gotten better. These other bloggers know who they are as artists, they know what they want to say to the world. What is it that I want to say? How can I get "better" if I don't know the answer to that question?
My problem is that I worry too much about drawing a good picture. I have to just start drawing and turn my anxious brain off for a while. That's what I attempted to do above, and I guess I resorted to my old fallbacks, cute "jelly bean belly" creatures and ugly monsters. Is that considered a style? Meh.
There's probably some psychological reason WHY those are my fallbacks. Who knows, perhaps every artist's style is some physical manifestation of their inner psyche. What does it mean when one person has a clean, simple style, while another has a super-detailed, complex and chaotic one? Does anyone analyze sketches the way some people analyze handwriting?
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