“Your Silver Shoes will carry you over the desert,” replied Glinda. “If you had known their power you could have gone back to your Aunt Em the very first day you came to this country.”
“But then I should not have had my wonderful brains!” cried the Scarecrow. “I might have passed my whole life in the farmer’s cornfield.”
“And I should not have had my lovely heart,” said the Tin Woodman. “I might have stood and rusted in the forest till the end of the world.”
“And I should have lived a coward forever,” declared the Lion, “and no beast in all the forest would have had a good word to say to me.”
“This is all true,” said Dorothy, “and I am glad I was of use to these good friends."
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard artists say that they just can’t “find their style” as though it is some kind of elusive treasure that they’ll one day unearth, fully formed for deployment, bestowing their efforts with increased clarity and legitimacy. It’s a romantic notion, reinforced by social media, education, and artistic folklore, but it’s also misleading in ways that can slow, or even derail, deliberate change.
The less-romantic reality is that, whatever your process or practice, you already have a style. You’ve had it from day one. This is not to say that claims of “I’m searching for my style” or “I don’t have any style” are without ANY merit. In fact, these statements are very important in that they often communicate a valid dissatisfaction that can be addressed productively. What most often mean with such statements is, “I don’t like the style my current practice yields.” In other words, their work isn’t reading as intended or distinguishing itself enough in the artist’s mind. So when someone says they’re “searching for a style,” what they usually mean is that they want to change, refine, or evolve parts of their process so the work reads differently.
So, how do we make efforts to improve style more deliberate? First, we need a clean definition of what style is—and is not.
What Style Is (and Isn’t)
Style is an emergent condition that arises from the integrated sum of an artist’s choices, habits, and interactions with their process at every level. Rather than being a predefined set of traits that an artist consciously applies, style is present at the onset as a result of decision-making across materials, techniques, compositions, and execution.
Historically, the term style has most often been used as a manner of distinction between artists, movements, or cultural periods. While this distinction can be useful in classification (e.g., Impressionist style, Baroque style, etc.), it is important to recognize that style is not an isolated attribute but rather the byproduct of an artist’s working methodology, perceptual biases, and material choices. As such, an artist’s style is not something they need to deliberately construct or impose but something that emerges through engagement with their process.
In contrast to technique, which refers to the specific skills and methods used to achieve a result, style emerges from the sum of an artist’s habitual choices and interactions with their process. Technique is a learned or applied approach to execution—such as brush handling, mark-making, or blending—while style is the recognizable, emergent condition that arises from the integration of these methods. For example, two artists may use the same wet-in-wet blending technique, but one may habitually apply broad, sweeping strokes while the other prefers short, stippled applications—each producing a distinct stylistic signature.
Style is also distinct from aesthetic preferences, which are a set of biases—both inherent and developed—toward visual qualities like color palettes, subject matter, or compositional tendencies. For instance, an artist may be drawn to high-contrast, dramatic lighting (aesthetic preference), but the ‘whole’ of how they choose to communicate or realize will contribute to their style. While an artist can deliberately refine or cultivate certain aspects of their efforts that can direct their style, its manifestation is inevitable—arising from both conscious choices and subconscious tendencies inherent to their process.
Moreover, style can be influenced, and often more deliberately “refined” through training, as education and experience often cultivate specific interactions with process, reinforcing habitual responses that shape an artist’s practices. For example, an artist trained in a classical atelier will likely have work that is stylistically different from an artist trained in a more expressive program. Again, from the moment an artist begins creating, they have a style, as every decision—however seemingly refined or unrefined—contributes to the unique fingerprint of their work. Over time, as techniques evolve and decisions become more deliberate, style may change significantly, but it is never something an artist must ‘acquire’—it is always present in their work.”
Here’s a list of the most common differentiations I make in the hope it will address some confusion arising from nebulous colloquial use of the term style. Some of these distinctions may help to change pre-existing assumptions about the nature of style.
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Style ≠ Technique. Technique is how you execute (brush handling, mark‑making, blending). Style is the recognizable pattern that emerges from many such executions integrated across the work. Two artists can use the same wet‑in‑wet method and still produce distinct stylistic signatures.
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Style ≠ Aesthetic Preferences. Favoring saturated color, high contrast, or particular subjects are preferences that inform style but don’t constitute it. Style arises from the whole pattern of choices, not isolated likes.
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Style ≠ Genre or Subject. Genre (e.g., still life, landscape) and subject are content and categorization choices. They contribute to style but do not define it by on their own..
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Style ≠ Historical Movement. Labels like Baroque or Impressionist are useful groupings of shared tendencies—not individual signatures.
