• Analyzing Style - watercolor and ink trillium
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    Analyzing Style

      Analyzing Style Earlier in the week, I posted my promised verbal style project, Your Style in Letters. If you didn’t see it, you can check it out here. The visual style project using Trillium is here. I will refer them below. Now that you’ve spent a little time looking at, thinking about, and playing with style, take a little time to think through what you learned about yourself and your art. Jot it down so you can refer back to it later to see how you change and grow … and to see how it affects your art. Pieces of Learning I’ll share a little about what I am…

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    Your Style in Letters

    Your Style in Letters I love to make letters stretch beyond verbal meanings into visual impact. In this project, I’ll show you how I incorporate style and personality into a name, my name. As you work through the project, it will impact you most if you use your name and process your own style and personality. Let’s get that left side of your brain mingling with the right side. 1. I like to think before I ink, or thINk, so I started this project with a mind map. I wrote down any word that came to mind that describes me or my style. I jotted my mind map in a…

  • Barriers to Finding Your Style - Creative Play
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    Six Barriers to Finding Your Style, Your Voice, Yourself

    Six Barriers to Finding Your Style, Your Voice, Yourself When I sat down to think about style and how it affects my life, I couldn’t stop thinking about the barriers that have influenced my search. For many years, these obstacles kept me from pursuing things I enjoyed, but now I realize that only I lose out on life when I don’t do what I enjoy. And really … that enjoyment flows over into the lives of those around me too. When I’m content, they can tell. I’m much more pleasant company. Here are several of the barriers I’ve encountered. Maybe some of them will resonate with you and help you…

  • Finding Your Style Visual Project
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    Finding Your Style – Trillium Study

    Trillium Style Study You can follow along with my project exactly, if you want to, but I encourage you to step into your own exploration. If you mimic my project, you will still learn techniques and looks to add to your exploration, but you will stimulate your own creativity less along the way. Because exploration is a process, neither method is right or wrong, just learn from what you do. And Make It Yours when the time is right. 1. Gather pieces of your style, make a collage if you like. The pieces can be pictures, colors, works from your favorite artists, stories, movies, and anything else that you feel…

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    Journey Toward Finding Your Style

    Journey Toward Finding Your Style  (Part two of our visual style project is at the bottom) The way I see it, discovering your style compares to a slow simmering pot of chili, an aging wine or cheese (yum! I’m getting hungry), a tree growing or a marathon. Style takes time, even gets better as time passes. If you’re looking for a sprint to the finish, a 10-minute weeknight meal, or a fast food drive through, this isn’t it. Style doesn’t materialize in an instant or overnight. It takes time (the no pressure kind of time), self-discovery, the application of it, and mistakes (the kind that push you to try again).…

  • Developing Your Style Puzzle
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    Developing Your Style

      Developing Your Style This month, I’m investing in exploring and developing style. Writers call it voice. It’s the part of what you create that identifies it as your work. Take handwriting for an example. We all write differently, and when people we know see our handwriting, they know it’s ours before they read who signed the letter. Developing your style can feel daunting. Defining style and voice in creative works seems impossible at times. Writers, artists, and designers all wrestle with the concept in their work. It’s easy to identify style in someone else, but how do you find it in your own work? Do you need to have…