Transcripts
1. Find Your Style: an Actionable Guide to Develop Your Illustration Style: Let's find your unique
illustration style faster. The traditional advice
for finding your style as an artist is just draw tons
and tons and eventually, your style will emerge. Well, yeah, you
can aimlessly draw a ton of stuff and you'll
eventually land on the style. But in my experience, intentional directed
practice has dramatically sped up the
development of my visual style. My name is Brook laser. I'm a professional illustrator and a top teacher on Skillshare. I've helped over 100,000
artists like you level up both their art and
their creative careers. You can find my art
on kids clothes, greeting cards, gift wrap,
magazines, and more. In this style class, we're
going to do hands on projects to explore different ways of
visually expressing shapes, lines, textures,
colors, you know, all those visual
elements that form what your art
actually looks like. We're going to
learn from artists that you admire and find ways to integrate what you love about their work into your own. But in a way that's
unique to you, and you'll finish the
class with a series of four illustrations in
your brand new style. For those of you like
me who suffer from shiny objects syndrome and are always eager to
try on a new style. We'll examine ways to
work in multiple styles. We'll discuss consistency and having confidence in your work. We'll talk about the
very real struggles of comparison that we all face as artists and strategies
for dealing with it. This is a fun practical
guide to finding your illustration style.
So let's get started.
2. Class Breakdown: My partner, Dan has been
learning to play the guitar, and he told me a story
that I think relates perfectly to finding
your style as an artist. Dan told me when
he first started learning guitar that
he was just noodling. Dling is when you just goof around aimlessly playing
around on your guitar, and there's nothing
wrong with noodling. It's part of the joys
of playing the guitar. But Dan told me what he found more helpful to actually
learn how to play guitar was, actually learning
scales or doing specific exercises that helped
him stretch his fingers to between the notes or exercises
where he intentionally practiced moving his hands quickly between
different chords. A lot of the style
advice that I hear is simply just draw a lot and
you'll find your style. And that's true. You can just kind of noodle
around and draw a lot, and you will eventually
find your style. I mean, it's there
and it will come out. But alternatively, you can intentionally work at
developing your style. And chances are you'll
make progress a whole lot faster when you are intentional about developing your style. A quick definition
here, what is style? Style is the way
that your art looks. Stylization is an
abstraction of reality. It's what you leave out and what you include in your
illustrations. For example, you can draw
all the details of an eye, or you can simplify it all
the way down to a single dot. We're going to focus heavily on the external visual things that make up your
style in this class. But it's also important
to discuss that your artistic style is much more than just the way
that your art looks. In the same way that the
clothes you wear doesn't encapsulate the entire vibe
of your style as a person. Like a business person style is more than
just their suit. It's how they speak or
the things that they do. So, what are we going
to do in this class? This class will be broken up into a few
different sections. First, we're going to
learn from artists that we admire and then
we'll dive into a series of hands
on explorations of different ways
to represent shape, color, line, texture, and form. Then we'll define our
own unique visual style. We'll also talk about
artistic voice, dealing with comparison, working in multiple styles,
and consistency. Okay. Who is this class for? This is an intermediate class. If you're brand new to drawing, I highly encourage you to check out some of
my other classes, like my how to draw class
or my color theory class. It can be very difficult to find your style if you're still
getting used to drawing, if you're working with a
brand new pool or medium, or if you've only ever made
a handful of art pieces. You may find this
class more useful once you've gotten a little bit more experience under your belt. However, we all absorb
information in different ways. So you may find this information helpful even as a brand
new beginner artist. I'll be doing all of my
demonstrations in Procreate, but the ideas and
principles can be translated to whatever
medium you work with. If you see me doing
something in Procreate, and you're wondering how
the heck does she do that? I highly recommend
checking out my intro to procreate class where I
break down all of the tools. But enough preamble,
let's dive in.
3. Artist Inspiration: Okay, this is going to be fun. In order to start
developing our style, we need to identify art
styles we're drawn to. So we're going to collect
a handful of pieces from five different
artists that you admire. You can create a
Pinterest board, a saved collection on Instagram. You can arrange them on a canvas in photoshop
or procreate. You can print them out and
paste them in a scrapbook. These can be modern artists. They can be old famous artists. They can be obscure artists
that nobody's heard of. They just need to be artists
that you like their art. We're going to refer back to these pieces
throughout the class, especially during our
hands on style exercises. For each artist, I
want you to identify what is it that you actually
like about their art. Now, if you're like me,
you don't often think about why you like
something, you just like it. But when you see a
piece that's beautiful, you just say, Oh, my gosh, I love this. And that's great.
It's instinctual. That's a piece that belongs
on your inspiration board. But we want to delve deeper
down into why we like those things that we
can start integrating that into our work in
the later lessons. Okay, so for example,
this is my board. And I love Geneva Bower
is also known as GDB art. I love her colors,
her sense of light and using color
to reflect light. I love her textures,
her brush strokes. Another artist I love
is Brittany Lee, and I love her composition, the flow of one
shape to the next. I love David Sierra Liston
has such great contrast. I love the way
that he does hair. The shapes are really geometric, but they don't feel that way. They feel really natural. Joey Chu has such great
use of color and textures. He pairs things down to the simplest shape to
communicate the most, but then heavily textures it. I love Anne Draws works. She pairs things down
to their simplest, most intriguing
aspects, and then she uses just the right
amount of details. Her contrast is really great, so like the color in the
details is just dark enough to really pop on the underlayer of the
colors that she uses. I love Lorina Alvarez's work. She's got a great use
of color, obviously, but she also has little details in the background which
keep your attention, but don't dominate the scene. So you can really look
at her pieces for a long time and see
lots of new things. So go ahead and create
your mood board, and if you'd like, you can take a screenshot and share
that in your projects.
4. Master Studies: Our first exercise is going
to be a master study. I want you to take
a piece of art by an artist that you
admire and recreate it. Perhaps one of the pieces that you researched in
the last lesson. Recreating a piece
that you admire is the fastest shortcut to understanding how to
create in that style. You can look at a
piece all day long, but I guarantee you will learn a lot more by redrawing it. However, it's very
important that you know that this is a
private practice. These images, these
master studies are not for public sharing. You're welcome to share these in your skill chair project, please credit the
original artist strictly as an educational
part of this class. But I'm giving you a heads
up warning right now. This is not something
that you should put on social media
or in your portfolio. Copying another artist's
work and claiming it as your own is more
than frowned upon. If you try to sell or profit off of another
artist's work, you can even get
in legal trouble. And most artists, they may feel a little bit conflicted
if you were just to share, like, Hey, look, I
copied your work. So this is a private practice. But as a learning exercise, this is a freaking
fabulous way to learn. I do these in my private
sketchbook all the time. And if it's something
that you do really want to share
on social media, try doing a master study from someone in
the public domain, like a famous
Renaissance artist. Since I'm doing this for the class and it's a public thing, I'm going to use a Vincent
Van Go piece for our class. And you're welcome
to follow along with me with this
Vincent Van go piece. But I encourage you to use whatever artists you admire because this is a style class, and you will learn more
about their style by doing a piece that you
actually want to learn from. Okay, ough dire warnings. I want to share some tips for approaching your master study. Quick story time.
The first part of my creative career was working
for paint and tip studios. I essentially got paid to practice painting.
It was amazing. But occasionally, I wouldn't
know what painting I would be teaching until I walked
into the studio that night, and I saw the art
for the first time. So I developed a method for making sure I could
keep the class within a two hour time frame
and still get good results. Here's some tips for
approaching your master study. One, gather your color
palette and decide on what brushes or tools you
will need before you begin. Two. Starting with
a rough sketch helps you focus on
getting the style and the technique right
instead of worrying about making sure that
you're getting the shapes correct at the beginning. So start with a sketch. Three. Paintings often have a base layer of color under the strokes that you
can see on top of it. So for some paintings, you may want to start with
a base layer of color. Four. Before you begin, create a mental roadmap. How are you going to
tackle making this piece? How would the artist
have created this work? In what order would they
have painted this piece? Would they have started
with the background first or the main element first? All right, let's dive into it. For this van go piece, I'll be recreating
this in Procreate, but the original was
probably done in oil paint. I'm thinking he probably started with the
background color of green. And then he probably also did an underpainting of
blue for the coat and probably an under painted color of maybe some sort of
orange for the skin. So that might be something
that I will try to do. Also, it looks to me like all
of these breasts strokes. They're very much the same size, like in his face and mostly everywhere,
it's the same size. There are some larger
breast strokes over here. And in the background, there are also some larger
kind of different brushes. So I think that I'm going to use the same brush for the portrait, all the same brush, but a brush that I can
adjust the size. So when I come down in here,
I might make the brush bigger and when I'm working
in all of these areas, I'll keep the brush
a smaller size, but I'm going to
use the same kind of brush to get the same look. When I'm considering what
brush I'm going to use, I am noticing that there are there's some
tapering to these. So I want to brush that if I use a little bit
more pressure, I can get it to be a little
thinner on the edges, especially like in these beard areas and a little bit thicker. So I'm going to use a brush
that allows me to have some thick to thin edges so that I can kind of mimic this style. So I'm going to start
with a quick sketch, and then I'll put in a
couple of underlayer colors. And I'm noticing here that
as I start the beard, Vanco is using a lot of
up and down strokes, and he's very intentional about what direction that stroke goes. It's really showing the curve
or the shape of the beard. It's showing the
shape of the form. So that's really important the direction that he's
using these hatches in. The further that I get
into this painting, the more I notice that Vang
doesn't always use dashes. Sometimes he uses an outline, like in the coat right
along this edge right here. And also, I can see that
in the eye here as well. So there's a line around
this part of the eye, and there's also a
line around here. So it's not always that he
uses these dashed lines. Sometimes he uses an outline. And the question is, does
he have a reason for that? To me, what I think
is happening is The outline is always clear on the edges of
something that needs to be separated from
the background. It's probably to
help keep elements separate from each other in
a really distinct clear way. So the lines in the
nostril really help separate the beard from the nose and the same
here with the eye. It really keeps the eye
separate from all of the other textures on the
face and these folds in here. I think it's really meant for
definition, these outlines. And I think that's
something that I can take into my own art. Anywhere that I I want the edges of my
objects to be really clear, but I want them to be really heavily textured on the inside. And I can see this action really clearly here
in the button. It's rounded right here and then at a diagonal on the inside. I'm noticing while I'm layering the beard that the blues are
on the top of the beard. So I wonder if he actually
did the coat last and then use the blue from his brush to add more details into the beard. The order of how he laid things out may or may not
have mattered. But, you know, people approach things differently,
and maybe for me, what I can do is
I can try adding a little color from
parts of a painting that I'm using in
unexpected areas or areas I wouldn't
traditionally include them. Because I'm seeing
that also in the skin, there's even a little bit of green from the
background in the skin. He uses different strokes on the background that he
does on the subject. So that's why I'm going
to switch brushes here. I'm also noticing that the background colors are all the same that I used
in the portrait part. So I think this I
think the yellow here might be the
same yellow that he used as the buttons and
the lettering on his hat. So I wonder if he painted
those at the same time rather than cleaning his brush
and reloading the paint. It may be that he added these extra details
as he painted. So maybe the yellow was an after thought in the
background here. Maybe the same is true with the lighter and
darker green strokes. Maybe he added them
in the background, then returned to the beard and added a little bit
more color in here. Okay. So after you finished
your master study, what I would suggest is
that you ask yourself, what did I learn from
this master study? What are lessons that I can
apply in my next piece. For me, one thing
that I noticed was when I was creating a digital version of
this oil painting, one thing that I really missed was having this blend of colors, like you can see right here. So my brush didn't mix
and blend those colors. For me, I wonder if I
could have messed with the color dynamics and created a brush that changed
hue slightly, depending on how much pressure I used or how much tilt I used. How could I mimic this idea of a brush that
maybe had a bunch of white paint in here coming and mixing
with the wet blue. Maybe I could mess with the opacity settings on my brush so that
the harder I press, the more white comes in, versus the less I press, the let s white shows
so that I could maybe even create a blend of colors. So let's see if I adjust the opacity here, you can
kind of see what I mean. So I press lightly
there versus hard here, and I can sort of see the
color coming through. So maybe that's something that I could do to get a brush that kind of mimics what I
like in this painting. If you really enjoy doing
the master studies, one thing that I would
suggest that you could try is to do a
slightly advanced twist on this exercise and
try taking one of your pieces and drawing it
in another artist's style, like I did here with a Sunday. Now, we're going to dive into these Sundays in a little bit. But this was my version of a
totally Van go style Sunday.
