On Influence & Finding One’s Line

I found my path as an artist unexpectedly, simply by drawing a little something every day and sharing it with the world. I had no plan, no defined style, no declared influences. I just drew, day after day, and eventually a style found me.

I didn’t go to art school, nor did I study art history, so it was quite an ohhhhh, that makes sense moment when I learned that most artists do, in fact, have influences - and that this is often how they learn. If you studied art, this is likely obvious. For me, it was rather revelatory.

As I kept drawing, people began to say my work resembled this illustrator or that one -names I didn’t yet know. When I finally explored those references, an entirely new world revealed itself.

Studying those who came before you is not imitation; it is education. It sharpens your eye and strengthens your work. While I’m grateful I began somewhat unaware of this, I am equally grateful for the education that followed.

Over the years, I’ve spent countless hours researching, trying to better understand my own line work and how I might refine it. After finding my footing, I began to study artists whose work resonated with the direction I felt my own was heading.

For a period, my work explored the abstract, and I found myself drawn to the lines of Jean Cocteau, Matisse, and Picasso.

As the years have gone on, my work has continued to evolve. While some of those gestural, abstract faces remain, I find myself increasingly drawn to character.

Perhaps this was inevitable. I grew up in New York City, spent years working in and performing improv comedy, and have lived in a variety of places - New York, Los Angeles, Miami, and now Michigan - observing an endless cast of personalities along the way. Life as a working artist and mother of two young boys has only deepened that instinct to observe closely.

While many things have changed over the past ten-plus years - moving cities, becoming a mother- one thing has remained constant: my practice of learning.

For my own work, that learning has taken on many forms. Over time, I began seeking out the artists behind the lines that captivated me. One discovery led to another- a book here, a drawing there…until a small library of influences began to form. I’ve come to think of certain artists as professors of character - guides not only in line, but in tone and voice.

What fascinated me most was not simply the finished illustrations, but the decisions within them: the way a hand is simplified, the tilt of a figure, the rhythm of a line.

You study these things closely. You borrow a gesture here, an approach there. Then you practice...over and over again. And somewhere in that repetition, something remarkable happens: the borrowed pieces begin to rearrange themselves into something distinctly your own.

Sometimes that practice is quite literal. I’ll fill a page with nothing but hands, or spend an afternoon drawing feet- studying how a single line can suggest weight, posture, or personality. These small exercises aren’t necessarily meant to become finished works; they are simply a way of learning the language of a line.

Studying other artists is not about adopting their entire body of work, but about noticing the pieces that resonate with you and the ones that don’t. Over time, you begin to understand what elements you want to carry forward in your own voice.

I study how Ronald Searle draws feet, how Hilary Knight sketches a hand or a chair, the dry absurdity of Edward Gorey’s words, and the confidence in Al Hirschfeld’s line. And yet, when I put pen to paper, what emerges still feels innately my own.

Influence does not just teach you how to draw; it teaches you what you are drawn to. Over time, those instincts sharpen into taste, and taste begins to define your voice.

(below are a few recent drawings from my sketchbook:)

In the beginning, style found me. Now, I play a more active role in shaping where it goes.

That ongoing discovery is one of the great joys of making things.

And it still begins the same way it always has: pen to paper.

I’d love to know- whose work, whether art, music, or writing, has shaped the way you see the world?

Curiously Yours,

Carly