How to find your style by looking at childhood influences

When I was five years old, I told my parents ‘I want to be an illustrator of children’s books’. (I still do, one day!) I loved looking at pictures as much as I love drawing them, especially in books. Even as a young child I somehow knew that looking at picture books was helping me to be a better artist.

I took a Skillshare class recently that helped to map out my childhood influences. The idea behind looking at things you liked as a child is that it can help you identify some of your earliest influences in your life. Essentially everyone is a mash-up of what we choose to let into our lives. The shows we watch, the books we read and the music we listen to all influence our taste and our interests.

“We are shaped and fashioned by what we love” – Goethe.

Since starting this blog, I have established myself as an artist in my own terms and have settled on my chosen medium – colour pencil - but I’m still looking for that key ingredient that will give me my voice as an artist – my style. Every artist hungers for the style that is uniquely theirs. If you're looking for direction and you own style, consider the following exercise. 

Spend some time jotting down all your favourite movies, tv shows and books from when you were a kid (If you're a musician, then songs and artists are more relevant). List as many as you want to start with but then try to whittle it down to under 10, and then rank them in order of most liked/influential to the least. Then compile images of each one to help you make visual comparison between each one. I had plenty on my list of things I liked, but settled on the ones that I really liked for their and stylistic qualities. This is what I came up with:

First on the list is Grahame Base. All of his books are filled with beautiful, rich illustrations, but the one I admired most was Anamalia. I loved this book for its complexity, realism and use of colored pencil. And it’s beautiful A-Z of animals! I’m pretty sure it was the seed to my illustration dream.

Natural landscapes feature highly in my influence map. My favorite scene in the Lion King is when Simba heads into the lush jungle and the scenery becomes green and abundant. Similarly, in The Secret Garden, an old, neglected garden is uncovered by children and they work to restore it to its former glory. I watched that movie every school holidays at my grandparent’s house. It was eye-candy to me. Captain Planet (and another cartoon “Widget the World Watcher”) had a profound impact on me because they were environmentalist shows, depicting themes such as deforestation and pollution of the environment. Although much of an episode would have me upset at the eco-villains, I always enjoyed the happy ending when the Planeteers would restore balance and the Earth would be beautiful once again.  

Animals are the other main influence. One of my prized possessions from my childhood is the box set of Beatrix Potter’s Peter Rabbit series. They were soft, sweet and simple illustrations that felt very special and soothing to me. Disney’s Fantasia was a magical feast for the eyes, with dancing toadstools, luminous fairies and hippos in tutus. Babar was another favourite in our household, again for its loveable animal characters and nature scenes.

I have gained a great deal from this exercise. It appears I was drawn to images that were natural, rich, colorful and textured. The more realistic the better, showing depth and attention to detail. What is even more helpful is to look for the stuff that’s left out. There are no urban images, and very few humans (except my beloved Planeteers, of course). I haven’t included any scrawly, scribbly drawings or overly simplified characters. I dismissed images that were too flat, bold or cartoony.

Artistic style is something that can only develop over time through doing lots of work, but for now this has given me a glimpse as to what I might be working towards.

If you’re looking for your artistic niche, why not try this exercise? I’m sure you’ll remember all sorts of things from your childhood that you’d long forgotten about – I did! If something from your childhood has influenced what your doing now (artistic or otherwise) I would love to hear about it in the comments.

Until next time,

Erin