If you read my analysis of the MAM Poll (September) Results: Preferred style of art then you'll know that I commented on whether I should have started with the question 'what is style?' Subsequently it occurred to me that it would be interesting to test out how we think we've arrived at our own individual styles of art.
So - seeing as how there's less than two weeks left in October I though I might have a quick poll for October to find out .............
What has influenced your style?
You may select multiple responses and can choose one or more of the following options:
- I'm influenced by my culture
- I'm Influenced by past art movements
- I'm influenced by teachers
- my preferred way of working
- my preferred way of making marks
- what's possible with the media I use
- finding the right genre for me
- You either have it or you don't!
- I've not yet got an individual style
Un atelier aux Batignolles (1870) by Henri Fantin-Latour (1836-1904) (a picture of Manet surrounded by his peers including Zola, Renoir, Monet and Bazille)
photo by Katherine Tyrrell
Do please feel free to comment on:
- what you think influences style and/or
- whether it's the same process for everybody and/or
- how you developed your style and/or
- whether your style has developed over time
- whether it's 'in the genetics' or a product of persistence and hard work
Deadline for responses: The poll closes early on 31st October. The analysis of results will be posted late the same day.
Links:
- MAM Poll (September 2009): What's your style of art? - post introducing the poll and providing suggested definitions about style
- The Making A Mark Poll - Resources for Artists Find out the results of the monthly Making A Mark Polls for artists. See the charts and read the main findings about topics of interest to artists.
Hi,
ReplyDeleteInteresting poll - I think you may have missed an important category though. I can't help thinking that whatever style I have is just the sum total of all the mistakes I make! Sometimes style isn't consciously arrived at - it's constructed of personal foibles, flaws in technique, the way you perceive colour and form - that sort of thing.
Well I guess it depends on which way you look at it.
ReplyDeleteYou make a very valid point. However I used "my preferred way of working" and/or "my preferred way of making marks" to be shorthand for the sort of processes you are talking about.
I know I never get it right first time and that the way I work and the way I make marks is a culmination of making mistakes and learning from them.
On that basis I'd say that 'learning from mistakes and happy accidents' leads to us having preferences.