5. The Elements of Style: In the next set of lessons, you're going to be trying
your hand at exploring different ways of drawing
in a variety of styles. We're going to learn
about the elements of art and how we can use
bits and pieces of style from artists that you admire to explore
different ways you can put your own unique take
on these different elements. While we do that, I want you to keep a couple
of things in mind. When I was in college, I was working on illustrating a scene, and I was really struggling
with how to make my rocks, look like rocks. And my professor
suggested a few books and landscape artists whom I could use to get some ideas
of how to draw rocks, and it blew my mind that I could look at
what other artists were doing instead of just relying on my own
imagination or observation. I felt as if that was
somehow cheating. My professor suggested that I take inspiration
from lots of places. And that's what I've
done over the years. I've looked at how
other artists represent a wide variety of things pulling from many
different artists. I'd take what I'd see from them, and as I applied it in my work, I'd improvise and
tweak things to fit better with the way
that I liked doing things. And as you broaden
your references, soon you will have a
totally unique way of representing all kinds of things because you pull
a little inspiration from here and a little
inspiration from there. And this mishmash Frankenstein
thing becomes your own. And now the key is I'm
not copying all of the elements of
one artist's style and then calling it my own. When you write a
paper, if you copy from one author, it's
called plagiarizing. When you copy from several,
it's called research. Consider this the same as
developing your art style. Put some of your own
elements in there and elements from several other
artists. Make it unique. As Marie Condo would say, do what sparks joy for you. You don't have to make the
same choices that I do. Embrace the things and the styles and the
looks that you love. It's okay to make ugly work. Remember, this is an
exploration and an experiment. It's okay to make ugly work. By trying to do
something differently, sometimes we discover
what we don't want to do. This is the value in
making ugly work. We learn by trying new things, even if we don't
like the results.
6. Shape & Style: In this lesson, we're going to discuss shape as it relates to style and the different ways we can approach
drawing our shapes. After we go through
some examples, then we'll try a hands on exercise to try it
out for ourselves. The first element we'll
start with is shape. And when I talk about shape, I am talking about the contours
or the edges of an image. For example, in
this cacti image, you can see that there
is the shape of the cacti and then there's
the shape of the pots. Inside of those pots, they also have little details, and those are all
made up of shapes. Sometimes a shape is made up of a collection of other shapes. For example, in Vincent
Van Go's Starry Night. All of this swirl right here, everything is made up of little tiny dashes and those
are actually shapes as well. Each of these
elements, they come together to form that shape. All these little
sushes come up and create this shape of
the swirl in the sky. Sometimes artists create shapes out of the absence of something, and that's called
negative space. For example, these ghosts are actually made up
of blank canvas. What actually creates
their outline is the edges of the trees. These ghosts are created by the negative shapes,
the opposite. This tree is the shape, but the edges of that shape are what create the
shape of the ghost. Shape is everywhere. It's in furniture. It's in architecture. It's in the designs
throughout the years. Now, two artists can
draw the same object and use completely different
ways of conveying shape. That's what we're going to
explore in this lesson. There are a few different
ways to approach shape. You can either do shapes
in a geometric way, an organic way, or stylized
somewhere in between those. Geometric shapes are circles, cubes, triangles,
cones, stuff like that. Geometric shapes are
often associated with man made feelings because
they feel artificial. Most things in nature are not perfectly geometrical organic
shapes are more fluid. They aren't precise
or exact in the way that a perfect circle
or a perfect square is. For example, I have
drawn these mushrooms in a very geometric style. You can see that everything about this mushroom
is geometric. The mushroom top itself is
made up of a half circle. Even these cuts in the
edges are very triangular. They're very straight
and perfect. Even the shading
is very geometric. This is an example of very
geometric style of drawing. Whereas this mushroom is a
lot more natural looking. The edges here are not
perfectly precise. The shading is rough
around the edges. There's even not
super clean lines. It's very much more fluid, it's much more natural. Maybe some people
would say realistic. T mushroom, is somewhere
in between them. The circles aren't perfect. They're a little bit
rough around the edges. The little notches in the
mushrooms are also not perfect. But it's not realistic. It's not totally organic. It's got a little bit
of a geometric shape. It's just that those
geometric shapes kind of flow instead of really are super organic in the way that
these mushrooms are. This is somewhere
in between those. What I want to do
for our project is we are going to
explore a handful of ways to draw these shapes by sketching a photo
of this Sunday, and you can grab a copy of this on the Sill share Resources tab. I encourage you to try a version of a highly geometric shapes, organic shapes, realistic shape, and something in between. And I also want you to reference the artists that
you researched before. So for this first
one, I'm going to do a really realistic version. So I'm going to try and get these shapes as
realistically as I can. I'm not worried
about smoothing out my lines or making them super perfect because I
want this to be very imperfect, this
particular style. For this one, I'm
going to stick with as geometric of shapes
as I possibly can. So I'm going to get as
straight of sides as I can. I'm going to get a real U shape, and I'm also going to keep
the bottom triangular. And for the layers, I'm just going to draw straight lines. I'll make them different heights so that we have some
visual interest here. For the chocolate drips, I'm going to really
make them come down in triangle shapes. Okay, so I've done one that is realistic and one that
is highly geometric, and I'm going to try and do one that's kind of in between, and I'm just going to actually
just kind of draw this like in the way that
I would draw it. I'm not going to think
too hard about it. I'm just going to draw it. What's important to note
is that I'm drawing the shapes that I notice, and I think are interesting. And even though I'm trying different versions of
drawing those shapes, this is still my style because
I'm drawing what I notice. You might notice
different things that you want to highlight
in this Sunday. You might totally ignore some of the things
that I include. Then finally, I am going
to reference some of the artists that I really
admire their shape language. So I want you to go back. Look at the artists whose
shape language you admire. For example, I love the way that David Sierra does this
weird perspective. So he does the cups and the
pie like this weird angle, and you can see inside the
picnic basket or a cup. Annalise draws also
does the same thing. I love this style
of perspective. I'm going to do one of the cups with that skewed perspective. Okay, so we have basically
just created lines of shapes, and we actually
need to fill these in to make them shapes. So this brings us to the next important part of our shape, and that is the
edges of our shapes. After all, it's the edges that define the shape
in the first place. So let's talk about a couple
of different ways that you can convey edges
in your shapes. So I'm taking a look at a
piece from Claude here, and his shapes are really,
really, really loose. So here, instead of this dress being,
like, fully connected, like a solid shape like
this, it's very loose. So if I used like maybe
like a Like I could use a very painterly kind of brush to create kind
of a loose edge. So it's not like a solid line. And then on the other
end of the spectrum, sometimes Van go here
uses solid outline. So you can see that there's
like a black outline around the edge of the house and
along the edges of the hills. So he really blocks
out those shapes. There is serious
solid definition to this black mountainous thing in the foreground here,
like, probably trees. There's a very solid
edge to that line. And of course, you can
change the way that you draw edges of your shapes
throughout a piece. So for example, in the
leaves up in here, I used a really
fuzzy edge texture, and I used a very
different rough, solid texture in the lines of the stucco on the wall here. But I also used
solid outlines on the inside of the door to create the shapes
inside of there. So I encourage you to
try out a couple of different styles of filling
in your shapes here. I'm going to do
this one probably with a really solid
strong outline, and maybe I'll do a little
bit more of a texture with this. And
we'll see as we go. But one thing I want to know, is that I'm just putting
down some quick color here, and I'm not stressing
about my color choices because we're going to go over
color in the next lesson. So for this first Sunday, I'm sticking with really
clean crisp edges. I feel like that's fitting, since it's this
geometric cup that's really crisp and clean
and in exact shape. For this second Sunday, I'm going to swap
my brushes here and try for a less
exact perfect edge. Instead, I'm keeping it
a little bit more rough, a little bit more
textured in this one. I want the edges of my
shapes to still be distinct, but not perfect like I did
with the geometric cup. Okay. Now, in this third Sunday, I want the shapes
to be super rough, especially the insides of
the Sunday with the layers. I want everything
to bleed together and not stay as distinct shapes. I'm going to use a totally
rough brush to do this. And I'll keep the outer edges
like the size of the cup, solid enough that
it's clear enough to see that the shape of
the glass is distinct. I don't want it to be so crazy that it's all
over the place. And finally, with
this last Sunday, I'm just going to use
a pencil brush and keep the edges precise But with a really nice textural edge that gives it a look like
it's drawn by a pencil.
