Discover your Unique ART Style

1. Introduction: If you have been searching for an Art style that you feel like represents you and you love and are excited to share with other people. This is the course that has been designed for you and your Art because I want you to finally start loving what you create and feeling proud of it. Not because it looks like that artists that you like, but because it looks like what you like, it looks like what you want to express and how you want to say it with your Art. So we're going to be focusing mostly on elements that will benefit illustrators, but also animators or student Artists. Any type of artists I would say this would work for, but I myself am an illustrator. I'm the author and illustrator of how to potty train a dinosaur, which can be seen on Netflix, animated, and in bookstores near you. But before I started finding success in my career, I struggled so much in my style. I kept jumping around. I wasn't consistent, but most of I didn't like what I was creating and always wished that it looked like someone else's eyes. Why I'm really passionate about this? I want to help you embrace what makes you unique. Find a process that brings you joy. So you're enjoying creating Arts, that it doesn't feel like a chore or a job that it's phon, I want you to be able to stop people pleasing and having those people pleasing tendencies keep you from creating authentic work. I want you to be able to emulate without stealing so that what you create is genuine to you and not just looks exactly like someone else's work. And I want you to be able to share what you created without anxiety. So if you're ready to get started, let's, let's go. Let's create an Art style that you love and are excited to share with the world 2. Emulate without Stealing: So I wanted to start this course with emulation because that is something that I find artists doing in a way that isn't creating a unique style. It might be helping them find a style, but it's someone else's. I want your style to reflect you and your unique voice that the world is wanting to see more of authentic, genuine, real you, really, you, um, because we have enough vanilla out there, It's time to put our own flavor into things and to share our experiences and the way we see the world through our Arts so that we can connect and understand each other and find the beauty that makes us different. That's kind of a new push in our culture I feel. But yeah, I see with Art that people are emulating so close that you look at their Arts and you can tell exactly who their favorite artists are. You probably know what I'm talking about on instagram. You'll see a feed and you'll think that it's one artist, but it's actually a different artists. Copy met other artists. Learn what you like about their Art. And then mesh all of your different preferences from a bunch of different artists, a bunch of different styles, a bunch of different topics, and mesh it all into something new. I wanted to give you an example of a bad way of doing this. So this was a mistake that I made at the beginning of my Art courier. And so here's the reference you see here on the left by Bobby. And then I saw this guy that reminded me of the sketch. I'm at an arcade and he was such a character that I was so excited to go draw him. And I was excited to use this as reference because I had remembered this sketch and this was way too close. I was planning on referencing him, citing him. But I was so excited in my post to talk about this interesting character that I saw that I forgot to tag who the reference was from, because as you can tell here, the subject matter is exactly the same, as well as trying to emulate his style of lines, etcetera. To close, to post as my own. And I actually got called out by a friend, which I'm grateful for. But after that, I stopped emulating anyone. I stopped looking at other people's Art when I was thinking of projects. I just tried to cut out our emulation at all and that halted my progression in a sense. So here's the opposite side of that of like, okay, be careful, don't, don't, don't emulate to closely, mimic, to closely with this quote is interesting. Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street, signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water is lights and shadows. Select only things to steal from that, speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work and theft will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable, originality is nonexistent, and don't bother concealing your thievery. Celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Xiongnu girl Donald said. It's not where you take things from, it's where you take them to. I felt like that was really interesting. Celebrate it, but only, only stick with those things that really speak directly to your soul. That I'd say that that's usually not just one artist. And also makes sure that it's not just something that you're liking because it's popular. And so you want to emulate that because you can tell that people like it. Because maybe you're afraid that people won't like the real you write. We often try to be like the people that we like so that we can ensure that other people would like us. But be yourself and be confident about that. So here I wanted to show