Jeni Caruana
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How to find your 'Style'

3/3/2016

4 Comments

 
Picture
"Mistra Bay" soft pastels
 "How do I find my style?" is a question I am often asked by students who have reached a certain level of accomplishment and wonder how to take it further. Wanting to have a recognisable style is only natural really when it comes to creating art. Most of us would like to make our mark and have people notice that it stands out as ours and no-one else’s.

Style had not crossed my mind until I was caught – yet again – in Harrow Art College’s first year life class instead of with the rest of the third year, working on my diploma show. Our head of year, Charles Bartlett (RIP) was endlessly frustrated by my inability to stick to deadlines and briefs. On this occasion he told me, loudly, that my work looked like that of an extremely talented art student. I was quite surprised, and flattered, until he continued to say that unless I adopted a ‘style’ I would never succeed as a commercial artist. 
He told me to go and find an artist that I admired and copy their style until I found one of my own.
I was quite outraged! Here I was trying really hard to reproduce what I saw and he was telling me that it was so hopeless I should copy someone else? I missed his point at the time, of course.
Picture
'Quartet' Painted live at the Malta Jazz Festival 2015. Acrylics on paper 70 x 50 cms 270 euro
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live sketch from 'Dance Hybrid' workshops July 2016. watercolour on paper 50 x 35 cms 27 euro
​ I had chosen to study Illustration at Harrow  because at the time Fine Arts courses in the UK had ceased to teach techniques in favour of self-expression and experimentation. I loved the first two years of pure drawing, but when it came to creating full page spreads and doing as I was told, I retreated back to the first year’s drawing sessions. I would hide in the photography dark rooms rather than bother with the typography press. I made a train necklace out of tiny etching plates instead of making prints. Oh dear, poor Mr Bartlett. He was trying to help me make a living of course; I needed to compete with hundreds of other equally talented people in the cut throat advertising world. I left college and failed miserably. Or happily, whichever way you look at it. I still don’t do as I’m told.
I now understand what he meant, but I still don’t agree.
There’s always a lot to be learned from studying another artist’s style. It’s good to try and feel the way someone else might have approached a subject, how they held their brush, mixed their colours, how they built up an image or found their inspiration. It is very valuable to let a different approach enrich your own.
Picture
'Wall, limits of Bidnija', watercolour. Picture 50 x 70 cms, framed to 75 x 95 cms. 850 euro

I really think that ‘style’ just creeps up on you though. It is born of confidence in your technique and materials. Of practice and experience and just plain hours of slog. And mainly of many, many failures.  It comes when you stop worrying about the end result and just get on and have another bash. It develops over time and you don’t even notice it until someone says ‘oh I knew that was one of yours’ and you notice that you’ve actually found your own voice quite by accident. ​
4 Comments
C.S.Lawrence link
6/3/2016 09:42:37 pm

oh how I can relate to your observations! Sometimes I think style is a need for OTHERS to pigeonhole you..particularly them blasted art critics. Speaking as someone who works in what i perceive to be a vast range of styles , yet still people say to me, as they have to you, that there is a distinct stamp that runs through the work and distinguishes it at yours.I guess no matter how varied the subject or technique applied, if one is simply attempting to express oneself genuinely, it will leave a distinct mark that can be identified as you. Guess that's called "your style".

Reply
Jeni link
9/3/2016 10:53:44 am

Exactly! I think that all my work looks like mine no matter what medium I'm using. People do find it confusing sometimes when they want to put you in a box..... but artists don't fit in boxes, do they. I suppose it must be easier to sell work if you only produce the same kind of stuff, but personally that would bore me solid. If I didn't feel that I was evolving somehow I think I'd just pack up and learn to knit socks....

Reply
Helen
7/3/2016 10:35:29 am

Is the Mistra Bay one from that day we had to sit in the car cos it was sooooo windy and wet?

Reply
Jeni link
9/3/2016 10:56:04 am

Yes it is!!
It was really blowy and rainy wasn't it - so my little pink travelling studio kept us warm and dry :-)
.. and you were doing calligraphy in the back seat, I seem to remember!

Reply



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