An Artivist’s Guide to Uncover Your Artistic Style and Voice: Part 3. Aesthetic
This is the third part in this mini-series about how to uncover your artistic style and voice as an artivist making artivism for social change. In this third part, we’re jumping into some creative exercises that will help you identify your artistic aesthetic.
Usually, aesthetic is reserved for the visual media. However, what I teach in this post will also benefit you if you, for example, write stories or lyrics. In the literary field, you can look at aesthetics as your descriptions, metaphors, and other imagery rather than the actual colors, marks, or forms used in visual media.
Exploring your aesthetic is a fun and important part of any creative’s journey. It can help you define your unique style, which can give your art a recognizable identity. It’s almost like your personal trademark or artistic fingerprint, which makes your work recognizable as yours.
So, let’s dive into what I mean by your aesthetic and why it’s important to explore and identify.
Your Aesthetic
What is an Aesthetic?
Your aesthetic is essentially the visual language, vibe, and emotional tone that runs through your work.
Within a visual medium, it can be the unique combination of colors, forms, textures, symbols, and the overall mood that you create in your work.
Within the written word, it can be your descriptions, symbols, and other forms of imagery you choose to include in your work.
A personal aesthetic is basically the essence of your creative identity, which is shaped by your influences, what you find beautiful, your values, experiences, and interests, to name a few things. Again, think of it as your personal artistic fingerprint.
Why is an Aesthetic Important?
One of the reasons it’s important to explore and identify a personal aesthetic is that:
It gives your work a creative direction and cohesion. This is especially important if you work on a series or a collection where you want a certain cohesion (e.g., a series of pieces that bring awareness to one and the same cause or social issue/injustice).
Also, if you’re a multidisciplinary creative, having a clear aesthetic makes it easier for your audience to identify your work regardless of what you create.
And, it can also help you with your branding as you put your work out into the public eye.
Now, let’s move on to some creative exercises that will help you explore your own aesthetic. And, as usual, only do the exercises that resonate with you and that you feel called to do, and then leave the rest for now.
Identify Your Aesthetic
The Things that Stand Out to You
Before you can fully understand and/or visualize your aesthetic, you need to acknowledge the things you find beautiful, the things that move you, and the things that pique your interest.
The fastest and easiest way to do this is to create a secret board on Pinterest and pin every image that stands out to you onto that board. It can include:
All the elements of art (for example, color, line, form, light, texture, contrast, composition, etc.)
Animals
Landscapes/cityscapes/seascapes
Architecture
Design
Portraits
Food and drinks
Etc.
A fun way to go about this is to try and include all the senses:
What do you find beautiful to look at?
What do you enjoy listening to?
What smells do you like?
What do you love to eat and drink?
What textures do you like to touch?
Then, when you have around 40-50, or more, images on that board, you can start looking for patterns and commonalities.
Map of Influences
Another fun way to explore your aesthetic is to dive deeper into the art that influences and inspires you and your work. We’ll be doing that by collecting images to create a map of influences, which you will reflect on when you’re done.
Start by collecting images. Examples of what images to collect:
Artists: Who do you admire? Which artists have influenced you? This can include painters, sculptors, musicians, photographers, fashion designers, filmmakers, graphic designers, and more.
Movements: Are there specific art movements or trends that you resonate with or that you find captivating/beautiful? This could be movements and trends in different artistic disciplines.
Colors and shapes: Do you find yourself drawn to specific color palettes or shapes? What colors and shapes seem to repeat in your work?
Surroundings: Is there a particular landscape, cultural reference, or environment that inspires you? How about architectural features, weather conditions, and smells?
Personal experiences: What life experiences or emotions do you often channel into your creative work? What life experiences or emotions do you want to channel into your creative work?
Personal symbols: What were the symbols you discovered in the previous post in this mini-series? Did any of them pique your interest? Would you like to incorporate them into your work?
Pick out your favorite images and the ones that resonate the most with you. Paste them into a sketchbook, on a separate piece of paper, or make a digital map with them. The goal is to build a map of references and inspirations that contribute to your artistic style.