you an example of that. So here I'm actually using my own work. But a long time ago I use and you saw at the beginning, I used a photograph. I used a photograph of a person in a bunny outfit, costume thing with a mask. And let's see if we can start this over. Can we start? Hopefully that starting over for you to, but I see it going back again. So the rabbit costume with a ballerina outfit that inspired the drawing. But I did a different pose. I wasn't exactly copying from the photograph, but using photography or real life as your inspiration is great obviously. But so then I brought in an Art, a piece that I did that I liked and started to emulate that with the colors and the style because I knew that I had liked how it turned out, so I emulate that. But there are years ago I used to take other people's artwork like several different artists and I would put them next to me. But I wasn't, I wasn't copying the subject matter. I was copying the style and trying not to take from just one, but several references of what I'd like. And I would say if you're wanting to stylize, just going off of a photo is really good practice. But if you're wanting to create your own thing, your own look your own feel. Oftentimes if I'm just going off of a photograph, I follow it too closely. Here is what I like to do for warm up. You take some photos and you take some Art that you like. And then copying it. It helps create this muscle memory. And then when I go to draw, It's like my mind, his subconsciously taken in so much of that that I find myself drawing in a new way and drawing shapes that I really like because I did that study beforehand. So I want you to do that in this class there will be an assignment. And I want to tell you that now because I'm thinking you might want to work on it or sketch while you're listening to the rest of this class. A lot of the rest of it will be mental things and things to work through within yourself so that you can be authentic and create a style that you love. Because there's a lot of layers to that. So I'm going to tell you the assignments so that you can be sketching and thinking about what you wanna do for that. So when you sit down to do your work or as you're listening to the other videos in this class, I would like you to sketch practice by copying Art that you like and potentially photo references of the subject matter. Then set that references side. Then find a photo reference or draw from your head or from life using what you learned in that sketch practice. And the subject, I'm thinking ballerina bunny or a ballerina or a bunny. So similar to what we saw on the screen a little bit ago. But however you want to take it, and I want you to really make it specific to you what you like. If you like dark, like it could be a dark, creepy ballerina. If you don't want to mesh those two, you could do a ballerina or a bunny depending on your style preferences and what you want to stay with your Arts. So I will see you in the next class. We will jump in to people pleasing and how to authentically express yourself without being too worried about what other people are going to think or say about what you create 3. Turn off People Pleasing: So how on earth are you supposed to turn off your People Pleasing mode? It's so hard to create Art without thinking about where it's gonna go. Who's going to see it? What are they going to think of me? I wanted to discuss some of that with you. And it is normal for our biology to, we need to make money with our Art obviously. So we want to find people who like it. But what's amazing in today's world is how easily people can find you. If you are being specifically who you are, then there will be a handful of pupil that like those same things. And the more specific you are and the more, the more you narrow in on those exact things that you like, even though you might want to try to be broad, the more you narrow in and be specific, the easier it will be to find you because there's so much out there right now on the Internet. I guess if you're wanting to do gallery shows or something in person, that would be a little bit different. But if you're, if you're showing your artwork online, is wonderful for you to be truly who you are in standout and be different and unique. Whose opinion impacts you the most? Is it your parents? Is your spouse, is whose opinion your agents, yours impacts you the most, because it impacts how you feel. And it's the only one that you can really control or workaround. So I would say, most boring thing is that you like your Art. And also I was thinking, I don't know if you've ever wanted to say something in a situation, but you are afraid to say it because you didn't know what other people would think of you are, how they respond. So you end up saying nothing at all that is happened to me. It's like my brain is like, Okay, I guess I can't say what I want to say, so I'm not going to say anything all don't let this happen with your Arts. I've seen it happen with artists. If it feels so sticky and hard to get past this? There is this technique called Emotional Freedom Technique and it is tapping which they use. They have done studies with PTSD patients and have, it's amazing. And for me I have felt it shifts the way that my brain is typically in a certain