7. Color & Style: In this lesson, we'll
first go over choosing a color palette and
applying it to our Sundays. And after that, we're going to look at our artists
reference for inspiration of unique ways to arrange and apply that color. And of course, after
that, we're going to give it a go with
our own Sundays. But I could go on for
hours about color. There's so much to talk
about. In fact, I have. I've got a color theory class and a live encore where I show you how to adjust a
found color palette you found to your unique art. And if you want to dive
much deeper into color, I'd highly recommend you
check those two classes out. But in this lesson,
we're going to stick to color as it relates to style. So how do you use
color in your art? Do you only work in black and white or a limited
color palette? Do you often use the
same color palette? Sometimes your color choices are forced by the medium
you're creating in. Banks only uses
one or two colors. That's the nature of fast
graffiti stencil work. It's also a limitation
with screen printing. Sometimes you have to
pay per color used, like a digital
printing process where there's no limit to the
amount of colors you can use. So sometimes the medium
you are working in will affect how you use color
in your style of color. Now, if you're like me, you love all the colors
in the rainbow, and it feels really
hard for you to pare it down to only just
choosing a few. But even if it feels like
you love all of the colors, I'll bet there are colors that you're drawn to
more than others. So let's try and exercise
to see if we can uncover your secret bias and define
your unique color style. We're going to make a
pinterest board and set a timer for
ten or 15 minutes. I want you to just
scroll through your pinterest or search for things that
you're interested in. And anytime colors
pop out to you, I want you to save that
to your pintras board. Great places to look for good color inspiration
is home decor fashion. I like looking at garden
photography or food photography. All of these are great sources to find fresh color inspiration. Heck, you can even
search color trends. And a fun way to do that
is to search by season, so you could search
by fall color trends or spring color trends. If you're an active
user on Pinterest, I encourage you to search through all of your
saved pins because that's a great way to
see what colors you're drawn to without even
thinking about it. Now, let's take a look at our Pinterest board
and see if there's any reoccurring themes or color palettes that
we keep returning to. What patterns do you notice? I do see that I'm
drawn to a lot of these light pastel blue
and yellow and pinks. But also, I like a lot of, like, dark pops in there. So you'll notice that a
lot of my color palettes, there's at least one
dark color in there, and I think that follows through
with my artwork as well. I often kind of create a
little pop of dark color. If you'd like, you can share your color inspiration
with us by taking a screenshot and sharing
it in your projects. Okay, so let's apply our color palette inspiration to the base shapes of our Sundays that we drew in
the last exercise. And here's a fun tip for
the procreate users. If you take a screenshot of your favorite color inspiration, and then you open up procreate, tap onto the palettes over
here and tap this plus button, you can actually create a color
palette from your photos. If you tap new from photos,
tap your inspiration, it will automatically create
a color palette for you. Now, I'm a little bit picky. I like to usually eyedrop the colors that I
specifically want. And of course, if you
don't have procreate, if you have photoshop
or something like that, you'll want to color
drop those as well. Once you've decided
on your colors, I want you to play around with applying them to your Sundays. I'm happy with the
original color palette that I created, so I'm
going to stick with that. But for your pieces,
you're welcome to keep the different color palettes
you experimented with, you don't have to
just stick with one solid color palette. That's fine. But now that we've talked about choosing colors that we enjoy, I want to talk about arranging and how we apply those colors. And I want to take a peek at our artist inspiration pieces and see if we can get
some inspiration. You can absolutely follow along with the examples
that I'm using. But since this is a class about developing your unique style, I recommend you examine the artists that you
admire so that you're making your own
color discoveries that are unique to
what you're drawn to. Joey Chu does this amazing thing where he doesn't let something
stay the same solid color. He uses slightly different hues, like in the ocean here. You can see that it's not just a light blue to a dark blue. It's a mix of teals and
blues mixed together. And it's the same
with the ground here. You can see that there's a
gradation of orange and red. He also uses these
streaky lines. It's not a solid block
of color in here. And the same is
true in the ocean. It's not a solid line
going from teal to blue. They're actually
curved wavy lines. Geneva Bowers, also known as GDB art does really fun
things with color too. She adds these little
sparkles on girls skin. And what I really like is
that she uses really bright, boldly shaped
highlights of colors. So if I take a look here, you'll see that the highlights in here, they're really thick. They're really bright and
they're not just white, you know, there's some
blue, there's some pink. There's lots and lots of
different splashes of color. I love in here in the hair. There's these really
bold shapes to create strong contrast
and bright highlights. And as I saw in my master study, Van Go borrowed color
from different parts of the painting so that one area
was never a solid color. So, for example, he used some of the green in the
background in his beard, as well as some of the blue
from his coat in the beard. So it's not just
one solid color, lots and lots of colors mixed
from all over the palette. All right, so let's go back
to our Sundays and see if we can take some inspiration from those color examples. Now, I want to make
a key point about taking inspiration from
other artists here. I am not making all of my stylistic choices
from the same artist. I'm blending them, trying my
own take on what they do, changing it up a little
bit. Think of it like this. When you were in high school, if you saw someone with
the coolest outfit, you wouldn't show up
to school the next day in the exact same
outfit, would you? You'd probably take some
inspiration from their outfit, maybe the top or the bottom
or a few of the accessories, or maybe you wouldn't
use the same outfit, but you'd wear something
that had a similar cut or a color or a T shirt with
a different funny phrase. Use multiple sources
of inspiration. Do not rely too heavily on inspiration
from a single source. The first thing I want to try is some color gradation
in this Sunday here. I don't want it to all
be one solid color. So I'm going to maybe
try the cool graphy pen, maybe the blotchy color here, and see what it's like to
add color variation in here. And I'm just trying different things and different
colors in here and just experimenting trace
something similar in the layers up here. Personally, I want this
to be very subtle. Maybe I'll try some
different hues in this one. So instead of just coming in, I want to do some
streaky brushes, so I will try something
in the painting, and maybe I will use
this old brush here. And I could come in here
and just do a lighter pink, but I think I'm
going to go actually a little bit orange with this. I'm going to slide
the color over here. I think I'll do the same to this bottom section down here. Only I'll go straight
across this time. Maybe I'll make the brush
a little bit bigger. Yeah, that's fun. I might also go a little bit
on the other side. If this peachy red
is right here, maybe I'll so I'm going a little bit on the
orange slide and maybe I'll go a little bit on
the pinky side as well. Just really subtle, I think I want it to be really subtle. Maybe I'll make the pink
a little bit lighter. Yeah, I think that looks cool. Another thing I
could do is create a smoother gradient between this darker pink here and
the lighter pink up here. Bring a little bit of lightness back in to keep it streaky. Yeah, I think that
looks kind of cool. So you kind of get this
sense that the ice cream or the cream or the milk
or whatever from here and here are kind
of melting together. And I'm just going to go
ahead and continue that on different areas
of this piece. I don't keep everything that I. Just trying different
experiments. I'll also try some lighter
streaks in the chocolate. Okay, I think I'm really happy with the way this
one is coming along. So for this piece, I think I was using the oil paint so brush. So I'm going to go
back to that, and I'm going to try mixing some of the paints mixing some
of the colors that I have in different parts of the painting into
unexpected areas. So for example, maybe
I will take some of the teal the teal in the stem here and bring
it up into the cup. Maybe I'll even put a
little bit down here. Cool. I could also
try maybe putting some pink in the cream up here. Maybe I'll even add a
little bit of purple. That's a little
dark for my taste. I think I'm going to keep it
really subtle in the cream. I can even add into the cookie. Maybe I'll add some
pink into the cookie. Yeah, I think this
is a lot more of an interesting use of color in all of these
pieces, actually. So I'm excited to move
on to the next part.
8. Line & Style: In this lesson, we're
going to cover line work. We'll explore how different ways of drawing lines can affect the feeling and
style of our work and different ways
to apply our lines. And of course, then we'll dive into applying that
to our Sundays. Okay, let's go over the
stylistic qualities of line. Lines can be implied like dots or dashes or they
can be full lines. So, for example,
they can be implied, like the dotted
lines right in here. The lines right here
are also implied. And the lines right
here are implied. They can also be
vary in thickness. So in this example, the line is thicker and thinner
and thicker and thinner. Lines can also be jagged, so they could be very textured or they could be
really, really smooth. These are actually
pretty smooth. They also can be kind of textured as in the
line quality itself, you can see this one is kind
of faint and very textural. It's also important to note that lines have an emotional quality. Thick lines and delicate lines
create different feelings. So the thickness of a
line, like a thin line, like we've got
really thin lines in the fabric right here can create a really
delicate feeling, whereas we have some
thicker lines right here. So if I draw something
that is very thin, that can feel a lot
lighter and more delicate versus something
that's very chunky. Lines can be the same kind of
weight all the way through. So the ends here are about
the same on either side, or lines can be tapered. And that means that they
get from thin to thick. You can see that in action here. The line starts out really
thin and it gets thicker. About the tapered line. The shape of the
lines also matters. So in nature, sharp, acute lines cause us pain. They're often like thorns
or a sharp piece of glass. So sharp, harsh jagged
lines can create a more dangerous or edgy
or sinister feeling. So, for example, in this
piece by Edward Gorey, these branches are rather sharp. They kind of are pointy. And kind of grabbing
at the man here. So that is a great example
of sharp edge lines. Whereas smooth lines can
feel fluid and safe. These are lines that are often used to communicate
something that's cute. So, for example, in
this piece by Joey Chu, you can see that these lines
are very calm and serene. Lines can create a sense
of movement or motion, depending on how you place them. So repeated lines
feel predictable and they create a rhythm
which feels calming. Natalia Kaba uses excellent
linework in her pieces. If we look at these
lines right here, they are repeated in a
really predictable way, and that makes this piece feel
very calming and soothing. Whereas in this piece, the lines are a lot
more unpredictable. They kind of jump out in
different directions. So that creates a feeling
of disorder or chaos. But it's not just
how predictable or repeated the lines are. It's also the direction
the lines are drawn. Horizontal lines give us
a sense of stability. They give us kind
of like, you know, where the horizon line is. Whereas vertical lines, you can kind of see this
if you look right here. There's some very faint
implications of lines right here. That kind of gives us
a sense of height. Parallel lines give a sense
of movement or speed, and curve lines can feel
very organic and peaceful. So if we look at the lines right here that Natalia has
drawn right there, they kind of create a sense
of movement in the hair. You can almost sense the
feeling of this hair is just like moving
and vibrating. You can also say the same
thing in the waves right here. They're also lines
and lines that create those parallel lines
create a sense of movement. Back to her piece
with the twin cats, we can see that
zigzag lines create a sense of anxiety or energy, you know, like these
shapes right here. So these like these shapes
can feel kind of angry. You might have seen
these in Manga, or maybe there's some angry
little lightning bolts or stress marks on
somebody's face. And slanted lines
create attention. They create a sense of
movement in that direction. So these slanted lines are drawing our eye to the
character in the center. And the same is happening
with these implied lines, these little yellow
dashes that are going in both directions
towards the character. Everything is coming
towards the character, so it's drawing our eye inward. And I want to point
out that all of the emotional qualities
that we've just discussed, these can also be applied
to shapes as well as lines. So now we need to discuss
where do we place lines. Where do we place our lines? Linework can either
be an outline of a shape or it can be the
details inside of shapes. Sometimes the entire piece
is made up of linework, like this tattoo work by
artist Susa of Suflanda. Conor lines are the outer lines that we use to define a shape. You've seen these in comics. Personally, I use line
as an outline sparingly, instead relying on solid shapes and colors to separate elements. So for example, in
the bread right here, I'm not using line
work an outline to create separation between the
background and the bread. But I am using a line right here to separate each loaf
of bread from each other. I use line when some extra
definition is needed to define a shape or to separate from other
background elements? All right, enough theory, let's try some experimenting with different
ways to draw line. Will you use lines in
one thick consistency? Will they be
textured and broken? Will they be thick or thin? Will you use lighter colors? Will you use contrasting colors, like a different color outline than the object
that you've drawn? Or will it be a darker or lighter version of
the same color? Will they define the
outlines of your images or will they only add
details to your images? I'm going to start
with trying a thick to thin outline on
the edge of this cup, and I want it to feel
weightier towards the bottom, so I'm going to make it
thicker on the bottom. Now, I don't want this
outline to be so so obvious. I'm actually going
to adjust the color, so it matches the
edges of the cup. I'm going to make it
a little bit darker, not exactly the same color, so you can tell
this is an outline. I'm going to create
a solid line to create some dripping
definition around the edges of this chocolate because right now it just feels like one solid
line of chocolate. But when I've got an
outline around it, it creates that sense of like,
Hey, these are separate. These are individual
luscious drips of chocolate. I might even do the
same along the rim. Another fun thing that
I could do is create a lighter feel by
creating an offset line. These outlines are really
solid on the chocolate, and I want the whipped cream to feel a little bit
lighter and more delicate. Maybe I will try
creating an offset line. One that doesn't
completely line up. I could also play with
movement and motion by creating lines that
create this sense of this moving like a liquid or I could create
a circular swirl. Maybe I could even really emphasize these edges by
kind of rounding them out. And that gives it a really that gives it a lot of movement. All of the ice cream
is swirling together. I want to use rough,
looser outlines in this piece because all of the feeling is very
rough and loose. So I'm going to use
a different brush. I'm going to use the old brush, but you can play with
any brush that you like. So these lines are
not at all solid. It's very choppy and just like almost suggested
as an outline. Not completely there. For this piece, I want to try play with a
sense of movement. So I will try just maybe
like a pencil brush. I could try some wiggly line, so that kind of gives that sense that the cookie
is about to move. I could create some
emphasis lines at the tip of the glass. I can also use some lines to emphasize the different layers. So maybe I will do a lighter pink line right here to kind of separate the chocolate
from the strawberry. And maybe I'll use a darker
chocolate line here. That really creates a feeling of distinctness between
the different layers. Maybe I'll just create
some straight up outlines to create an
edge around the glass. Yeah, I think that looks cool. So I'm excited to move
on to the next part.
