Artistic “Style”

All established artists seem to have a distinct “style”… and I really don’t.
I understand it’s something developed over time, but like most things, it probably helps to take a break and evaluate the progress so far every once in a while. Here’s my break:

Moosey

My first point of reference in my art is Moosey: A character based off of my stuffed animal that starred in my later elementary and early middle school years. The details included in the character reflected my age, and were easily replicatable and recognizable for the merchandise I made along with the books.

The takeaway is: the character was based off of my stuffed animal. Any adversaries or partners that joined him in the books… were also stuffed animals of mine. And anything we made in the club tended to be based off of either Moosey or just moose in general.

The Cereal Box Figurines

Again, this large stint of art reflected the resources I had available. I had (and still have) plenty of cereal boxes, and no difficulty obtaining walmart acrylics and brushes. I knew how to make cubes, so I based the figurines off of that, and developed a system that maintained a resemblance throughout each one.

But did I ever make anything completely original? Hardly. Most every piece was either based off of a character from some fandom, a skin from a game, or a person and their outfit in real life. The artistic problem solving was in the way I made them, by simplifying details into the often more basic shapes and fewer colors, but the characters were seldom unique.

Drawing from References

I admire people who can draw purely from memory. I have yet to master that skill. Nearly everything I draw is from a reference.
I saw something on Instagram the other day that inspired me though- it was a man who took a stick and used it like a quill pen. My immediate thought was: “What if he drew the tree the stick came from… with the stick?” Which sent me down the path of “is there something I could take from a house and use it to draw the house?” “What else is there similarly?” Perhaps there is another layer to be added to reference usage that would make the art that much more meaningful.

The thing is… I enjoy drawing from references. When I play Minecraft, everything I tend to build is a translation of something else. For example, I have built pixel-by-pixel animals, one such being the turtle from Minecraft. I just picked blocks that resembled the colors and built it big enough to live inside its shell. I built the Colosseum and bits of Rome to-scale using Google Earth as a constant reference. I built the Library of Congress based on images. I built Cragievar castle. Did I ever really make a unique base? Nope. Because I rather preferred the translation process instead.

I would love to improve my portraiture, and perhaps dabble in caricatures. I love observing the things around me with the close eye of an artist, and look for the beauty in everyday things. Direction may help, but I’m still yet to find my art “style”.

With time though, it might just find me.