routine. And this helped me break out of some of those patterns psychologically. So I highly recommend this. I will link it below. I want you to go through this exercise. If I blink, if I draw, blink, if I create blank, if I have this brand that I want to create blank, then people might think. So if I draw dark and creepy things than people might think I belong in a psych ward. If I draw super cutesy thing, then people might think, I'm dumb and immature, right? So I want you to think of what that is for you that is keeping you from creating the Art that is so genuine tears, salt. Okay, but so what, what's the worst that can happen? I guess if people thought that you need to go to a psych ward, they might send you a twist like Ford, but that would give you a lot of interesting things to draw. So I want you to think of like, what is the worst thing that could happen and could you handle it? But also think what's the best thing that could happen? Picture being authentic to yourself, creating the artwork that you love, and being able to connect with the people that you were sent here to earth to connect with through your Art. I feel like all of us have been given this talents as a form of communication and connection with other people. So it is a really powerful tool that we can use to express ourselves and connect with others. So here's an example of this. If I was to draw religious Arts, well, what's the worst that can happen? People would unfollow and say mean things or someone gets offended because religion can be scary to share. But the best thing is like people who need spiritual strength, find it in my Art and feel more peace and hope. Other people are braver to post about their beliefs. Fill hole in the marketplace. People feel connected to you and your work. Another example, once again be what if you were really interested in yeah, cutesy, silly little things was the worst that can happen. People don't think you're immature. They might treat you like a child. What's the best that can happen? You could really connect to people that are similar to you and find a community and feel except those parts of you. Anyways, it's just an interesting thing to go through. So we don't want to be vanilla and forgettable. We want to be different and memorable, right? If you are just like everybody else, people aren't going to remember you. And that being memorable and having people think of you for certain projects, for certain looks for certain things is key as an artist and in your style view. Next up, we're going to talk about finding a style that brings you joy throughout the whole, entire process. 4. Find a style that brings JOY: Okay, I want you guys to not wait for perfection to take action. Just wanted to throw that in there. That, that is such a huge thing that keeps artists from fulfilling their wildest Art drains. Stop waiting that way. Okay, so let's talk about how to find a style that brings you joy. And as I was trying to figure out how to express how to do this, it was hard for me to think of other ways other than to just say get rid of fear and shame and guilt, which is hard. Once you get past those emotions, your process and your style will flow so easily and naturally, and that's hard to do. So let's talk about ways to uncover your style and help bring you joy and hopefully get over some of that guilt and shame. And how does that guilt and shame impact your Art style? So there's the goods. The guilt and shame of should, I should be doing at a certain way, I should know better than to make this stylized and wonky. Like I know that it should in this place or the perspective. It's interesting looking at some of the Illustration designs. I don't love perspective and it's been cooled. Tests see indifferent children's illustrations. How some people are doing like flat perspective in a very Design heavy way and it looks great. And it was like, Oh, when I, when I go to draw, I think, oh, I should put this in space where it needs to be or tilt this or whatever. And it's like who says that? Who says that you should? This is Art. This is Art people. You can do whatever you want. Thinking that Art needs to be a certain way. It needs to look like what you've seen and what the world has decided as good. They only decided it's good because they haven't seen what you weird stuff you've done. Might like that. Then wishing you were someone else, if you don't accept yourself, is who you are, your shame will leave you to want to cover up. And we don't want to do that. You don't want to wear a mask with your Arts. And how can fear impact your style? Fearing what people will think. What if they don't have vulnerabilities? Scary, what are you afraid to? What, what are you afraid of? Now, this, this part I think, is the most important to finding a style that brings you joy is leading into the part of the Art process that energizes you. I think a lot of the goods is, oh, I should work on more, better color or lighting or texture. And it's like, should you, or do you want to, if you want it to you, that's cool. But you don't have to write. Once again, it's Art. Which part of the process energizes you? Is it the ideas? Do you jump from idea to idea? Or do you like to sit with one idea for awhile and just go with it? Are you the person that enjoys the