How to Discover Your Personal Style as an Artist: A Checklist

It’s Personal Style month here at Society6!

So while trendy dwellers are learning how to decorate their space based on their personality, we want to talk to you, the artists, about how to develop and embrace your own individualistic style.

It can feel daunting. You know you’re supposed to be doing something creative—you’ve felt that way since you were a child! Or, it’s a newfound sensation emerging inside you as an adult! Or, people have told you to do so with all-knowing nods and nudges!—but you’re not sure what. All you know is that you want it to be undoubtably, identifiably your Thing, so here are 6 steps to take to help reveal your style.

CONSUME

Hold your breath because you’re about to dive deep. It’s time to surround yourself with all types of art, no need for specifics yet. Mosey through museums and galleries. Take on exhibitions. Flip through books and feel the pages of magazines. Scroll through online art collection and commerce sites. Hit some stores and pretend to shop for pieces. Just. Go. Nuts.

IDENTIFY

So, what were your eyes drawn to? What tugged at your heartstrings or made you think differently? Ultimately, ask yourself what made you feel an immediate affection—or, at the very least, an interest. If you identify a recurring element—was it paint? Watercolors, specifically? Illustrations, maybe? Were they hand-drawn or done digitally?—you might be onto something.

QUESTION

Now, ask yourself why you were stimulated by this style. Was it the freedom or the restriction? The realism or the abstraction? The subtleties or the intensities? The colors or lack thereof? The answer will likely coincide with your innate personality, the one that informs your lifestyle, your natural habits, values, and opinions.

COPY

Don’t worry; we’re not telling you to plagiarize. We’re telling you to practice. Try your hand (or camera or computer mouse—you get the idea) at re-creating the style you feel connected to. The one you hold in high esteem. Pretend you’re the artist you’ve always idolized (or just discovered that you do). But prepare yourself for if you’re not great at it because that, in turn, still reveals something about your artistry! So don’t get frustrated. Either way, what will be unveiled is what comes naturally and what doesn’t, what you thought you’d enjoy vs. what you actually enjoy.

EXPERIMENT

Now do the opposite of the above. Explore styles you never would have imagined, things that feel unnatural or intimidate you, things that you are 100% sure are not for you. “Anything worth having is worth fighting for,” right? So who’s to say that a surprisingly satisfying creation can’t have come out of challenge? In fact, aren’t those the best ones?

CREATE. CREATE. CREATE.

Queen Amy Poehler said it best in her book Yes Please: “The doing is the thing.” If none of this works for you, or if all of it does, the forever rule to follow is still to simply do. To create. A lot. Over and over. All the time. Everyday if you can. Small scale or big. Doodling counts. At the very least, make use of the medium and the tool that has always felt most natural to you. Your instinct probably won’t lead you astray.