Hello 

Welcome to the FLOAT-YOUR-PIGMENT Newsletter #127, Style

I made it home on Sunday and am very happy to be home after a month of workshops, starting at Dillman's in Wisconsin, then to the Danube in Europe and ending at Cheap Joe's in North Carolina.
After waiting for 3 years for these 3 workshops it finally came and somehow when by so fast.
The best thing about these 3 workshops was the people I met. There were so many wonderful connections with artists and art admirers from so many places on this planet. The hard thing will be to keep in contact with everyone, but with the internet these days, it will make it a bit easier. 

Now that I am back I have so much catch up to do, if you are waiting for a response from me or have something I was going to do for you please give me just a little more time as I am in the middle of trying to get caught up with quite a few things and being back home I now have the next 2 months to catch up, thank you for being patient with me!

This weeks newsletter talks about style in your painting.

Yes to Class at the Civic Center Libertyville, Thursday Oct. 19th
Yes to Class at The Antioch Fine Arts Foundation, Thursday Oct. 19th

While traveling around the world the last 4 weeks I came across a lot of artwork and a lot of students who showed me a lot of their work. One thing I noticed about all this work I witnessed is how many different styles of watercolor there is in the world. 

When I talk style you are probably wondering what I am talking about. Style to me is the entire look of the painting. It is a combination of all the things you do to make the painting. It is the materials and the techniques you use along with the subject matter and your skill level that create your style.

Style is something that you develop through creating lots of artwork, it isn't something that you can say you want to change like you would change the kind of paper or paint you are using.

Style is like a personality, it isn't something you can change overnight. Lets say you are a neat freak then it is a good guess to say that your painting style will be very clean and precise. So if a neat freak person wanted to paint very loosely it would be something that would be very hard for that person to do. It could be accomplished but would take a great deal of work to change that person style, like it is very hard to change one personality.

I get many students that see other students works and say I would love to paint in that style and I unfortunately have to tell those students that they will not be able to paint in that style of the other student because they are not that other student. You can learn the technique that other student is using but there are so many other things besides technique when it come to creating a work of art.

Learn to be yourself and it is okay to compare your works to others but don't get too caught up in trying to paint like someone else. Work hard on painting a lot and trying all kinds of materials and techniques along with different types of subject matter. Then by working a lot you will be developing your own unique style and this happens and you usually don't even realize it is happening. 

Style happens on its own by you creating a lot of work, so my suggestion to you is do a lot or work!

David

Below I have posted a lot of different styles of watercolors by artists works that I have seen in the last 4 weeks

The painting above is a watercolor I bought while I was in Salzburg from an artist named Cheng

The work above is by Joe Miller of Cheap Joe's

Ted Nuttull a very different type of portrait style

Rose Edin uses many different materials to create her style

Linda Kemp truly has a style of her own and is constantly growing into other styles.

Skip Lawrence has grown his style to a more abstract style

If you didn't get a chance to sign up for my workshop this fall in North Carolina at Cheap Joe's
I will be back to North Carolina next April to the Kanuga Watermedia Workshop