9. Texture & Style: Right after color,
texture is one of my favorite
elements to play with. Texture is what makes a piece
of art look like you could reach out and feel the
piece, like it's tangible. We can separate texture into two categories,
actual and implied. Implied texture is when you draw something so that it
appears like a real thing, like how we draw
short fuzzy lines for fur or how we draw water to
make it look like it's wet. It's how we imply
with our drawing. This is a surface.
This is a texture. This is the feeling, the physical feeling
of an object. There are many different ways
to convey these textures. There's probably as
many different ways as there are objects
in the world. Plus, probably there's more
than that because artists use all kinds of ways to depict textures of
the same thing. In our Sunday example, some implied texture
could be what makes the chocolate on the
rim look wet and shiny. It could be what we use to make the cookies look
dry and crumbly. And then there's actual texture. Actual texture is what your
illustration actually is made of the actual texture of the paper or the
canvas you use, the watercolor or the texture of the colored pencils you use. It's inherent with the
medium you're using. So watercolor paper or thick
blobs of acrylic paint. If you work with
physical mediums, in many ways, you're at an
advantage to digital artists. Your art naturally and automatically has a
sense of texture. You don't have to
work to create it. Plus, I personally find
natural textures like physical art mediums
to be super appealing. And you get that appeal
without any extra effort. However, on the other hand, digital artists end up
having a lot more options and control over the textures that end up in their pieces. Digital brushes can give you all kinds of
amazing textures. You just have to be much more intentional about getting
a look that you want. Now, we can certainly look at your inspiration artists for how they use texture and what you might like to
add to your work. But the next best thing to do is to play with the
medium that you already have with
the brushes and textures that you have
available to you, whether that is
physical or digital. Now, Procreate has absolute
killer default brushes. But there's lots
of amazing brushes that are available for purchase. You can also create your own. You can scan in your
own textures and use blending modes and clip
them to your shape layers. You can be realistic
with your sense of texture or you can
be totally abstract. I often use texture when I'm creating shading
on an object, and we'll go over form and
shading in the next lesson. But you can also
just use texture to avoid a totally blank
flat color on a shape. Some illustrators are very
flat with their illustrations, and they don't use
texture hardly at all. It's all about exploring your taste what you
think looks good, and then figuring out how to make something look that way. Alright, we're going
to do some exploration of texture in our Sundays. Now, if you've ever gone to
the art store and you've seen a wall of pencils or markers, and they've got little
test sheets that you can try them out, that's
what we're going to do here. We're just going to try
a bunch of experiments. You don't have to commit
to anything if you want to create a duplicate
document so that you can not worry about messing your document your art piece up. That is totally
fine. And I want you to take inspiration from
your artist images. But also, I invite you to try exploring some of the different brushes that you have available. And if you're using
physical mediums, you might be wanting to
do these texture tests on a completely blank
new sheet of paper. One thing that I would recommend is once you have figured
out your favorite brushes, create a folder so
that you have all of your brushes that you use over and over again in
the same folder, so you don't have
to search for them when you want to use them. But for now, we are
going to create some fun experiments in texture. So the first thing I want to
do is I am going to create a new layer and I want to create some new
textures in maybe, like, kind of like a grain. So if I go to the sketching
tab and I go to Bonobo chalk, and I'll grab this
pink color here. If I go on top of here, it creates a solid pink color. But a really fun trick that you can use is if you tap on this, it'll open up your blend modes, and if I use multiply, that will create
a darker version of whatever color is
underneath of it. So this is really
fun to play with. I like to adjust the opacity sometimes so that I get a little bit more of a subtle effect. So I'm going to clear
this and do that a little bit more intentionally rather than just
scribbling it on. But I really like the
way that this kind of creates a grainy effect. Now, another thing that I
want to try is I want to add some texture to the
chocolate sections here. So what I can do is, again, I'll create a new layer, and I will turn it
on to multiply. And I'm going to grab the
chocolate color here. And I am going to
try calligraphy, and maybe I'll try
this Blache brush. If I come in here, I'm kind of going
everywhere with this, which is not my intention. So what I'm going to do is I'm
going to tap on the layer. So this layer has this
chocolate shape for me. So I'm going to tap on that. And I'm going to choose select. And now if I were to draw, if I step back on the brush, if I were to draw
on this, I will only be drawing in that shape. Now, I want to make sure that I'm doing this on
a separate layer. So I've made a selection
of this layer, but I'm drawing on
this layer here. So that way, if I
change my mind, I can just erase it or turn
the visibility on or off, and I've still got my chocolate layer
underneath it there. So I'm going to try
and experiment with that. That looks really cool. Another brush I'm
curious about using another place I want to add some texture is onto
the cookie up here. So I'm going to grab
the cookie color, and I'm going to
try a new brush. Maybe I will go into drawing, and I'll try I have no
idea how to pronounce this, but phrase sine. Okay. Sure. So I'm going
to select my cookie layer. But I'm going to draw
on my multiply layer. Now, sometimes this doesn't work because the cookie shape that I drew was underneath
of the ice cream. So what I can do is I can grab my ice cream layer.
I can hit select. And then when I come up
to the multiply layer, I can erase that section where
it is touching whip cream. So yeah, lots of fun
experiments here, I might try adding
a little bit of texture into the cup as well. Now, I want to point out that these other Sundays actually
already have texture. And the deeper we get
into these elements, the more that you can see
that all of these elements, they're really tied together. And while it's helpful to separate them out so
that we can understand each element on its own
and we can focus on the decisions that
we can make in those elements in
the real world, they don't exist in a vacuum. They really do get
blended together. So I've already added texture to this Sunday by
just the nature of that streaky oil
brush that I used. And when I started experimenting with stripy
versions of color, I started adding
texture to this piece, and I'm really happy with
the way this one looks. And when I was filling
in the shapes, the brushes that I used for this also had texture in them. But it never hurts to add a little bit more texture to do a little bit
more experiments. So another thing. So I'm going to try adding something different into
the chocolate down here. So maybe instead of just adding texture for
texture's sake, I will try and make this look
kind of dry and crumbly. So I will select that
chocolate layer. I will be on one of
my multiply layers. And I'm going to try
the spray paints, and I'm going to
try these flicks. And what I want to do is create a much darker version
of this chocolate. So I love the way this looks. I think it looks really
like dry and, like, I would imagine that, like,
rough crumbly cookie look. I could also come in with
a really light color. But because this is
on a blend mode, it's just going to
darken everything. So I will create a new layer
that is not on blend mode, and then I can create some
brighter textures in there, maybe not quite that much, maybe, like, a
little bit lighter. But I love the way that looks. I think that looks
super deeper cool. I also think I want to create some texture in the
chocolate up here. So again, I'm going to
grab the chocolate color. I'm going to drop
the chocolate color, and I'm going to select
the chocolate so that I am only drawing where
that chocolate is. And I will try painting brush. I'll try this stucco here and create some fun
texture up in here. I'm just experimenting, and I might do the same
thing with the cookie, so I'll maybe add
some shapes in there. So there are some fun experiments
with color and texture. There are probably
as many textures in the world as there
are things in the world. But in my experience, too many different kinds of texture can make a
piece feel chaotic. So if you're feeling
totally lost with textures, what I would recommend is
try to use only one or two. You can experiment
with the color of that texture or the opacity, how it is, and you can get a huge range of variety
with just one texture. And of course, every rule
is meant to be broken. So if you think that stupid, hey, go nuts with your textures.
10. Form & Style: Form is how we make something look three D or give
it a sense of depth. Sometimes a sense of three dimensional
form is created with lines like this cube. An lie work doesn't
always use much shading, but she does make things feel three D rather than a flat
two D with her lines. So the circles on the top
of this baked bean can really make it feel like this is a three dimensional form. The same is true
with the pancakes. Because we can see
the side and the top, it feels like it's three
D. But most often, form is communicated by creating shading
and highlighting. So here you just
have flat shapes, and here you've got
shading on them. And by the way, if you
want to dive deeper into knowing where to
place your shadows, I go in depth on shading
in my how to draw class. There are many different ways to stylize how you create
shading and form. Let's go over a couple
of those options now. Gradients. A gradient is
where color gradually changes as it moves across
a form. I use this a lot. Carson Ellis does
a great job of it. You can really see it in
action right on this stove. So there is a gradient of
shading as it gets lighter to create the idea that the edge of the stove is creating a shadow. Katie Daisy does the same thing. So there is a gradient of
color in the Earth here. So it goes from a darker
green to a lighter green, and that kind of gives the
idea that this land is uneven. It's not just like a flat shape. She also does it in the shading and the mountains here
on the very bottom. Gradients are my instinctual
natural go to method. You can see that I use it
in the table rate here. I have a darker under the legs and it gets
lighter as it goes down. To create the idea of the legs being
underneath of the table. It creates a sense
of three D form. I also use it in
these hands here, so I use some shading that goes underneath of the
thumb to create the idea that there is
three dimensional shape. Hatching Hatching is using lines to create a
sense of shading. When lines are further away, they create areas lighter areas, and when they're
closer together, they create a sense
of a deeper shadow. So under the chin here, you can see David
Sierra has created really nice thick shading to create the sense of
like this big bear, and it's much tighter when
it gets closer to his arm, and it gets much further away when it gets further
away from his arm. Especially want you to know how lines that are more
densely compacted versus loose and further away indicate the shape
of the object. If we take a look
at the hair here, Notice how the lines get really
dense and compacted here, where the hair is tucked
in versus longer, looser lines when the
hair is out and flowing. You can see this in
her shirt as well. The lines are really,
really dense in these tight areas where the clothing is really
close to each other, and it gets a little
bit looser out here where there's more
space in the shirt. Cross hatching. Cross hatching is really similar to hatching, except that there are lines that cross in
multiple directions. Maurice Sendak illustrations use great examples of
cross hatching lines. So you can see in the
monster's belly right here that there is lots of
cross hatching going on. And again, the same rules apply, where it's more dense
is a darker area, and where it's more
loose and light, there is less shading going on. Dappling and stippling
dappling slash stippling. Susa, who also goes
by Soufanda is a tattoo artist and creates amazing form by using stippling. Stippling is little dots made up to create
the idea of form. Stippling can take several
different kinds of forms. So in the rabbit here, it's more short lines versus
in the dress, it's dots. So you can mix and match
your kinds of stippling. You can also mix and match
different styles of form. So, for example, in this piece, Susa has created stippling and she's also used hatching
to create shading. And you can kind of
create your own version. So Van go kind of creates this weird hybrid between stippling with these
really short dashes, but also that's kind
of like hatching. So there's a whole variation
in between these things. Contrast. Sometimes, artists use straight up contrast and color
or shape to create form. Lenz, the hilarious
visual pun artist uses a lot of this
smooth contrast. He uses a nice subtle change. And you can see
that on the ends of these ice cream Sunday campers. So there is one color here and then another
color over here. And that contrast between the
colors creates that form. Now, this is really
a gentle version. Like this is just a
darker color of yellow, a darker color of green,
a darker color of pink. But you can also go really extreme with this like
Sarah Beth Morgan does. She uses a really strong
color. She's using black. To create the shading in all
of these different areas. And it's just a straight
up block of color. All right. Let's start
experimenting on our Sundays. So I'm going to
start with this one, and I think it would be fun
to create some hatching. So I will grab. I'm just
going to use a six B pencil, and I'm going to start
down here in the glass. I'll just create some
hatching to kind of create some shading
under the cup. And I will also add some shading on the
drops of chocolate. I think it could also be fun to add some hatching in here. For this next Sunday, I am going to use
an inking brush. I'll try and use the studio pen, and I think it would
be really cool to try like one of those solid
blocks of shading. So I am going to create a
new layer and I'm going to make it a multiply layer and I'm going
to reduce the opacity. So it's a nice way, so
I don't have to change colors when I go over the
pinks versus the chocolate. I can play with the opacity to decide how dark or
light I'd like it. I think it would be
really cool to create some shading on
the chocolate too. So if I create a little
bit of a line right here, it's actually
making it look like that chocolate is standing out. I can also create a
second multiply layer and create some shading
on the chocolate itself. It's probably a little bit
darker than I'd like it, so I'll reduce the opacity.