sketching phase? Do you like to loosely get out all those ideas on the page? What about coloring? Do you love color theory and lighting and shading and getting the hues just writes. I guess the shading and could be in details, yeah, but the colors, do you like color palettes, solid colors, bulky, bold shapes. Do you prefer details, lighting processed a little perspective, shading, texture, which, which part of the process energizes you. Now, I want you to lean into that and make sure that your style is one that embraces and focuses on those things so that you're, the bulk of your time is spent doing that. So if you look at that lists, some people want to sit in the idea of phase for a long time and in which case, you should also like sketching quickly so you can get those ideas out if you love ideas. Um, but you're trying to create really detailed work that's highly rendered. You're not going to be able to produce as much work and you won't be in that idea phase as frequently, right? And if you love the coloring phase, but you don't love the sketching phase, then you can create a style that is very color heavy. I hope that makes sense. So let's look at some examples to clarify that. So here, what do you think this person likes? Are they enjoying? The flower? One has ideas in it, the other ones are more like the beautiful colors. You see this, this style would be good for somebody who enjoys colors and some detail, right? So what about here? We see the perspective might not be as it's dot. They'd obviously don't care for perspective. And the anatomy in the animals is very shape and design focused. This person really likes the design aspects of things. And you see that this person obviously really likes details. So there, it's cool that there's more detail than lighting. Light. They like lighting. So they spent a lot of time in that process. They might not be pumping out a zillion pieces. Like someone who likes something more loose. So here, what are these people like? Yeah, this is once again very Design heavy. Hear ideas. They, they're probably more idea and sketch people. So these aren't fully rendered in color because they wanted to move on to the next thing. They wanted to enjoy the process and they embrace that they didn't color it because someone decided that coloring meant that it was finished. This I mean, I never used to think that I could skip something and sell it and have it be framed in something. But that cute little boy reading with the dog, someone would put that in a nursery and a frame. Why not? Why not? I used to think that I had to draw certain way and now it's FUN to open up to the fact that I can focus on the parts of drawing that I love. This person probably wasn't super into color, right? There's ideas here. There's, it's so PFK-1, there's some lighting. But obviously like minimal color, this person do a lot of shading or lighting or perspective. They focused on what they enjoy doing and there's space for that. I like to compare it to in dating. I thought boys would only like me if I was a certain kind of beauty. Like, Oh all boys like skinny blonde. So I have no chance. Or I would try to be like that other person that I thought was pretty I want it to be just like her because that meant I would be desirable because that person was pretty. Turns out we all have unique preferences. And some people like Reynolds, some people like curly hair, some people like stray hair, just be you. You find that the old check the right person. This is the same with your Arts. There are people out there who will love it. Scott Adams said, Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is keeping, its Art is knowing which ones to keep. Good quote, it doesn't seem to connect, so I don't know why. We moved on to the next section of yep. But what I'm saying is embrace what makes you, you, and find joy in that. Alright? Alright 5. Embracing YOU: Okay, This is a big one. This is gonna be huge for you, embracing and discovering you obviously a big bowl topic. But in order to find your style, you need to know who you are, what makes you unique, what parts of you are you hiding because you're worried people. You're worried people will think differently of you. What do you cover up in order to fit in? I think about highschool and people wanted to fit into groups, right? You have the athletes, you had the preps, you had the weird email, the email kids or something. And it felt like we needed to fit in that box, right? But now because we can find people like us, there isn't as much pressure because you won't be alone. If you are just yourself, you will find other people that are hungry to find people like them. And you can, you don't have to fit into those specific boxes. So if I say, Who are you, what words come to mind? It's an interesting exercise and I want to take you through something even more specific to help you really dig deep into who you are. Because we often think of those first things. But there's so much more after that. So I want you to take out a piece of paper. And in the middle you can put your name. Then first, come up with some of those main details that come to mind. So some examples would be, okay, I'm Alicia Pace. I love psychology, how the brain works. I'm an artist, I'm a mother. Then I want you to take