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I'm writing about artists style in the hopes of determining how to descriminate my own artistic style.

I'm also discovering how many others have written about the same topic. Alyson Stanfield has made a list on her website about what is involved in determining an artists style.

I would like to say that one of the most important elements in discovering your style is “time”. That translates into spending many hours in studying othere artists works that you admire. Than spending many hours of time in drawing/painting, referencing the styles that you admire. It may appear to be copying at first, and these drawings are for study purposes only. But ultimately your practice will turn these studies into a style that reflects your own inner interpretations.

I think the age old dilemma of merging the old with the new in art, technology, even in our concepts of ourselves, is an ongoing debate. I have been influenced in my art by the traditional Japanese woodblock prints. These have been a reference point which I translate in a new way with my current paintings on East Meets West. The three images shown here and below are the 1^st  and 2nd draft, along with this final painting in gouache, ink, and charcoal.

2nd draft for "Geisha in Sunglasses"

First draft for "Geisha in Sunglasses"

  The following excerpt was written by Russian photographer 

Irakly Shanidze:

"Virtually anyone who did not cut English class in high school can easily recognize a poem by Longfellow or Shakespeare, even if it is one he has never read before. The phenomenon of individual style, so profoundly felt in poetry, is also present in other types of creative self-expression.  While there can exist, in addition to individual style, a style that is characteristic of a certain period in history or geographic location, we can easily distinguish the paintings of Rubens or Rembrandt from others which bear the same characteristic features of all Renaissance painters. The individual style of an artist, as unique as handwriting, allows us to recognize the artist’s work as a combination of techniques employed and visual elements used: perspective, composition, palette, tonality, brush stroke and even the choice of subjects. This phenomenon feels completely natural to the viewer, just as it does not surprise us that a writer or a poet uses characteristic vocabulary, idiomatic expressions and rhyming patterns in his work."

I chose one of my paintings that was inspired by Kiyomasu, the 17th century Japanese artist who perfected the technique of "gourd legs"(the exaggeration of the leg muscles) and "earthworm lines" (the curvilinear outline of the figure) to convey a sense of the power and violent action of a type of flamboyant performance of Kabuki.

 

What is an artist's style and how does an artist determine a style? These are timeless questions that I will attempt to respond to, along with the help of a few experts, in this month's blog entries.

Steven Heller and Marshall Arisman, authors of “Inside the Business of Illustration”

define Individual Style as “a by-product of our limitations, interests, and abilities. Everyone has a style that is an outgrowth of continuous work. The connections between your drawing, painting, and image making get stronger with time. That recognizable link in your work is your style.”

Picasso said that “style is what you call what other people do.”

The practice of making art and images continues to connect me with my visual language that is defined as style.  Though I have seen changes in subject in my work, I am also seeing an underlying feeling that comes through as "me".