Find Your Art Style : Media

Media play an important role in establishing your art style. Media are as various as artists are, and it is also possible to combine some of them to create a unique style. However, art materials can sometimes be costly.

At the beginning of their art career, many artists spend fortunes on art supplies, and most of these supplies won’t be used more than once… Finding your artist’s personality can help you start your artistic journey with serenity.

What kind of artist are you?

Noble and Patient

Even if watercolor, acrylics and mixed media become more and more popular on the art scene, oils are still considered the most valuable medium by collectors and galleries. In effect, oil paints create great quality and long-lasting artworks that can pass through time without being altered. Once they are dry, oils can also be painted over, allowing corrections and additions.

However, you must know that oils take very long to dry between applications. Depending on a layer’s thickness, the drying process can take days, even weeks. The oil artist must plan carefully to be able to meet deadlines.

Lively and Versatile

If you need your medium to follow your creative workflow, and to offer you a variety of textures and substrates, go for acrylics. Acrylic paints are offered in a wide range of formats and prices, and they dry much faster than their oil cousins, without ever rushing your painting rhythm.

Acrylics can also be applied on many different substrates (canvas, wood, paper, and others) using every technique your imagination can conceive. Whether you prefer to work with a brush as fine as a hair, or throw buckets of color on giant canvasses, acrylics will definitely meet your needs.

Nomad and Dreamer

Watercolor needs very few supplies and space. You can paint at the park, at the café, or on a corner of the kitchen table. Watercolor is sold in tubes or pains (dry) and can be carried easily in a closable pan. Add a brush, a paper block, and a water bottle and you’ll have everything you need to create wonderful artworks wherever you are.

It is however essential to consider some technical aspects before throwing yourself into watercolor. The quality of the watercolor supplies (paint and paper) has a huge impact on the final aspect and lifespan of your artwork. If you plan to develop your style with watercolor, you’ll have to invest in strongly pigmented paints and highly absorbent paper.

You must also know that watercolor’s transparency and solubility that reactivates the paint with every water addition make it almost impossible to correct “mistakes” once they are done. Moreover, watercolor has its own will. Because this medium is very fluid, it is difficult to predict how the paint will behave when you apply it on the paper. But, if you have faith, watercolor can surprise you with unexpected effects that will add interest to your artwork. Watercolor is the ideal medium for artists who love to dream while watching their creation come to life before their eyes.

Adventurous and Authentic

Mixed media are perfect for artists who seek new experiences or can’t be limited by the physical properties of their favorite medium. Our time tends to burst bounds and conventions, and the art world leads the way.

It is possible to mix media and substrates to obtain dazzling and flamboyant, or extremely precise styles. The addition of color pencil or acrylic over a watercolor work can sharpen certain areas to create a realistic effect. You can also add material that aren’t usually used in arts, like fabric, metals, sand, etc. to develop unique textures.

So, what is your artistic personality?

Artists are in constant evolution, and it is absolutely normal to explore different media. However, when you begin your artistic journey, it can be difficult to find your style if you’ve never taken the time to think about how you want to create. Whichever path you choose musts match your artistic personality to help you develop your style smoothly.

I wish you happy art adventures, creatives!

Love,

Isabelle