those things and continue specifying. So yes, I love psychology, but I didn't want to study therapy. What is it specifically about psychology that I love? I love identifying thought patterns. I love analyzing other people and the way they interact with others. I'm an artist, but I'm not a realistic painter. I like cartoons. I have an animation background and I like to work quickly. So do you see how those things are starting to make it more specific? So I want you to go through this for you. Who are you? What makes you different from your best friend, from your neighbor? What is different about you? Because I'm going to want you to lean into those things with your Art because that's going to help you stand out, be memorable, and be uniquely you. And I want you to save this. I deeply love honor, and accept myself. As you say that what comes up for you? Do you feel like that's true for you? I deeply love honor, except myself. You can try to say that several times if it feels uncomfortable. I want you, if you're willing to play, Go take this quiz. I will link below. It's Carol Tuttle is energy type. This changed a lot for me in embracing and discovering me and then being able to express that to other people. So talks about energy type. I won't go through exactly what everything is because there's a lot out there that she has free resources, Carol Tuttle. But this, more than any other personality quiz or anything, just really helps me dive into who, who I am and I'm how I want to express myself. So knowing my type helped me embrace what made me different and even helped me with my color and my Art process. So I went from Drawing three-hour paintings and getting miserable for most of that to 30-minute paintings and enjoying the whole process. I realized that for me, I need to keep it phon, I need to not draw from a place of heavy like this needs to be productive and remember it around like I need to keep it phon and bouncy, hence my animation style and when zipcode Drawing for children, because that is how I'm happiest. So Carol Tuttle has four different types. One is bouncy, light and FUN to as flowy and detail oriented and interconnection. Type three is forward moving angles. Type four is still bold. Anyways, there's, so, there's so much out there on it. But I want to talk about how that could help influence your Art is understanding who you are. Because you can start going with the natural flow of who you want. Your energy type is, instead of trying to swim upstream, are details your thing or ideas your thing, it helps you start to be more authentic so that people know what to expect from you, which is important in developing a fan base, will help you identify what colors you love. Even there are different color palettes for these different types. And it will help you hone in on a style process that will be ideal for your, for your energy type. I can also help you decide what sorts of subject matter you'll be happy as dry. As I got into this energy stuff and started embracing who I was. I started, I went from feeling like a victim to my life to feeling like the creator of my life. And realizing like I don't need to push so hard, I don't need to push against who I am. Like it's okay to embrace those parts of me that I thought were cilium that I needed to hide. And as you start to accept and love who you are, your style will come with ease because you won't be resisting your natural flow of things. I wanted to go through a little bit of my journey as I was discovering who I am and my style. Here you can see, I mean, I'm with the candy store. I'm like stylizing, trying to render the heck out of everything. And obviously I don't like lighting because the lighting isn't great. But there's definitely an attempt. That was I didn't it wasn't feeling thrilled to be doing the lighting and stuff, but I wanted it to be realistic for some reason. Anyway, some of these other things like you can start to feel some heart in the cooking one. But it's still kinda fills all over the place, right. And so it was hard to develop a fan base or have people come to me for work because they've not sure what kind of Art I want to do. Realistic ish, but I didn't love it, didn't love all that technical stuff. Now, I found being looser. Bouncy are flowing from one idea to the next, moving forward. Do less but do it well, attitude is kind of where I've gotten into. Everything's beautiful and valuable. So don't try to do it like a different artists do it like you embrace your natural flow of things because nothing is a mistake. You're not a mistake, your Art is not a mistake. Let it, let it be what it is. Just an interpretation and expression. So don't try to be like someone else. There are no mistakes and Art, only discoveries, so discover you and you will discover your Art 6. Share it! : And lastly, after you have discovered a style that brings you joy, you're emulating without Stealing, you have turned off the people pleasing mode. You aren't waiting for perfection to get take action. Now it's important to take the action of sharing it, letting other people see it. Because as I said previously, year gift of, as an artist is a gift of connecting with other people and communicating. Yes, you can use it just for yourself as therapy, but if you want to create a