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Style ≠ Branding. Branding is outward presentation (cohesive look, messaging, positioning). Style cannot be reduced to market‑facing decisions, even if a branded look can be engineered.
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Style vs. Manner. Historically, “style” often served as a manner of distinction. Here we’re using it more precisely as that emergent condition of choices and process—not merely a badge of affiliation.
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Style vs. Process. Process is the broader unfolding of work over time (planning, staging, feedback, iteration). Style is the integrated imprint that process yields.
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Style vs. Voice. Voice is the personal communicative distinctiveness that becomes more salient as fluency and originality integrate with intention. It’s related to style but emphasizes authorship and communication more than structural imprint.
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Stylization ≠ Style. Stylization refers to local, intentional alterations—schema‑based simplifications, augmentations, exaggerations, or symbolic substitutions. You can stylize without an apparently “consistent” style, and you can have a seemingly distinctive style with little overt stylization. Keeping the levels straight helps you adjust local manners without mistaking them for the deeper, emergent pattern your practice reveals.
So instead of treating style like some vague complexity that must be found and applied to your work—a seemingly Sisyphean task—what if we approach it as an ongoing transformation that has been in motion since day one? What if, rather than searching for a fixed identity, artists embraced the fact that their style is already present and dynamic—waiting to be understood, challenged, and refined through the very components that give rise to it? That small shift in how we conceive of style can illuminate a viable path toward what an artist might consider a more discernible, attractive, or personally fulfilling style.
Consistency, Coherence, and the “Chimera” Problem
Because style emerges from integrated choices, it’s present from the outset—but it becomes more legible as those choices recur and consolidate through training and habit. A sense of consistency arises when viewers find their expectations for the work’s fingerprint met across components—values, edges, shapes, passages—rather than repeatedly contradicted by what can be interpreted as mismatched cues. Coherence and predictable patterning at appropriate scales read as “consistent”; arbitrary departures read as mixed signals.
In Greek mythology, the Chimera was a fearsome, fire-breathing monster with the body of a lion, the head of a goat, and a snake for a tail. It was famously slain by the hero Bellerophon with the aid of Pegasus.
By contrast, a stylistic chimera is a cluster of apparent inconsistencies that undermines coherence—often the result of “constructing” a style by mixing contextual and surface aesthetics from multiple sources without grasping the logic that generated those elements. This risk increases when style is conflated with taste, or when adopting stylizations is mistaken for developing voice. Contemporary image‑mixing tools can amplify this confusion, reinforcing the false idea that style is just a stack of toppings.
Why the “Find Your Style” Myth Persists
Comparison Overload
In today’s digital landscape, artists are constantly exposed to polished, curated portfolios through platforms like Instagram, Behance, and ArtStation. These streams of optimized content rarely show the messy evolution behind the work—only the end result. According to social psychologist Leon Festinger’s theory of social comparison (1954), individuals tend to assess their own abilities and worth by comparing themselves to others. When applied to artists, this can often lead to feelings of inadequacy or confusion. The visibility of “finished” or “branded” styles can make one’s own evolving or inconsistent output feel illegitimate or undeveloped, even though such inconsistency is normal during growth. What’s perceived as a lack of style is often just a lack of visual branding—or worse, a misinterpretation of aesthetic diversity as deficiency.
Market Pressure
Beyond peer comparison, the professional art world introduces its own set of constraints. Galleries, clients, schools, and social platforms often reward visual consistency and recognizability. This creates a kind of commercial gravity toward narrow, repeatable aesthetics. While consistency has real benefits for marketing and audience engagement, the pressure to “commit” to a style early can lead to an arresting form of artistic closure. Many artists respond by forcing a contrived visual identity onto their work. This externally driven demand for stylistic branding can suppress natural variation and exploration, fostering the false belief that one must “find” a style that fits marketable molds rather than cultivate the one already developing organically.
Instructional Gaps
Educational institutions and art training programs also contribute to the confusion, often invoking terms like “voice” or “personal style” without defining them precisely. Students are encouraged to “develop their style” or “find their voice,” but rarely given clear frameworks for what those terms mean or how style actually emerges through repeated practice. In the absence of well-defined concepts, many artists treat style as an aesthetic goal rather than a byproduct of process. This vagueness can lead to an obsession with superficial outcomes—mimicking other artists’ looks or chasing trends—rather than a grounded understanding of how style reflects accumulated decisions and embodied knowledge.
