As soon as one starts to paint, everyone hears that developing your own style is important.  Paintings can be recognized as belonging to a certain artist from across the room because of their style.  Galleries want artists that have a style that is evolved and can be repeated and the artist wants to be able to paint in a method that is both individual, distinguishable, and mature. 

Now I'll give away the easy answer.  Developing a style is as simple as picking up a brush and starting to paint.  Everything that you do will affect how you paint including with whom you paint, with what type of paint you use, where you paint, your choice of subject, with whom you study and your personality.  Your style is as individual as you are and will be modified as you move through your art career.  You can't help but develop your own "mark making."

I have been accused of changing styles faster than I change my wardrobe and I actually agree.  (I’ve been wearing the same jeans for the last 14 years, the same skirt for 20 and I can remember putting my well loved 20+ year old boots outside of someone’s door to an astonished comment) ... but I digress.

I don’t think that one develops a style consciously. It happens naturally with work.  This also means that style will change over time. There will be threads that will continue throughout, but our experience changes and this will slowly creep into our work.

Throughout my art career, I have been attracted to bold colors, certain type of brush marks, patterns and my own sense of design.  It hasn't mattered what subject matter or paint medium I have explored.

Quite suddenly and unexpectedly in 2006, I changed medium from watercolor to acrylic, so decided that I would experiment with a completely foreign subject matter … non objective abstract.  I had a showing of these paintings in the local hospital and some time afterward a woman came up to me and said she had known immediately that these were my paintings!  I was astonished.  “How did you know?” I asked.  She replied, “Your color choices are the same and it just felt like your work.”

Your style unfolds with each painting you do.  What excited you about the painting you just finished will affect the one that you work on next.  You will try and repeat this excitement in the next painting until something else intrigues you. 

So the easy way to develop style is to find the time to paint, put in the hours, relax and let the style emerge.  Don't worry about it. 

I thought you might be interested in some of my style changes through imagery.  I have not noted all of the changes as I wanted to keep this email somewhat brief! I've taken an older work and compared it to a newer one to highlight that the "style" is emerging, but also evident throughout.

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To learn more about Carolee Clark, check out her fantastic art blog and her guest blog article on what she does with paintings that don't sell here on the Creative Catalyst Productions blog.