Developing a painting style

two points I've been working on

Hello, and a warm welcome to another Outdoor Sketchbook Collective blog post. My name is Orla, and I love to write about all things to do with art, creative process and nature connection. 

Today I wanted to distill two pointers on the subject of finding an art style. I get into these points in much more depth in my latest video, which you can watch here. The video also captures the studio session which inspired this topic in the first place! 

1. Taste 

A really important part of finding an art style is understanding personal taste - both in what you admire in other peoples art, and in what you like to make. I think these are two separate streams, which can be very easily confused (I certainly find myself mistaking what I love to look at, with what I enjoy making!) 

An example of this in my own work is, that I love the work of Helen Frankenthaler. Her paintings are some of the earliest paintings I fell in love with at the beginning of my artist journey, and I’ve held her work in high reverie since. In this instance, I adore looking at her work. I’m inspired by the scale, the way material and floods of colour interacts with canvas, and the confidence in her work. However, when I have tried making work using fewer mediums, larger scale with less texture, and purely abstract, the art I created really didn’t resonate with me.

What I discovered through that experiment was the importance of some kind of literal reference to landscape within my paintings, and I was very happy to make that realisation! I also discovered the importance of texture and pattern. Even more importantly, I realised I seem to admire artists that can make calm work. However, that is not the kind of art which I love to create - I think the sooner I can accept and embrace the busyness or texture rich, and amplify these elements in my own art making, the sooner I will make work that’s really in line with what resonates and is personally authentic to me.

There is this important gap to discover between personal taste and process taste, and I think that the only way to understand the boundaries, is to work through them, experiment, try things out, be inspired, and take the time to reflect on why it did or didn’t work.

2. Observation 

Observation leads on from, and also back into personal taste - I think learning how to look at other artists work, as well as our own is really a key to developing our work stylistically. Reading a painting and taking time to discover what it is about the piece that draws you in is a fantastic muscle to exercise! When I’m looking at other people’s work, I try to sense what I’m drawn to first. Is it the subject matter, the line work, the colours, the composition, the contrast in value? Is it how structured the art is, or how loose and seemingly carefree?

Apart from looking at other artists work, I think observation is key whilst we are painting - tuning in to what physically feels good for us whilst we are working, and what lights up our emotions when we are working. Keeping tabs on what combination of colours, marks, textures sing to us as soon as we pair them on the page. I think observing whilst working is a great way to better understand the puzzle and unlock new understandings in our paintings, and it’s this observation which has helped make my own work more instinctual.  

If you’ve been making steps forward in developing your own art style, I’d love to hear what’s been working for you! 

See you outside,