How to Experiment with Your Drawings
"I don't have a style with my drawings, but I wish I did. It's something I'm always searching for." Does that sound familiar to you? I think most artists have this kind of thinking, especially in the beginning of their drawing journey.
We see other artists who inspire us, who have unique art with an amazing style, and we want our art to feel the same. We feel that our drawings are boring and lack a certain style or feeling.
Overthinking
I think a lot of these kinds of thoughts come from lack of confidence in our art. It's just a lack of experience and understanding. So spend a lot of time thinking about style - as if it's something we can just think into existence.
Or maybe instead of just doing what comes natural to us, we try to emulate others and copy their styles because we think we want our art to look that way. We just want a style for ourselves too.
Discover from Doing
But from my experience, it very rarely happens this way. We can't just think a style into existence. That's very rare. Most styles came about from experimentation over many years. They evolved over time.
Most artists that we admire and get inspired by, they've been creating art or drawing for over 20 years. How long have you been drawing? 1 month? 1 year? Maybe 2 years?
And at these points in our journey, we expect to have the same level of quality or style as someone who's been doing it 10 times longer than us. This is why we can't compare ourselves to others.
Steal Like an Artist
We must just focus on ourselves and our own art. Don't get me wrong though, we should look to others for some kind of inspiration because it's this inspiration which will feed our art.
We can take small things from a bunch of artists over time and create something original. This is really what most artists do. It's just that a lot of the time, these things are done subconsciously.
There's been a few times where I've done watercolor paintings, just naturally painting them the way I would and people will comment telling me "parts of it look like a Sargent painting".
Well, one of my main inspirations is John Singer Sargent, but I rarely ever look at his work anymore. But it's in my brain somewhere. And sometimes, the way I naturally paint is influenced by what I've seen and liked.
Experiments I’ve Tried
So when it comes to experimenting with our drawings, there's many things we can do. With my own drawings, I started out with graphite on white paper and I experimented with different kinds of subjects over the years. I did portraits, trees, landscapes, architecture, and my cat. I tried many things to see what I liked to draw the most.
Eventually I somehow got into wanting to try toned paper and used white charcoal as well. I really loved the effect of the toned paper so I kept using it a lot. For many years, I mainly used toned paper sketchbooks and kept experimenting with different subjects. I even tried using some markers on the paper as well.
Unthinkable Outcomes
Last year, I began trying pen and ink on these toned papers and realized that I enjoyed the results way more than graphite. This experimentation led me to a discovery that I would've never thought of happening. I never thought I would like to do pen and ink.
If I sat there all day thinking about my style or what materials I would love to use all the time, pen and ink wouldn't have been on my mind at all.
But since I actually did something, rather than just thinking about it all day, I made a huge discovery that changed the course of my art.
Try New & Old Things
And now this year, after doing 1 and a half sketchbooks of pen & ink drawings on toned paper, I decided to start adding splashes of watercolor paint into these drawings as well.
In the past, I played around a bit with prismacolor markers for color but never really liked the effect that much or the level of control I had with them.
Through experimentation, I also discovered what I didn't like as much as well. This is why experimenting with your art, even if just in a small way like trying pen & ink instead of pencils, can be such an important aspect of "finding your style" or figuring out where you want to take your art.
New Possibilities
Sometimes, it's the art that tells you where to go. So the ways we can experiment are by gathering inspiration from others we admire, forgetting about them in a way, and just letting our creativity steer the ship.
We can try new materials like pens or toned papers. We can try new techniques like shading using only vertical hatching (as I do in much of my pen and ink drawings).
We can try adding a thick outline around our drawing or experimenting with different line thicknesses.
We can even merge paint with our drawings or use some kind of color to add a small touch of life into the drawing.
Go with Your Gut
It's best to do what feels natural to us and just let our intuition guide us. Use materials or colors that you're naturally drawn to. Draw the subjects you like.
But also, don't be afraid to experiment and maybe try something new. Try something again that you didn't like in the past - maybe you will like it now or use it in a different way.
Be open to discovering new possibilities for your drawings and art.
What are some ways that you've experimented with your art? What did you like or dislike?
