Adam Here,
The were many moments where style clicked for me momentarily before going into a state of flux, I’m going to recount a few.
One day I heard a voice in my head or had a very strong thought. And it said…
“You need a style!”
And for some reason I just agreed.
I had been working in different styles for more than 35 years, and it was spreading me thin, because I was finally thinking of getting work as an illustrator, it seemed to me that this was an important step.
I kind of instinctively knew you can’t pick a style the way you pick a pair of shoes.
And I knew the reason I needed a style was to build a recognisable body of work.
To that end I gave myself two constraints.
I would only work with a fix set of materials and colours. The rule was black and yellow, black for lines and shadow and yellow as a tone.
That was my shortcut to instant style, I made 100 pieces in that style.
And my first book deal came from 2 years later out of the blue for someone looking for that style.
My second encounter with perfect style was writing an artist statement.
It was a short thing, in fact here it is…
“I make witty and energetic illustrations with a comic sensibility”
That line became a compass, the line was born out of a piece of work I made that I liked, and so I tried to describe what I liked about it in active tense. This time I was giving it a different kind of constraint, focusing on voice rather than physical limitations.
My third encounter with style, was when Lilla Rogers and Zoe Tucker picked up my work for a review and they told me what was working and what wasn’t working.
I made a decision that I would differ to their taste.
The reason was, I knew style was an evolving thing that never stayed the same. But for my immediate purposes of getting published as an illustrator, the duo had decades of experience more than me, and rather than try to accumulate that level of taste myself trusting their taste, would at least get me hired/agented by them
I wasn’t compromising who I was, but I was limiting myself, so I could build faster.
In the next Artgym Workout
(Let’s start calling them workouts rather than workshops)
In the next Artgym Workout Gym workout, And Want to give you - your own fresh encounter with style. We’re going to be drawing a subject in two styles, and I don’t know if we’ve shared the subject yet, but it’s something that is going to be fun to draw but also so useful for a variety of purposes from personal to professional.
In the workshop we will be asking and answering all the style questions. Adam and Katie sometimes agree and at other times have differing views and questions about style, and this session is going to be packed full of nuggets while we discuss these views as we draw.
Got a question about style? Leave a comment.
We will specifically be drawing in your current style and one ‘other style’.
And it will be a chance for you to build more clarity and confidence around your own style, but it’s also a time to play and have fun in good company.
You can share your work at the end if you like or just learn from others sharing, you’re going to love it.
If you’re thinking — Urgh another thing to sign up for, I get it and sometimes it can feel like that.
Here are some other wast to think about about it.
It’s drawing with friends
It’s getting coached every step of the way
It’s healthy recreation and you’re going to leave with a big smile and lots of work to show for it.
It’s picking up the exact skills that Katie and Adam are practicing themsleves
It’s committing to specific times to actually practice with accountability rather than accumulating ‘knowledge’
Most people who join Artgym say they’ve never filled as many pages in their sketchbooks or on lose pages of tracing paper and other materials as they do when they are in an Artgym workout.
Try it for a month at $25, Or if you pay annually it’s only $10 bucks a month. Both options include 12 Replays, and there’s an option to get even more if you want to get ALL the workouts.
Here are a few more Reasons to enroll for Artgym:
Maybe you have a lot of information when what you really need is a coach
Maybe you lack a regular practice that helps you grow
Maybe you don’t have a space or reason to try new techniques and approaches
Maybe you feel stuck and not growing
Maybe you have unanswered questions about making art
Maybe you don’t have anyone to give you helpful feedback about your art
Maybe you have no one to encourage you to make art
Maybe you want your art to be looser and more playful
Maybe you don’t know what your style is
Art Gym isn’t a course with a backlog and a guilt spiral. It’s one live session a month, you show up, you draw, you leave better. No homework. No catching up. The only thing you miss by not coming is the conversation you could have had.
Katie has taught for more than a decade and Adam has been designing educational content for almost that long. And we work to pack as much into every workout, but delivery it in a light casual way, where you learn by doing and from catching little nuggets of conversation, rather than a lecture.
There is nothing like it in terms of the experience, or the outcome.
If you follow along you will leave every single session with some version of ‘Wow, I did that!?’
Sign up so you can join us for the next one and have an encounter with your style, it’s a cozy non judgemental, safe environment for you to grow.
Enroll now and we’ll see you on the 21st of April for your Encounter with Style!
Adam & Katie
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