That looks pretty cool. I think another fun thing would be to play with some stippling. So maybe I want to create
some highlights of the glass like shining
here. It's kind of fun. I could even do some
light brown ones on the chocolate or maybe
some on the cookie. And we actually created
some subtle when we added some of this texture and color up in here in the cream. It actually already kind of created some form, some shape, but I think it would
be fun to really emphasize that with a
little bit more stippling. I could also use some stippling to create
a highlight on the cup. Maybe I could try a
little bit of hatching, so I could create some hatching along the edge right there under
the solid shading. If I zoom out, I would say that this solid block is
a little bit narrow, and I think I'd like to just expand that out a little bit. Let's zoom out again. Yeah, that's looking
a little bit better. I might redo the
hatching underneath of that. Cool. That's kind of fun. For this next piece, I think
I'm going to try a lot more gradient since that's what I
naturally gravitate towards. So I'm going to try using on this multiply layer,
a textured brush. Maybe I'll use, like the artist ran or something like that. And I'm just going to create a soft gradual transition
on the side of the cup. It gets a little deeper
the further over it is. In fact, maybe I'll
even go a little bit as it gets
closer to the edge. It's a really nice
soft gradient. And I'm going to do the same
thing in the chocolate. And then on a normal layer, I think I'm going to create some smooth highlights because that smooth line really
creates a strong difference. It really helps it stand out. I might, in fact, even add a strong highlight
on the glass. And maybe on the base
of the cup as well. I think it would
also be fun to add some shading on the cup. Again, with a so more
gradual shading. And I think I'll also
add a little bit of textural shading in the cream
up here, the whipped cream. Maybe I'll even add some highlights by going
extreme white on this. It's not just the style of shading that you use that will kind of
determine your style. It's also where you put it. And something that I'd
like to try and I'm going to do a new multiply
layer for this is maybe some shadows underneath of the layers
inside of the Sunday. So maybe I will try
something underneath here. To really make it feel
like this top part, this top pink cream is
coming over the chocolate, and maybe I'll do the same
thing the top up here. Just let it gradually fade. Gradually fading. So it really
feels like it's layers. And, of course, the cookie
deserves some love. Cool. And finally,
on this Sunday, I think I'm going
to just try a mix between stippling and hatching. And I am going to use an inking brush and I'll
use the Mercury one. So I think the first
thing I'm going to do is create some highlights. So I'm going to grab
something really light. And I'll add some sheen
to the chocolate here. And also to the glass. I think I'll add some
reflections on here. I think it would be fun to add some of the cookie crumble. I think I'm also going to add some overall shading
on the multiply layer, so they're not solid lines. They're kind of dashed. Maybe I'll try on the underside
of the chocolate as well. I think that's a intense. So I might go a little
bit lighter with the maybe also under the cup. Another thing I could try is adding kind of an
edge to the cup. And even beyond that, maybe a little bit of shading
on the ground itself. Maybe I'll also add a
little bit of shading on the cookie so that
it looks like it's kind of behind that cream. And there we go. I
think that that really makes this piece a more
finished and whole. And I think I've got some
really different pieces here.
11. Your Style Guide/Identify Your Current Style: All right, so we have a bunch of really interesting
experiments now, and hopefully you've discovered some new ways of drawing
that you really enjoy. Maybe you found a few that
you didn't really like, but it was all a fun experiment. But mostly that's what it
was. It was an experiment. It's something that I tried out, but it's just a
single piece of art. I can't really say, Hey, this is my style yet because I haven't used this
style consistently. I've only made one piece. So what we're going to do
is we're going to integrate those explorations into
our work moving forward, and we're going to do
that with a fun draw this in your style
art challenge. We're going to pick
and choose our favorite visual
elements that we tried in those Sundays and apply them in a
series of new pieces. When you have a collection
of several pieces that use visual elements in a
somewhat consistent way, That is when you can say, Hey, this is my style. So let's reflect
on which elements that you do like and that you
want to use moving forward. We're going to create a
personal style guide, and don't worry, you're not committed to these choices
for the rest of your life. You can always
switch them up and change up how you
like to draw things. But reflecting on what you
do and don't like can lead to some really helpful and
sometimes unexpected insights. And remember, include
the visual elements that you enjoyed creating. How do you want to
draw your shapes? I really, really love this
skewed perspective here. I think this is going to be hugely influential on my work, and I'm going to be using it as much as I possibly
can moving forward. I also really liked anything
that was like arching and flowing like these
chocolate drops here. I am really surprised how inspired I was by
this geometric piece. Thinking of these layers in flat geometrical spaces and thinking of the shapes of the drips as these
simple triangles. It really inspired
how I approached this Sunday and this
Sunday quite a lot. I think I want to
keep that in my head. I may not be the biggest fan of this perfectly
geometrical work, but if I'm feeling stuck, trying to break
down a shape into a very basic geometric shape is a great way to kickstart
my creative brain. In what ways do you
want to use color. Moving forward, I think
I want to embrace the hue changes that
I used in this piece. I went from orange
to pink to peach. I really liked using
that variety of hues. I also really like this
blending method that I used along these two pinks here, and I think I'm going to
use that moving forward. What kind of line work
do you want to use? I want to use way more
lines moving forward. I really liked the
lines that I used in the cream here and in
the base of the cup here. I also really enjoyed
the groupings of lines that I did right up in here and especially
even right here. But I think I want to be a
little bit more intentional. I don't want it to be so loose. How do you like to convey or
not convey form and shape. If I'm honest, I liked all the different ways I used
high lighting and shading. I think I'm probably
going to use all of them moving forward, and that's the beauty of
choosing your own style. You don't have to stick
to one single choice. Textures, what
textures will you use? I really liked the
blending of colors and the textures that I
used in this piece here. And I think I will
continue to use it in a noticeable intentional way
like I had the streaks here. I really like that texture. I also really like
the way that I did the texture in here, at a very purposeful angle, but I love the blending
of all of those together. I'm not wild about the grain that I used and the gradients
that I used in this piece. The grain looks cool, but it's not for me. I love the pencil textures
that I used in this piece. But I think I'd like
it to be a little bit more exaggerated
because right now, I kind of have to zoom in to actually see
the details of it. Style is like handwriting. You can try to mimic
someone else's signature. But when you're in a
rush, your writing is just going to come out
like it does naturally. The way you draw is the same. It's instinctive
and natural to you. And while you can exercise your penmanship to make it
more readable or pretty, you'll still probably default to your instinctive way of
writing the letter A. The same is true of
our drawing styles. We can work to change it, but part of your style is going to be
completely intuitive. Yet defining what that is, what makes up our own natural
style can be insanely difficult because we're often blind to what makes us unique. There are things
that we do that are so obvious to us that
it's like breathing. We don't even
realize we're making those choices or
drawing in those ways. In this lesson, we're
going to do a couple of different fun exercises
to try and help you define your style a little
bit more clearly so that you can see what it is that makes
you unique, your top nine. First, I want you to gather up 3-9 of your favorite pieces. We're going to
reference these for the next few exercises. I want you to consider the pieces that you
are most proud of, but also think about the
ones that you enjoyed making the most and the ones that you're most happy
with the results. It can be a mix of
all of these things. Now, you can arrange this in a fancy top nine
Instagram post thing, or you can just put them
in a document altogether. I encourage you
to share these in your skill share project.
So here are mine. Fill in the blank.
Okay. Now let's try a fun mad lib style, fill in the blank exercise. I want you to come up with three visual adjectives that describe the visuals
of your art. Feel free to hit pause and take a moment to come up
with your own words. You don't have to
choose from this list. So, is your art monochromatic, realistic, light,
messy, soft, beautiful, sketchy, bright, unique,
unusual, colorful, cartoony, complex, conceptual, dazzling, decorative,
fluid, stylized. Looking at my
pieces, I'd probably say cute feminine and colorful. Next, I want you to come up
with a couple of words to describe the vibe or the
feeling of your work. Again, feel free
to hit pause and take a moment to come
up with your own words. You don't have to
choose from this list. Dark, adorable, innocent, old, calm, glamorous, organized,
candid, tranquil, edgy, straightforward,
mysterious, playful, romantic, sophisticated, traditional,
psychedelic, tasteful. Again, for my collection of art, I think that these pieces are a little bit calm or tranquil. Maybe not all of them, but yeah, overall, that's the feeling. My work edges on the cartoony, but I don't feel like it
has that cartoony vibe. So I might want to
highlight that. I think it has a touch
of sophistication. Next, I want you to write down the kinds of subjects
you frequently draw. So I see a lot of scenes,
animals, and lettering. And finally, I want you to write down the medium of
art that you use. All of these are
done in procreate, so they're all digital art. All right, let's pull
it all together. So when someone asks, what
kind of art do you make, you can say, I create insert your choice of
the vibe or feeling, insert your visual adjective, insert the subject of
art that you draw, and also insert the art
medium that you use. So for me, I can say
that I create colorful, tranquil scenes in procreate. If you like, you can tack
on a couple of adjectives. You can rearrange the wording or you can even remove part
of the equation here. For example, while I love
drawing scenes and storefronts, it's only about half
of the I create. So I might want to remove the subject matter
in this mad lib. Maybe for you, the subject
matter is really consistent. But maybe I could expand on
mine by saying I create cute, colorful digital
illustrations with a touch of sophistication. Tara, now you've got a simple easy way to describe the work that you do
for other people. Of course, this doesn't encapsulate everything
about your style. So let's try diving
a little deeper. Let's take a deeper dive into
examining our own style. Here's some questions
to get you started. Do you notice any patterns
or reoccurring themes? Now, this is
something that might not be visually apparent, but I personally know that over half of the pieces
that I have picked have been inspired by traveling that I've done or traveling
that I would like to do. So I know that travel is a really big part of what
influences my style, even if it's not super
obvious in the art itself. Another pattern I notice is I always try to
make some details. Pop by using really
high contrast? While the overall style is
soft and gentle colors, I really like to make some
details pop because I feel it makes you want to
look deeper into the art. Some other questions to
ask yourself could be, what do you want your audience to feel when they
look at your work? What themes do you
enjoy exploring? Does your art have a message? List three things that you
love about your style. Compare your style
to art you hate. If you're really struggling to articulate what
your art is like, another exercise is to compare
it to art that you hate. How is your art different? Is it different in the vibe, the visual styles,
or the themes? So I'm not going to put up any examples for this because that seems rude to put someone's
art on blast that I hate. But what I will say is that I don't usually
like art that has violent themes or are
really gross and icky. That's some people's
jams, but it's not mine. So What kind of art do you hate? For me, maybe that's harsh, violent, unhappy, scary, gross. And then what's the
opposite of those things? So in my case, it
would be gentle, light, happy, or peaceful. Ask friends. The
shortcut to defining your current style,
asking trusted friends. The way we see ourselves is not the way that
other people see us. So ask some friends. Hey, I want to ask you a favor. I'm working to improve
my illustration by clarifying what
makes me unique, but it's hard to see
yourself the way others do. Will you tell me three words that you used to
describe my art? Look for common answers and
see what resonates with you? Your differences, your identity. Sometimes what makes us
unique is glaringly obvious, and we may be
embarrassed of it or want to tone that part
of ourselves down. It's human nature
to want to fit in. Maybe you grew up in
an environment which ostracized or made fun of people who were different
or who stood out. But I want to
encourage you to take a second look at those things, and if it is really in your best interest to
tone down who you are, what makes you different may very well be your
greatest strength. For example, I was picked
on a lot in childhood. People made fun of
the way I looked, particularly my hair
and my enthusiasm. But now, those are some
of my greatest strengths. I'm more memorable
because of my hair, because of my personality. Like I mentioned earlier, your style is your handwriting. You can try to mimic
someone else's handwriting, but your own natural handwriting is going to keep
slipping through. So as we play with these
different exercises, try to be aware of the things that keep slipping
through the things you keep doing without realizing it or even when you
don't intend to. Those are the little
signals to your style, the things that you'll
want to pay attention to, things you'll want to lean into.