Reflect on the map you’ve made:
What is it that you’re so drawn to when it comes to each image? What about them piques your interest and curiosity?
Look for patterns. What do these influences have in common?
Are there any common color schemes, vibes, emotions, motifs, marks, etc.?
What about them would you love to add to your own work?
When you’re done, you have a map of influences that you can combine in your own work. The more sources you have, the better, because combining ideas from different sources in your own work will help you avoid the risk of copying the works you love.
Define Key Elements of Your Aesthetic
In the third exercise, we will look at your work and define key elements of your aesthetic. Looking closely at the work you’ve already created can give you insight into what you naturally gravitate toward, even if you haven't consciously defined it yet.
By looking at your own work, you can begin to distill the key elements of your personal aesthetic. These elements are the building blocks of your unique style.
I would recommend that you use this exercise for one discipline at a time if you create work in several disciplines. Then, if you’ve chosen to do this exercise with more than one discipline, you can compare the results with each other and look for similar patterns, if that feels like something you would want to do.
But, for now, select some of your most recent work, perhaps it’s three books, five poems, ten paintings, or something else. Then look for the bigger recurring patterns, themes, and imagery, as well as the smaller details you use. You can ask yourself:
What are the dominant themes in your work? How do you depict those themes?
Are there specific symbols or imagery that appear in your work?
What are the dominant colors and textures in your work? How are you using them?
Do you prefer warm or cool tones?
Do you prefer bold and saturated colors or more muted and desaturated ones?
Do you prefer smooth and glossy surfaces, rough and textured ones, or something in between?
What kind of shapes and forms do you use?
Do you use geometric shapes, organic forms, or a combination of both?
Is your work more representational or abstract?
What’s the dominant vibe or mood? How have you depicted and enhanced that mood?
What kind of themes have you used to enhance the mood?
What kind of colors have you used to enhance the mood?
What kind of textures have you used to enhance the mood?
What kind of words have you used to describe the mood?
What emotions does your work depict? How have you succeeded in depicting that?
What kind of themes have you used to enhance the emotions?
What kind of colors have you used to enhance the emotions?
What kind of textures have you used to enhance the emotions?
What kind of words have you used to enhance the emotions?
What media and techniques do you use the most?
By identifying these elements, you can start to create a clearer picture of your personal aesthetic.
Refine Your Aesthetic
Now that you have a better idea of your influences and what aesthetic your recent work has, the final exercise will help you refine your aesthetic.
This exercise builds upon the previous ones. However, you can do this one if you’ve done only one of the previous exercises as well.
The core of this exercise is basically to take what you’ve discovered in the previous exercises and reflect on how you can use that in your work going forward.
Journal on the following questions (and keep the subject matter of your artivism in mind as you reflect on this):
What are the themes you want to include in your work? How can you depict them?
What are some specific symbols or imagery you want to include in your work? (If you want to dive deeper into symbols, you can check out this post on personal symbols to discover yours.)
What are some colors and textures you want to include in your work?
What kind of shapes and forms do you want to use?
What kind of vibe or mood do you want your work to have? How can you depict and enhance that mood?
What kind of themes can you use to enhance the mood?
What kind of colors can you use to enhance the mood?
What kind of textures can you use to enhance the mood?
What kind of words and descriptions can you use to enhance the mood?
What emotions do you want your work to depict? How can you depict and enhance those emotions?
What kind of themes can you use to enhance the emotions?
What kind of colors can you use to enhance the emotions?
What kind of textures can you use to enhance the emotions?
What kind of words and descriptions can you use to enhance the emotions?
What media and techniques do you want to use in your work?
What type of subjects do you want to depict?
How can you make sure your aesthetic works well with your subject?
How can you make sure your aesthetic works well with the message you want to communicate?
Final Words
As you continue your creative and artistic journey, remember that your personal aesthetic is not static. It will continue to evolve. So come back to this post whenever you want to update yourself on your aesthetic or if you ever feel stuck or lost in your creative work.
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