Dissatisfaction Misread as Absence
Perhaps the most common reason artists feel they lack a style is simple dissatisfaction. When someone says they “haven’t found their style,” they often mean, “I don’t like what I’m making yet.” This dissatisfaction is entirely valid—but it’s crucial to recognize that it does not indicate the absence of style. Rather, it points to a stage of development in which an artist’s current output hasn’t aligned with their aspirations, tastes, or goals. The style is present—it’s just immature, underdeveloped, or unrecognized. The danger lies in believing that “style” is something to discover externally, rather than understanding that it evolves internally through deliberate practice, reflection, and iteration. Mistaking dissatisfaction for absence perpetuates the myth and delays the work of intentional refinement.
How to Deliberately Drive (Not “Find”) Your Style
If style is the byproduct of behavior and choice, the real work is shaping those behaviors and choices. Refinement isn’t a dramatic reinvention; it’s a disciplined sequence of small, testable changes.
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Make more work (thoughtfully!) Patterns don’t emerge in a vacuum; repetition exposes them. But this does not mean generating output haphazardly. Treat each creative session as a type of deliberate practice: set a specific, tractable aim (e.g., compressing halftone values at form‑turns), design a task that isolates that aim, work at the edge of your current ability, and capture immediate feedback (checkpoints, written notes, mentor critique) to guide the next iteration. Create consistently so there’s enough—and the right kind of—output to analyze meaningfully..
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Review your tendencies—and question them. Identify default moves. Which marks recur? Which problems do you always solve the same way? Ask whether those patterns reflect informed choice or mere momentum and comfort. Remember that asking “Why?” is one of the most powerful tools of comprehension and insight that you have at your disposal!
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Refine with intention (via small, controlled changes). Avoid burning your process down. Change the order of steps. Switch surfaces. Try a single‑tool limitation. Restrict a value range. Small, isolated tweaks yield actionable feedback; wholesale resets obscure cause and effect.
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If you are inspired to emulate–look beyond the surface; understand the logic. Borrow strategies, not surfaces. Study other artists’ problem framing, constraints, and decision priorities rather than limiting your efforts to copying appearances.
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Accept—and track—where you are. Your current style is a trace of current understanding. Document decisions. Keep records. Track evolution so you can recognize genuine progress.
A Practical Model for Micro-Change
Small, targeted changes are usually far more informative than completely overhauling your process and starting from scratch. Imagine your practice as a simplified machine with ten toggle switches—each switch representing a habitual choice in your process. The arrangement of switches at any moment is the fingerprint we call style. With ten binary switches, there are 1024 possible configurations. Flip all ten at once and, yes, you’ll land somewhere new—but you’ll learn almost nothing about why. Small moves invert that logic: toggle one switch (or a tiny cluster) while holding the rest constant so you can estimate marginal effects, observe interactions, and start mapping causal relationships. That is deliberate practice: clear target, controlled change, immediate feedback, repeat.
A (semi) realistic aside: many controls in such a metaphorical machine probably would be better represented as dials and/or sliders (things like pigment volume concentration, medium ratios, stroke duration, application pressure, target viewing distance, etc.) But even if we conservatively pretend that 200 such factors are just binary, the combinatorics are already astronomical. If you vary only half of them (100) while holding the other 100 fixed, you get 2100≈ 1.27×1030distinct configurations for that subset alone. Let all 200 vary and you have 2200≈ 1.61×1060. And that’s before acknowledging that most variables are continuous, context-dependent, and entangled—yielding a high-dimensional, effectively continuous space that cannot be meaningfully enumerated.
Given that scale, grand reorganizations are statistically blind jumps across an immeasurable landscape. Small, intentional tweaks function like local probes: they reveal nearby slopes, expose hidden couplings, and compound learning. If change is warranted, deploy it as micro-interventions—one constraint, one tool, one sequencing shift at a time—so you can actually see what changed, how it propagated, and whether it deserves to become part of the fingerprint you are deliberately shaping.
So, as you return to your drawing tables and easels, remember: there isn’t a style out there waiting to be found and applied. You already have one. Your job is to understand the machine you’ve built up to this point with each mark—and deliberately shape it as you see fit. Like Dorothy’s shoes, the means were with you from the moment you began, and the experiences in your ongoing journey will indeed teach you how to use them. But remember that if you want to be as deliberate as possible, keep that journey systematic: keep records, change one thing or small trackable clusters with deliberate purpose, look for the effect, and keep what works. As your choices cohere, the work stops hinting at a discernible style and starts communicating one—clearly, consistently, and again—on purpose. That isn’t luck or branding; it’s the predictable result of thoughtful, repeated decisions.