How to Find YOUR Unique Artist Voice
A lot of people believe a unique voice is a “talent,” either you have it, or you don’t. But the fact is, a unique voice is something that is created. You can generate your unique voice on purpose. You will have to be disciplined to create enough art to establish your unique voice, but it doesn’t have to take twenty-five years to get there. Today, I’m offering you five tips that will help you sculpt and hone your unique voice in record time.
I’m bringing you these tips because I recently delivered an epic training on finding your unique voice in my art membership, Art Revenue Coaching. This is kind of the CliffsNotes!
Tip One: Look at what you like and take notes
What’s your general style? What stores do you like? What colors do you buy? What art makes you feel amazing? Start a Pinterest board with all the stuff you love. I easily have three thousand pins in my art-inspiration Pinterest board. It helps me see patterns like similar colors or subjects that emerge over time.
Tip Two: Narrow your creative output
I know, we want to make everything… but if you want to find your style, you need to pick a few themes and stick with them. Themes can be colors, subjects, moods or art mediums. When you commit to creating a series of work within a narrow scope, like watercolor paintings of tropical birds using iridescent paint, your natural style will have a chance to grow in quality and technical mastery. It will become more and more unique to you.
Tip Three: Find your flow
If making art in a disciplined theme sounds horrible to you, it’s likely you haven’t found your flow. Flow is an incredible brain state. It will have you painting tropical birds for hours, and you won’t even realize where the time has gone. I know you’ve experienced flow before. It’s when you are concentrating so hard on something that you lose track of time and space. It is incredibly rewarding and delicious to be in flow, and because it’s so FUN, it will be easy to lose yourself in your artistic practice once you ‘ve found it. I have a whole TEDx Talk on more details about flow. You can watch it HERE!
Tip Four: Copy a little, not a lot
Or, I should say, copy from a lot of sources and blend them together. A rich artist ecosystem has sources from artist peers, artists from history, cinema, music, cultural trends, nature, and even science. The more sources you have, the richer your references and unique voice will be. If you are heavily influenced by just one artist, you run the risk of plagiarism or stealing, and that’s dumb… don’t do that.
Do you know if your art is priced correctly? Do you want to ensure you’re getting paid fairly while providing value to your customers? If so, check out my completely free pricing guide, Pricing Your Art Made Easy. You can check it out HERE, or by clicking the button below!
