ARE ART STYLE AND CREATIVITY RELATED?
An art style is the ‘how to’ of art, the technique. It’s the ‘look and feel’ created by an artist when they combine their technical skills with their choices of ‘visual elements’ like line, colour, texture, shape, form, light and shade. While art style is all about the ‘how to’, creativity is about the ‘what’ and the ‘why’. ‘What do I want to say’ and ‘Why do I want to say it?’ The highly creative artist will combine the ‘what’, ‘why’ and ‘how to’ and create new artworks that align with their lifestyle, personality and emotional status.
The role that style plays in producing a piece of art depends on how creative the artist is. For a not-so-creative artist, having an art style is everything! This is because they are forced to rely solely on their personalised art style to provide a sense of originality to their artwork, otherwise it would look like a straight copy of another artist’s work. On the other hand, if the artist is highly creative, art style will still play an important role, however creativity becomes the ‘Actor and Director’ on the art stage, with both style and creativity working together as one creative element.
Art style and creativity both originate from the same place somewhere deep inside, but style becomes the visual fingerprint of an artwork, whilst creativity remains the underlying driving force and generator of ideas. A highly creative artist will always engage their art style to enhance their new creation, whereas a not-so-creative artist may simply choose an art style ‘off the shelf’ with no need to be be creative at all. Art style is a technical skill that can be learned or copied.
Having a personalised art style means I’ve practiced and experimented a heck of a lot with all my favourite designs, techniques and materials and have become really good at producing artwork with that certain look and feel that I love. I love it for very personal reasons; it feels just right for me, as if it’s in sync with my personality; it’s the look I want to identify with as an artist; it inspires me to paint more; it resonates deep inside me and sparks emotions that I want to express. If I didn’t have this personalised art style, I’d be constantly jumping around from one artist’s style to another and would miss the opportunity to connect deeply with my art in an authentic and enjoyable way.
Our personalised art style is not set in stone, it’s ‘a living thing’ that continues to evolve over time just like we do as humans. It’s just as individual as our handwriting and taste in food and clothing. It will never become totally original or unique to us simply because it’s made up of things we learned when studying other artists’ works in galleries, workshops, books, art schools, online videos etc. We start with what we’ve learnt and it evolves from there. For example, I may love painting abstracts but as time goes by I realize that even though I love abstract work there are some aspects of it that I’m not so keen on, so I intentionally exclude those aspects from my future abstract works. Then, maybe I start to feel I’d like to add a hint of local scenery, or some shapes and colours that I’ve seen on my river walks. Gradually I modify and develop a style in ways that resonate with my unique tastes. This is when my own personalised style begins to shine through and my paintings become more like me, instead of a copy of someone else. My art becomes more meaningful, enjoyable and maybe even recognisable.
This process of letting your art style evolve by itself may take years however you can intentionally speed up the process by focussing on four simple steps. I will explain these in my next article titled ‘Develop Your Art Style’.
Happy creating, Ron Clark
