How to find your own style?

Short answer: be yourself, and your style will find you.

Now, expanding on the idea a little further… we are all different people, right? Each of us has our own individual way of thinking and doing things. And why is that? Well, imagine that you take all the people and all the things that have ever happened in your life and put them in a blender: the result is… yes, YOU! The people and events that have had the biggest impact on you would be the ingredients in greater proportion, but each little experience you have had has contributed, in some way, to making you who you are. You, your way of being, your individuality, your personality - whatever you want to call it - is, in fact, a heterogeneous, multi-phasic and bittersweet mix of everything that influences or has influenced you as a human being in some way: your parents, family, friends, partners, teachers, profiles you follow, posts you like, books you read, games you play, what you eat, the movies you watch, the places you visit, everything you “consume”. All of this, of course, added to other biological factors, such as your genetics… but, in short, this is what makes each human being a different person: each one of us is living a different life, with different experiences and learnings.

If you identify with the idea that you are an individual and unique human being, that no one is exactly like you, that no one does things exactly the same way you do… then you will probably agree if I say that you already have your own “style as a person”, hehe.

And if you are an artist, your visual style, your “artistic identity” is nothing more than your “personal style” materialized in the form of your art. More specifically, it is the mix of experiences you have with life and with the drawings you produce, the courses you take, the works of other artists you observe.

Your style is not something that needs to be “achieved”, it already exists with you at this moment. It is a matter of letting it appear and flow.

But the most incredible thing is: you are still living, right? This means that your magic blender is on and working, and each new experience is another ingredient that is being added to your particular mix. The new ingredients can be diluted in the mix or significantly transform the color, the flavor, the texture. In other words, no human being is “fixed”, we are all in constant transformation. Life is movement.

Thus, as you transform as a human being, your artistic style transforms along with you in some way. And that's a good sign - who in their right mind would choose not to evolve, to remain stuck in outdated notions? The world turns, the universe expands, and it is our individual transformations that allow us to better adapt to all of this. Each technique you perfect, artist you discover, art you produce is a new ingredient in your blend.

If you think you don't have your own style or that you haven't found it yet, maybe your “artistic mix” needs a larger quantity of ingredients? Or a greater variety? A greater intensity of a specific ingredient? A new ingredient? Or maybe you need to take the lid off the blender to see what's inside?

An artist's style is the set of visual forms that we see on paper or on the screen, but it is also the idea, the process, the way of thinking about the image and the message. It is the person behind the line, the way they are at that moment in space and time.

The rhyme was unintentional, I swear. :)