12. DTIYS: Create Your Series: On the art challenge. To help you create a
cohesive consistent style. We're going to do a draw this in your style art challenge. I've illustrated four
treats that you can also recreate using the elements that you listed in your
personal style guide. If you'd really like to
level the challenge up, I've included the reference photos for these pieces and you can start from there rather
than my illustrations. Sometimes I find it
a little bit easier to bounce off of what
somebody has already done, so you are welcome to start from my illustrations and
bounce off from there. You can grab the reference
images from the resources tab. Be sure to share your art in
your skill share project. You can add additional images to your project as you create
them by updating your project. Here's a few tips for
working on your series. In order for this series to feel like it's actually
in the same style, you'll need to
have some level of consistency between
all of the pieces. But you don't always have to use the same exact
stylistic element on every single piece for the
style to feel cohesive. A few key noticeable
consistencies will help tie things together. So using a themed subject
matter will help, IE, a series of desserts,
which is what we're doing. I'd highly suggest using
the same color palette as color is an incredibly easy way for us to instinctively
group something together. In my series, I used the same color palette but
varied the background colors. This helped each piece of
art stand out from each other while still feeling
like part of a whole. Having several elements that are noticeable and used
consistently in each piece will allow you to experiment with the differences between the individual art. For example, I used very different linework
in these two pieces. They don't use the
same kind of linework. You are allowed to use
a variety of styles. I really enjoyed playing with the hatching in
this geometric cup. I included that in
these two pieces here. My natural instinctive
way of creating shading is using gradients like
I did in this piece, and I didn't abandon that
in this series on desserts. You can see in the
raspberries here, I used a lot of gradients
to create that shading. I even did that in the
slices of the cake. Do what sparks joy. My cake background
here was really plain, so I wanted to add these little sparkles to
decorate the background. And I enjoyed adding these
details so much that I went and added them to pretty much all of
the other pieces. It's not something
that I explored doing in my Sundays, but I liked it. So don't feel so trapped by your style guide or the style choices that
you've made in the past, that you can't bring
something new, something that makes you happy
to the rest of your art. Experimentation takes time,
so don't be discouraged if you aren't happy with every
single one of your pieces. I actually developed a handful of different styles
for this class, and I didn't even end up
using or sharing them. It takes a few different
pieces and practicing for me to integrate
the style bits that I'm trying to include. It doesn't happen by
just doing it once, and it gets more nuanced. I get more particular about
how I bring that element in. Also, it's totally normal to not love all of
your pieces equally. I often fly through a piece
that I'm super inspired by, and then I feel really
bummed out when the other pieces in a series
don't feel as I don't know, fresh or exciting or satisfying
as that first piece. The truth is some pieces
will be better than others. But also, sometimes
I'm so inspired by the process of drawing something that I'm a little blind
to the end results. And also, sometimes after
not looking at one of those disappointing pieces for a while and then
coming back to it, I find that I actually like
it a lot more than I did. And then other times, people are actually
drawn to the pieces that I didn't even care
about in the first place. You can draw one
piece every day, or if you're like me, you can work on all of them
at the same time. When I feel stuck on one piece, I will switch to another piece, and sometimes I'll get inspiration for the
piece I was stuck on by working on a new piece or by reviewing pieces that
I've already completed. For example, I was feeling the milk and cookies
was very plain, and so I went to my original
Sundays and I remembered the geometric shooting that
I did on that geometric cup. I integrated that.
Another tip for feeling stock is to look at
all of your pieces together. Not only might it
inspire you to add something interesting
to the piece that you're currently
working on, but looking at the series as
a whole will help you make choices to keep your collection feeling cohesive and
in a consistent style.
13. Win a Year of Skillshare: To give you a little
extra motivation to practice your
fancy new style, I'm upping the ante by hosting two giveaways for
a year of Skillshare. I'll be choosing a winner from the Skillshare projects
and one from Instagram. So you'll have two
different chances to win. To enter on Skillshare, all you have to do is submit
a project to this class. You can upload your
Sundays experiments or any of the draw this
in your style art. I'll also be hosting a separate second
giveaway on Instagram. To enter that gway share your draw in your style
art on Instagram. You can share a single
image or you can share multiple for
multiple entries. Menion the class in the
caption and be sure to use hashtag DT y S Brook. That's draw this in your style, Brook, to make sure that
I can find your entry. You can find more details of that giveway on my Instagram
at Paper playgrounds. Both winners will be chosen
at random and I'll be announcing the winner in the discussion tab
of this class. The deadline to enter
is August 31, 2021. I'm so looking forward
to see your art. I just love seeing your creative beautiful takes
on these projects.
14. Artistic Voice: Artistic voice. We've
spent a majority of this class focusing on the
visual aspect of style, how your art looks. But there's much more
to what makes up your style than
strictly the visuals. You can actively work towards
changing your visuals, but there will be parts of
your style that will follow you whether you change the way
you draw lines and shapes, whether you switch
mediums or tools, and that is your artistic voice. Your voice might be the
topics you choose to draw, the vibe it creates, or the message it shares. Your voice is very much you, who you are and
your perspectives. These things also
affect your style. And if you'd like
to dig deeper into the topic of developing
your artistic voice, I'd highly recommend checking
out Lisa Condon's book. Find your artistic voice. For some artists, their
voice is more dependent on the subject matter
that they cover rather than the visual
aspect of their style, and some artists are much
more consistent with their visuals than they are
with their subject matter. Both versions of this are valid. Some people are very
intentional with their voice. They are very clear
with who they are as an artist and they are very
good at expressing that. And some people don't even realize that
they have a voice. It's more of a
subconscious thing that it is a conscious thing. And you don't have to be deep
or serious with your voice. Your perspective may simply be, I want to put more beautiful
things into the world. Understanding your voice is a big part of
developing your style. And a great exercise for this is to ask yourself the
following questions. What vibes are you
trying to create? What do you want your
audience to experience? For example, are you trying to create art that has
a relaxing feeling? What visual or thematic choices can you make to
support that vibe? What are you trying
to say with your art? This may be something
significant and profound, or it may be a
lighthearted emotion. For example, the message
behind this piece is, I want to celebrate
somebody's birthday. But again, understanding
the message behind your art can help you make visual and thematic
choices to support that. What are you trying to
put into the world? What experiences
are you trying to cultivate? Is it a message? An emotion? Is it simply an appreciation of the
object that you're drawing? You may find it helpful to pull up pieces that
you've already created and ask these questions about
those pieces or even to ask these questions
about pieces of art that you admire
from other artists.
15. Dealing with Comparison: When I exhibited at my first professional
Illustration trade show, I was so overwhelmed by all of the amazing
artists out there. It was a real wake up call that if I wanted to stack
up professionally, I really needed to make better
and more interesting art. That realization was
really important for me. I'd been working
in my own little bubble and I'd been unaware of everything around me and what everybody else
around me was doing. And the honest truth
was that I really needed to put more
effort into my art. But I also felt
this absolute sense of overwhelm and
inability to act, faced with this task
of leveling up, trying to stand out
from the crowd. How the heck was I
going to stand out? How the heck would I
be able to do that? I felt awful about myself, comparing myself to all these
artists that I admired. I needed a balance. I needed to feel inspired by seeing what other
artists were doing, but not so much that I started
to feel bad about myself. At best, comparison is about learning and
bettering yourself. At worst, it just makes you feel like crap and
holts your progress. It's a very delicate
balancing act, and I'm no expert at
that balancing act, and I still struggle
with comparison. I even struggled with comparison while I was
developing this class because working on your style can be a very sensitive topic. I'm no expert in conquering
the bad sides of comparison, but I wanted to share with you ten things that have
helped me to deal with it. Conscious consumption. I'm mindful about how unconscious
or mindless consumption of media is making me feel. After I scroll
Pinterest or Instagram, do I feel inspired
or do I feel bad? When I notice that
my feelings of jealousy are kicking
into high gear, I will take a
social media detox. Of course, it doesn't need
to be black and white, either you are
using social media or you are not
using social media. Understanding yourself is a really important
thing in this. You may find that your nighttime habit of scrolling through Instagram isn't really
serving you to stay inspired. So maybe reading a book
is a better way to get you some
creative inspiration while you relax before bed. For me, I've noticed that I'm a little bit sensitive
in the mornings. I think that my mornings really
helped me set my day off. So I really avoid social media, e mail or TV during
those first few hours. I don't want to be
bombarded by what everybody else wants
me to make a priority. So that time is for me to center myself to reflect on what
I want out of the day. I also try to avoid social media when I'm feeling
emotionally sensitive. So if something has upset me
or I'm feeling bummed out, at those times, I might be a little bit more
sensitive to comparison. So instead of going
on social media, I will maybe watch a YouTube video or play
a game to chill out. Instead of the scroll,
avoid passive comparison. I'm also conscious about
when I take on comparison. For me, I found it's most useful when I can immediately
take action on it. So I'm often looking
at ideas for my style or reference
photos when I'm working on a piece or when I'm researching
for a piece so that I can make use of that
comparison right away. Passive comparison is when I often fall into feeling like, Oh, I'm not measuring up. So I usually try and avoid
just looking to look. You are what you eat. Another way that
I get inspiration artistically is that I consume media that inspires me but is not the media in which I create. So, for me, that's illustration. And I feel very strongly
that this helps me bring a new perspective
to what I create, but also allows me
to get inspired without getting sucked
into that comparison trap. So my creativity is like a well. I need to fill it
with inspiration, need to fill the water. Sometimes creating will
be its own inspiration, but sometimes I need
to prime the pump. Create instead of consuming, creating instead of consuming. I feel better when I
spend time creating, not just consuming.
