Inspiration
W
ouldn’t it be great to
develop a personal style,
which takes your paintings
to an immediately recognisable level,
makes them stand out in any mixed
exhibition or give coherence to a
show of your own work?
What do I mean by style? Well,
what makes you immediately recognise
Constable, Matisse or Rembrandt? It
might be the way the artist approached
landscape or used colour or light and
shade. There can be no doubt that
these artists like many others
developed a personal style that allows
the onlooker to pick them out at once.
So given that you want to develop your
own style, where do you start? Well, by
going back to first principles. Let’s take
them in no particular order, as the
saying goes.
What medium do you mainly use?
Have you tried any others? The range
of possibilities is wide: watercolour,
oils, acrylics, pastels, coloured pencils,
felt tip pens, pencils, or pen and ink.
There’s enough there to get started.
Try as many as possible and find the
one you feel most suits you. Right, you
have taken the first step in developing
your own style.
Next, consider the formal elements
that make up a picture, no matter
what medium it is in. The basic
element is the drawing that establishes
the composition. However, you may
enjoy drawing so much that you make
it the most important element in your
work. Indeed your style may comprise
only producing drawings rather than
paintings. There’s nothing wrong with
that. A significant number of works
of Peter de Francia were drawings.
Google his name and select images,
and you will see what I mean.
Now let’s think about colour. Have
you tried working with a restricted
palette, perhaps only five or six
colours? If you have a favourite colour,
you could make it the dominant colour
in all your works. You would, of
course, need to have touches of other
colours as well to make your painting
sing with harmony and contrast.46 JUNE 2017 http://www.painters-online.co.uk
Try ten exercises to develop your own style, be inspired by other
artists and work through your own preferences, with John Mitchell
Your personal style
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
n How to develop your own ‘voice’
in your work
n Understand the elements of a
successful paintingRudder, gouache, 5x7in. (12x18cm). Gouache is a water-based medium that allows
a detailed style to be developed easily. The subject matter is also interesting in that it
takes an unusual viewpoint and deals with an unlikely subject. You can let anything
spark your interest and set you off in your own way.tLP06 46-49 Mitchell_Layout 1 05/04/2017 14:57 Page 46