career out of it, and also if you want to share your light with others, you've got, you've got to put it out there. Your talent is God's gift to you. What you do with it is your gift to God. So I'm curious, what keeps you from posting your Arts? What hesitation Is there like today? Did you draw something or the last drawing that you drew? Art that you created? Why didn't you post it? Why didn't you show it to anybody? Was it fear that it wasn't good enough? Why are you worried about people thinking that it's not good enough? That just the ego is that just pride. In order to help people or connect with people or share our true selves, we have to get over that. So what is going through your head if you've decided yes, I am gonna post this, you're about to post it. What goes through your head is that people aren't gonna like it. How many likes him again to get, am I going to get any comments? Or is it like people are gonna love this? What are they going to think about it? I'm excited to share this with other people. Just curious, these are just things to reflect on. What could replace those negative thoughts. Well, in order to make, create com and hopeful as your posterior Art, maybe you have a mantra. If you have a lot of anxiety about sharing it as you're going to it. Maybe you say something like this is finished, It's not perfect. It's not perfect. But I'm sharing it anyways. It's not perfect. I'm not perfect. Other people aren't perfect. I'm still going to share it. Maybe you can think about the gratitude that you have for the artists that did share their Art that inspired you. Now you get to be that for someone else. And it's just going to take progress and practice and it's okay to fall on your face. Because we all do. Be brave and let people see you in. Get your Art out there. Now, if you think about it, you're successful Art career is not going to happen with just you inside of your own little studio because 30% of a career on our career is the creativity, but 70% is the business. I don't know where they got the statistic, but but it rings true to me as well that huge majority of having an Art career is your ability to have it be received. If you're only intent though is to be seen, you will never be seen. Your intent is to be happy, comfortable, genuine and true and your craft, you're destined to be noticed. So don't put it out there just to, oh, woe is me. Hey, look at me, which that's fine. Just let your motivation, your deeper motivation, be something that resonates with your soul. Which could be impacting lots of people, being a good influence on the world. The how is up to you. So it doesn't have to be instagram, it doesn't have to be tiktok. It could be your own website, it could be a blog. There's a lot of ways get out there. It could just be posting your artwork on products on red bubble where societies six. Remember that our true purpose in life is to take care of one another or occupation. Are there for tools for taking care of others using our natural talents. I think it can be hard to feel like our talent as artists can be valuable enough to actually help. It might feel slightly foolish per say, depending on your mindset. But in my opinion, like I said, it's a form of communication. You can reach people through stories, through our illustrations and touch them in such a beautiful way that can inspire them or help them feel understood or look at the world and a new way. Or just to see beauty around them. I know that has lifted me up so many times. So don't underestimate your power as an artist and the impact you can have on the world. With that being said, your projects, I want you to share it. I want you to share it with the Skillshare community. Maybe that is how you get started and get comfortable. Post posterior ballerina, bunny or your bunny, or your ballerina. And whatever style is authentic to you. And you could post several, you could post one that's like your normal thing. The normal way you would draw it. And then let yourself be weird. Because the best styles, when you think of Art styles, you think about different things. Like there's abstract styles, there's the styles letter like splattered, messy, There's tightened, rendered. So you could do something crazy and try that out and see how it feels. I would love for you to post it and comment on other people's and I love seeing them. If you want feedback, please let me know as you post it. You can say, I'm here for compliments or I'm here for critiques. That way we know because I have been in a place where I only needed to be lifted up. I was my confidence was not in a place where I could take the critiques. If you would like critiques, please. Please mentioned that in your posts. And I would love to help either way by lifting up or lifting and giving you ideas of how to go a little bit further if that's what you're wanting. So I hope to see those there. And if you don't mind, I would even be honored to share them on my Instagram stories to help you get boosted. So if you wanted to tag your name so I can follow you and tag you with the artwork that you've created. That way, you can start sharing it with more people and get used to that feeling of being exposed on the Internet. Thanks for being here and I hope to see you in some of my other classes.