Simple as that. So instead of playing on
my phone in the evenings, maybe I'm better off playing with some crayons or markers. Compare myself to myself. I take time to compare
myself to myself. When I can see the
progress that I have made, I can take pride in that. I take time to practice
feeling good about my art, admiring what I've done. I've saved art work that I've
done throughout my life, and it's really
nice to look back on myself years and years ago. And it's also nice to compare myself to work that
I did last year. Scrolling back to old
images on Instagram is a really nice way to
look at my progress. I highly encourage you to save your old artwork if only
for this reason alone. The nice thing about
comparing yourself to yourself is that you can see the progress and you
can be appreciative of the journey the
creative journey that you are on. See
the whole picture. When I'm feeling jealous, I try to remind myself
that life is more than just how I'm doing
professionally or artistically. I have other things that I need to balance like relationships, mental health, physical
health, family. I remember that there is more than one aspect to my life to be happy
and grateful for. Maybe I'm not the most
popular artist on Instagram. Maybe I don't have the coolest
way of drawing people. But I also have a
kick butt garden, which I love spending time in, and I'm much better at keeping plants alive than
I was years ago. And that makes me
happy and proud. Remember, the grass
is always greener. It helps me to
remember that when I'm comparing myself
to another person, I don't know their full life. They may be dealing with a cancer diagnosis,
a loss in a family, or have a multitude
of other things which I wouldn't trade my
life with theirs for. And that might drive
them to do the things that they are doing
that I am jealous of. If I'm jealous of somebody's
social media success, I have to remember
that they may be paying a cost that I'm
not willing to pay. Maybe they spend more
time taking photos of their vacation where I would rather be enjoying the moment. Maybe they dedicate
several days of the week towards working on
their social media, and that's not something
that I want to do. Maybe they enjoy doing those
things more than I would. Our lives are different,
our drives are different. Our desires are different,
and that's okay. It's not fair to compare
people to people. Self validation. Ultimately, the best
way to ward off that gnarly
comparison trap is to maintain a healthy self esteem. External recognition
compliments, and all of that is
wonderful and great. But if a piece doesn't
get a bunch of likes by posting
on social media, I still value my own work. I know I have improved. I know what parts of
this art I'm proud of. And that matters to me. I'm not only creating art
to share with the world, I'm creating to
enjoy the process. I'm no island. I still
need other human support. So I've worked to
nourish and build relationships with
people who do love me, people who do support me
and can appreciate me. If you don't have great
self esteem currently, know that it is something
that you can develop. And if you have a
lot of folks who are discouraging of
your art practice, Maybe stop sharing with them and seek out new people
to share it with. After all, this is your life. Shift your perspective. Acceptance. Sometimes the
mirror of comparison gives us a painful but
accurate reflection of where we have
some weaknesses. And sometimes the best thing that you can do is accept that. And acceptance doesn't mean
you give up on progress. Yes, you may not be good at
shading yet or anatomy yet. That may be true, but does it help to judge
yourself and say, Oh, I'm the worst
artist in the world. I suck, and nothing I ever
make turns out right. Well, now, you're still
a novice at shading, and you feel bad about yourself. You're just making a
normal situation worse. Instead, it can be
more helpful to say, I struggle with shading. I know that's one
of my weaknesses. I can look up classes
and resources to help me figure out to shade
better and practice that, or I'm going to practice
shading in my next piece. Or you can also say, I'm not good at shading.
And that's okay. I focus on using really compelling color
combinations instead. Positive self
reinforcement helps make progress faster than
beating ourselves up. And on the flip side,
accept your strengths. A lot of artists downplay
compliments they get. Oh, you know, people
are just being nice. They don't mean the nice things that they say. Don't do that. Don't downplay your
accomplishments, whether that's deflecting
a compliment or internally dismissing
your own accomplishments, Revel in your own success, even if it's just for a moment. Soak in those compliments like a ray of sunshine and
don't push them away. Taking pride in the things
that you do well will keep you feel encouraged
to keep on keeping on. Acknowledge how you feel. Not being good at something, it kind of sucks, and
it doesn't feel good. I get really embarrassed when
I'm not good at something, which is, it's the worst. It can be frustrating or disappointing to not
be good at things. I am a highly
emotional creature. And sometimes just
acknowledging or identifying my feelings
helps me let them pass, or as Elsa would say, let it go. When I feel comparison, or I don't feel like I measure up to where I'd
like to see myself. I can feel sadness,
shame, helplessness, anger, vulnerability, embarrassment, disappointment,
or frustration. It's okay to feel that way. Sometimes, instead
of just having this unsettled feeling of
upsetness inside of you, acknowledging what you
feel can be helpful. Then you can let it go
and commit to working on improving or
accepting that weakness. It's easier to say, Hey, I'm just feeling this way. This is just a feeling, and it will pass. You can let it go and
continue to work on improving or accepting whatever weakness has started to make
you feel that way.
16. Working in Multiple Styles: Working in multiple styles. One of the most common topics that comes up when
talking about style is the fear of being trapped into only working in one style. As artists, we're all
naturally curious. We want to explore
different subjects, different art supplies,
different techniques. In short, it's fun to play
with different styles. And there's nothing
wrong with that. In fact, it's an important part of your artistic development. I'd argue, and I think a lot of other professional artists
would argue that it's really important that you have time and space for
exploration in your art. It's especially important in the beginning when you are
getting familiar with a tool, a technique or beginning
your artistic journey. Exploration and
experimentation with style is how you
find your style. In fact, if you
commit yourself to only working in one
style too early on, you may stunt your creative
growth as an artist, the importance of style. But on the other
hand, there is also an undeniable benefit
to having a unique, identifiable style
that is your own. If someone can look at your work out in the wild and
be able to say, Oh, hey, that's a brick
glazer or, you know, insert your name in there,
that's really important. It helps you stand
out from the crowd. It helps you become more
recognizable and more popular. It's a really important thing, working in multiple styles. Having a consistent
style or committing to a specific style does not mean the death of your
artistic exploration. In fact, many successful artists
work in multiple styles, and there's lots of
ways to approach that. So there's no wrong
or right way. This is your life, your art, and your career. Let's examine three
different ways that you can approach
working in multiple styles. Number one, having it
all under one brand. If you take a look at Lisa
Condon's work, it's amazing. Her style of rendering portraits and
swimsuits in her book, Joy of Swimming is
quite different than her digital illustration
done in Procreate, like this example with her collaboration
with Method soap. And she's a very
successful artist, too. Create different brands
for your different styles. So it may make sense
in some cases, to separate your styles
into different brands. And I think Tegan White is
an amazing example of this. Tegan White creates
amazing detailed drawings of animals who have died, and she sells them as original work and
prints and stickers. She also creates these
adorable woodland creatures for children's products under
the brand Tiny Moth Studio. Wildlife is clearly her focus. She uses the same color palette, and she could in theory, just draw these different styles under her name like
Lisa Congdon does. But Tkin is really
smart about this. These audiences for
these two types of styles of art are
really different, and it probably makes a lot more sense for her to
split these into two brands. So folks who are interested
in cute children's art, They might be turned off by
images of dead wild life. And the audience who appreciates her self proclaimed approach to celebrating life and
death in the natural world, which isn't that an awesome way to describe what she does. Well, that audience might
not have any interest in C children's
animals. Number three. And if all of that is too
much to bear in if you truly do not want to commit yourself to staying in a specific style, you want to be a style
chamleon. That's okay, too. You could be a really
amazing in house artist, and that can be a really
valuable thing to companies. I worked in house as an artist for a fashion company
and they would buy art from other
artists and have me tweak the designs
to fit their needs. Sometimes I'd have to redraw a flower or add five different
flowers in the same style, but not exactly the same, or it'd have to change
the size of something. Being a style chamon
is also a skill. For me, personally, I
stopped wanting to replicate any style and wanted to start
working on my own style. The more you
experiment, the more you may find that
this is true for you, or you don't. And
that's fine, too. There's nothing wrong
with that. There are different parts of
your artistic journey. At one point, I wanted
to be a style chameleon, and I just wanted
to play with style. And then at another
point, I didn't. That's not unusual
if it's normal. As an artist, you're
allowed to experiment. You are allowed to
evolve your art style. In fact, you're likely
going to become bored or stagnant if you don't. Most artists I know are
always growing and evolving. And even if you're
established artist, if you have an
established style, experimentation is still a healthy part of
being an artist. I'm constantly hearing professional artists
with defined styles, talking about the importance of them for time for personal work, for exploration and
experimentation, and I think that's
just an innate part of being an artist. Also, Overall styles change too. Just like fashion, some
art styles go out, and also like fashion, everything always
seems to come back, but you don't have to wear the same fashion for all
the rest of your life. You don't have to have the same hairstyle for the
rest of your life. You also don't have to have the same art style for
the rest of your life. If you look at David Hockney,
the infamous painter, he started his career
in the 1960s and his style has changed significantly in the
following decades. Your style is going
to change and evolve. My style changed because the
work I was doing changed.
