Discovering Your Own Style Part 4 Mash Um’ Up

“Good Morning” Ballpoint pen on medium weight drawing paper. Since the lil’ monster I have been workin’ on didn’t have much of a body, I figured it was time to see what kind of scenarios I could come up with to explain where the rest of him was hiding. Since I also like eatin’ toast I figured why not merge the two and see what “pops” up.

O.K folks here is Part 4, but first a quick fast review…

Starting with Part 1, we have been soakin’ up and focusing on the emotions and feelings we experience that we would like to bring into our art work.

In Part 2, we begun collecting visually stimulating images and photos and adding them to our morgue files to draw inspiration from and help give our creativity a jump start on the slow days.

For Part 3, our attention was turned towards the art work of others who’s art and style inspires and moves us.

All the while we have been experimentin’, practicin’ and drawin’ every chance we get. Throwing nothing away or being overly critical of our efforts.

“Crust Head” Sharpie on light weight drawing paper. Taking the idea of a toast monster to the realm of the ridiculous, my mind played out the idea of a toast lovin’ monster that was actually made of toast and apparently quite delicious.

Now lets move into the smooshin’ and mashin’ up multiple ideas, thoughts and concepts and see what come out of our imaginative minds!

Working with collages is probably the rawest form behind this idea of juxtapositioning various images and ideas to come up with something new.

This can be a powerful way to come up with some very interesting and sometimes bizarre imagery.

However, buy using our own imagination and sketches, we can develop our drawings skills and our imagination muscles by letting the mind run free and our pen and pencil unrestrained freedom to dance across the paper.

The bonus being that later on we can use these assorted drawings as collage elements, put them in your morgue file for later reference or to use for  ideas to pursue later on down the road.

“Mermonster” Pencil sketch on light weight drawing paper. In this sketch up I am back to looking for a body. I have jumped from toast to fish (Yes a line can be drawn from toast to tuna fish sandwiches. Things like this happen when draw while hungry!) Also added was a wave so the now catfish creature could be perched on something watery.

The driving point behind doing this is to mix and match subjects, topics and themes that you may not have thought of before.

The more unrelated and obscure the relationship between subjects the better. This is the stuff imagination thrives on!

We don’t need to worry about drawing masterpiece right from the get go. This is all about developing ideas and letting your imagination out to play without scrutiny.

At this point we are still unconcerned about adding color, shading or mediums that we may want to use later. Pens and pencils will work just fine for developing the essentials of your style.

For this exercise, we’ll give the inner critic a few hours off, let our minds wander about the yard while we do some quick sketches to see what develops.

I think you will be amazed to see how many ideas can stem from combing just a few simple ideas. I will always be amazed at the machinations of the inner mind.

You may come up with some pretty out there thoughts and doodles, but thats A-OK, let it all spill out of your mind and onto the page.

It’s good for you, trust me on this.

Are you diggin’ my content? If ya are, help support my creative addiction by purchasing some niftiness out of my Esty shop. I also have been known to take on commission for those who want some custom art made in the Chongolian style.