Establishing your style
Beginners often ask "How do I develop my own style?" There is no easy answer to that question as we are all influenced by the culture in which we live. All art is essentially derivative, but even if you were to deliberately copy the Dutch painter Vermeer, or the classic British watercolour artist John Sell Cotman, you would eventually find differences creeping in. In an age of computers, the internet, television, digital cameras and picture phones, our approach to producing art is different. Our sense of time and space is different.
Artists of my generation came of age during the Second World War, and of course art was used to further the war effort. A recent exhibition of propaganda posters at the National War Muesum in Ottawa brought that home to me. It also reminded me that our art school was asked to produce some posters for a War Bond drive, and we were eager to help with the war effort. Alas, none of my efforts survived.
Looking at the propaganda posters of the 1940s reminded me how heavily we were influenced by pre-war illustrative art. I dug out a favourite book of mine "Happy Holidays - The Golden Age of Railway Posters", and realized all over again how much those posters influenced my own developing style in those far off days.
Prior to the Second World War there was no television in wide use, and newspapers carried little colour except in rotogravure sections. Magazine colour was primitive compared to today, and even colour photography was restricted to professionals. Outdoor advertising and railway posters were one powerful source of graphic influence.
The new Medicis
Railways in those days were the chief method of transportation, especially in Great Britain, where I grew up. The giant transportation companies were the modern-day equivalent of the Medicis; patrons of the arts, who commissioned posters and displays to sell their services. The London Underground, for example, created its own type-face and started a whole new approach to industrial design.
The posters were designed to suit the printing or silk-screen technology available at the time of course, and thus the style developed to match those needs. Although individual artists created differing posters, the general style was pleasingly realistic. All advertising of this sort ceased at the outbreak of the Second World War, and railways were required to restrict travel with posters asking "Is your journey really necessary?"
Copying as an influence
Your developing style will be influenced by artists you admire, and there's nothing wrong with copying other artists in your early days. In fact many art school students have to study classic works of art to round out their education. I copied Vermeer's "The Milkmaid" as a class assignment, deliberately using the same techniques used in his day.
Every time you begin a drawing or painting, you have to decide how you will proceed. That initial decision is the first step in developing your style. You cannot paint without being influenced by someone, even if it's your first art instructor or a "How To" book. The more you paint the more experienced you become, and the more you will slowly drift away from your original source and impart your own style on what you do.
Those railway posters look quaintly old-fashioned now of course, but for my generation they were a powerful influence as we struggled to put our own stamp on what we did. Your style will be unique to you, and it will be influenced by things which matter to you. The culture around you will determine your approach. You may not choose your style - it may choose you.