17. Consistency & Deciding on Your Style: Let's talk about consistency. Another common style concern
is not being able to maintain your style from
one piece to the next. And if you feel like
each piece that you draw looks completely
different from each other, there's a couple of things
that could be going on here. I could just be that you need to work on your
technical skills. If a client wants to hire you, you'll need the
technical ability to replicate your own style. And the more that you understand
what makes that style, like the line
shape, form, color, the elements that we
went over in this class, the more you understand those and can see them
and identify them, the easier it will be to pull those elements apart
and remake them. Also, the more practice
you have with your tools, the more confident and better
you're going to be at them. If you don't feel like you can replicate a style from
one piece to the next, it may just be that
you haven't spent enough time working on the
technical side of your craft. Practicing a little every day so you can feel confident in your hand movements so
that you can predict the way where your circles and your lines are
going to end up. You you do that. That is something that I did
a lot of at the beginning of my artistic journey
was just drawing circles and making
sure that I could actually draw what I
was intending to draw. Use and explore your
tools so that you're familiar with them and you can
use them when you need to. If you're a beginner at
a new medium or to draw, it's really normal that you
may not feel like you can make the tools do exactly what you want them to do right away. No one walks into
the gym and can immediately lift 200
pounds the first time. They've got to practice their
skills and work up to it. And those artistic
muscles are exactly that. They're muscles. They are things that you develop
and you get better at. So if you don't
feel confident in your technical ability
to replicate a style, keep practicing it is something that will
get easier with time. And all that said, another thing that could be happening
is that, well, sometimes as artists, we're not the best judge of
our own consistency. Sometimes we're blind to what
is consistent in our work because it's so obvious to us that we don't
even think about it. If you are not a
beginner beginner, I would ask a trusted
friend if they can tell you what is consistent
about your work. If they can tell one piece from the next is actually yours. And hopefully, the exercises
above has helped open your eyes to identify the unique ways that
you draw things. For example, Doing this class, I realize that I am very specific in the way
that I shade things, and I always shade them
in a very certain way. And that's true no matter
what subject matter I draw. Or maybe for you, it is your consistent use of outlines throughout
all of your pieces, Fomo or shiny object syndrome. Another concern
with consistency is f or shiny object syndrome, and you're always feeling
like you want to try something new because
there might be something better
out there for you. Well, if that's you, I feel you. This is definitely me too. Sometimes I just draw for me, and I don't share the work. But what's the fun
in that, right? One way that I've
approached sharing experimental work
or work that is not my usual style is to actually
work in a series or present my experiments as a collection rather than just one off pieces. So for example, in October, I wanted to limit myself to working in black and
white so that I could focus exclusively on shapes
instead of relying on color, which is a huge
part of what I use. Color is a big
part of what I do. And having those black and
white pieces would have come across really jarring because
it's so unlike my style. So what I did was I
presented that as a series instead of
just a one off piece. So I could display that as nine images in one picture so that you could
tell, like, Oh, hey, this is a series of pieces, or I could put it
on my Instagram and put six or three or nine. So like, there's
several pieces in a row so that they feel like, Oh, this is like a thing. I like to play with lettering, and a lot of that work
that is just exclusively lettering can kind of feel jarring when it's
taken out of context. If somebody goes to my
portfolio, they might be like, Hey, does this artist do
lettering or illustration. But if I group those pieces into a single category or
project on my portfolio, like, here are all
my lettering pieces, now it doesn't feel
so incongruent. So maybe that's an idea of
how you can approach trying new styles while still maintaining some degree of
consistency in your work. Overwhelmed If you struggle with consistency because you feel
overwhelmed by choices, like, you don't know what color palettes you like
or what brushes you like to use the most. Creative constraints may be
one of your best friends. You could try drawing the same object once a day for the next week
or decide you'll only use one or two brushes for your next piece or commit to the same color palette for
the next three pieces. Limiting your choices in one area will free
you up to explore other elements of
your style without so much pressure to get
every component perfect. And don't be too
hard on yourself. If you've only ever
drawn a person once, you can't expect yourself to have a style of
drawing people. Draw ten people and then see what's in common
with those people. If you're new to digital art, you shouldn't expect
yourself to know which brushes you like
best immediately. It'll take some time
and experimentation. And all of this stuff doesn't happen overnight
for most people. I'm sure you've heard that
from other artists you admire. If it doesn't happen
overnight for them, why should you be
so hard on yourself to expect it to happen
overnight for you. But what will help
is drawing as often as you can every day
if you can manage it. And to do that, a routine helps. Commit to working at
a specific time in a specific place for x
amount of minutes every day. I found it helpful
to decide what I'm going to draw ahead
of time instead of sitting down to draw
and then spending all my drawing time trying
to figure out what to draw. When I did my series
on storefronts, I took one day to gather up all my inspiration images and then another day to
draw ten sketches. And then every day after that, I just decided which sketch
would be more fun to tackle and let myself work on whichever one I felt
most inspired by. You may also find it helpful
to join a drawing challenge. Deciding on your style. So how do you decide
on your style? What do you want to incorporate and what do you
want to leave up? Well, it's up to
you. It's your art. But here are the things
I would suggest taking into consideration when
making your choice. Do you enjoy creating
in that way? This could be both the process
and also the end result. Do you like the way it looks, and do you enjoy creating it. After all, this is how you
are spending your time. Are other people,
your audience or clients drawn to that style. If people give you
compliments on your work and especially
specific things, pay attention to
what they mention. If you don't have an audience or anyone who can
give you feedback, it may be worth seeking out
a paid portfolio review. Sometimes art directors or agents will offer these
on their websites. Alternatively, you don't
need to spend that money. You could also ask a trusted friend if
they would be willing to share what aspects of your
work they think is best. Chances are, you'll end
up somewhere in between. Doing work you love creating, but also responding to what
people like seeing from you. After all, having
positive reinforcement on our work is one of the
most encouraging ways to keep moving forward. And speaking of, if you
found this class helpful, it would mean the world to me if you would leave a
positive review.
18. Bonus: Style Advice with Gia Graham: In this lesson, I'm going to
be talking with Gia Graham, who's an illustrator and a hand letterer
based in Atlanta. G is also a top teacher
here on skill share. But the main reason I want
to talk with Gia is that she also has a class
about finding your style, and it takes a slightly different
approach than this class. I thought it would be
really interesting to sit down and have
a chat with her. Gia's style is really
bright and bold. She credits her island
background for influencing the vibrant colors and the lush florals and foliage
that she uses in her work. Clients reach out to
Gia for commissions and licensing opportunities because
of her distinctive style. Her artwork has appeared on
a range of products from home goods and greeting cards to book covers and
even accessories. D, how do you approach the
process of finding your style? Well, to me, style, no matter what kind
of style it is, if it's fashion,
interior design, artistic style, it's all an
expression of who you are. It's a commination
of your likes, your experiences,
your influences. All these things are typically bouncing around in the
back of your brain, but you're not conscious of it. So for me, my approach is to first take
a look inward, you know, to kind of step back and
really be intentional about identifying those likes and those experiences and
those influences. And in the first
half of my class, I actually helped
guide students through this self observation process
and this self discovery. That's awesome. Because,
you know, yeah, style is kind of finding your style is a
journey, you know? It's something that
takes a while. So I kind of think of this
first step as opening up the roadmap to that
journey and putting your to say I am here, you know? Because when you do this
kind of self discovery. You get your bearings for who you are and where you
are as a creative. And then from there, I
think it's easier to move forward on the path with intention and then do
the practical stuff, which is, you know, exploring new techniques and shapes and, you know, styles of
drawing and all of that. But yeah, I think
that first step is to kind of really take a look at the things that you like and the experiences you've had
and what has influenced you, and then you can move
forward from there. And I actually think our classes really compliment
each other well in that way because we each take a slightly
different approach. If students take both classes, they'll have a good
well rounded guide for how to develop their style. Do you think it's necessary
to have just one style, or do you think the artists
can work in multiple styles? Well, I think if
art is your hobby, I don't think it's
really necessary to have just one style. But if you want to earn a living as an artist, then absolutely. Having a unique style can really help you
boost your career. I know that that's
been my experience. You know, it made it easier for me to
create an art brand. And actually, I didn't even realize that I was
developing an art brand. I was just so focused on
trying to figure out, you know what I liked with
lettering and illustration, what I didn't like, you know, trying different
techniques that over time, I honed my style, and I built an art
brand organically. I didn't even realize it. And when I speak
of an art brand, I'm just referring to the
fact that as an artist, one creates an art brand when your work is associated
with a specific aesthetic. So the good thing about that is that there will be times when clients will come
to you, you know, they will seek you out
because they want you to put your unique stamp on their project or their product
or whatever it may be. I have to say it
makes my job so much more enjoyable because
I can approach each new project from
a confident place because I know that the client
already likes my style, so I can just focus on implementing my creative voice to whatever that
creative brief is, whatever project that
they've brought to me is. And you know, The other
bonus of developing your style is that you can create a portfolio that
you're really proud of. You know, I remember when I was a graphic designer
many moons ago. I I wanted to switch jobs. So I was in the process of
pulling together a portfolio, and I found I was
really struggling with it because everything
felt so disjointed. You know, I was doing different projects for different clients, and everything looked completely different from each other. But now, I'm actually working on rebuilding my
website right now. And what's so wonderful is that even though I have work
from different clients, there is a cohesion, even though each project is
different and, you know, all of the projects
don't look the same, there's the through
line of my style there. So my portfolio now feels like it's all coming
from the same person. Yeah, that's so cool,
isn't it just to see the whole body of work
together? It's really exciting. It is. I love it. So what do you say
to somebody who has been exploring their
style for a few months, but still can't seem
to find their style? Yes. I actually get
this question a lot, and I have an answer that
might not be so popular. It just takes time. Time and consistent practice. It's not something that you can force to happen overnight. I would say that you can
give yourself up to a year to practice
consistently exploring things and during the
course of that year. You'll start to see
a style emerge if you're consistent and
intentional about your practice. It's also super important
to take a step back every once in a while and take a look at the work that
you've been creating, maybe every two or three months. I call this doing an art audit, and I think it's a
really helpful practice. So I love that. Let's look at it. I'm going to give
you an analogy. So let's look at it like
a house plant, right? So you go to the store, you buy this house plant,
you bring it home. You're super excited
about caring for it. You're diligent about watering it and nurturing it,
and all of that. And day to day, you don't really notice much
difference in the plant. But if you skip forward a year and you're doing your daily maintenance
and all of that, and you decide, well, let me look at this
photo I took a year ago. If you put the two side by side, you look at the photo of the plant and you're seeing
the plant in front of you, then is when you realize, oh, it's really grown. You don't see those changes incrementally from day to day. But if you pause for a moment and take a step back and
get that broader picture, you'll be able to
see your progress. So the same goes for
your art practice. If you're diligent and
intentional about your practice, step back every few months
and you'll be able to see that growth that you
weren't noticing day to day, you know, and it's a good
way to keep you motivated, too, because when you step back and you look
at how you've grown, it might be just one small thing that you've noticed, you know, but seeing those changes happen will help encourage
you to keep at it, you know, on the flip side, If you buy a plant and
you bring it home and you're sporadic
about caring for it, you water it this week and you're great
with caring for it this week and then
you forget about it for a couple of months and
then you come back to it. It's going to die. You know, I definitely won't grow. It will probably die. And in the same way, you know, with your art practice, if you kind of lax about it and you kind
of give up on it, you know, after a month or you skip a few weeks
and then you come back, then your style won't grow. So yeah, I think it's really
important to stick with it consistently and have
that consistency over time. Yeah, I love that analogy. I'm a big house
plant fan myself, so it makes a lot of
sense. It's funny. I have quite a few
pictures and I'm like, Wow, I can't believe how
much this has grown. And that is super true, even for me as somebody who I feel like I've
established a style. But then, a year later, I can look back
and be like, Wow, things have really evolved. It's really grown, and it's not necessarily always
like a crazy change, but I become stronger
in what I do. Absolutely. Absolutely. I'm so glad you said that it's
not a crazy change, because sometimes it
won't be a crazy change, but it could be just enough of a shift to push your creativity
forward that much more. That was so great. Thank you, Gia so much for taking the
time to talk with me today. If you have not already, be sure to check
out Gia's class, which is called Find your Style, how to develop your own
lettering aesthetic. And if you aren't already, make sure that you follow her
on skill share so that you can be notified whenever
she posts a new class.
19. Final Notes: All right. Before I go
over some final notes, I want to say a big thank
you and congratulations. You made it through that
big old class. Wow. I really appreciate you
spending all that time with me. And if you enjoy the class, I want to ask you a favor. Will you please leave a
positive review of the class? Your encouragement really
keeps me going and inspires me to keep making these classes
the best that I can. Even a simple thanks
for the class in the discussion tab gives
me the warm fuzzies. I love seeing what you make, and I often highlight student
projects on Instagram. You can find me at
Paper playgrounds, and if you'd like me
to share your work, be sure to tag me at
Paper playgrounds and use the hashtag
draw with Brook. If you're interested in the
digital brushes that I use, I have a list of brushes that
I recommend on my website. If you're interested
in more classes on both business and creative
side of being an artist, I've got classes on
how to make a living as an artist,
productivity for artists. I've also got classes on
how to use procreate, how to draw, color
theory, and more. You can find all of these on my website or my
skill share profile. If you have questions,
the best way to get them answered is to leave
them in the discussion tab. The awesome thing about
the discussion section of the class is that if anyone
else has the same question, they can see my
answer straight away. Who knows? Have a look and see if somebody else has had the
same question as you. You all are smart cookies, and you ask really
smart questions. Thanks so much for joining me and happy creating art friends.
Brooke Glaser, Illustrator
