How I found my illustration style!?

6 months into daily practice with a set goal and direction, lots of choosing and loosing, finally the struggle is over...

Watercolours, Inks, Gouache, Pencil colours, Soft pastels, Alcohol markers, Charcoals, Oil pastels, Pens (ink pens, micron pens, dip pens, ball pens, almost all pens), Water-soluble pencil colours and oil pastels and Mixed media, AND what not?!? I have tried all of them in last 6 months to feel all the materials and to find out what I like the most. Although I shied sharing it all over social media but there is one post here on my substack about trying out alcohol markers for a month and lives of illustrating with soft pastels. All in all it is fun to dedicate daily time while enjoying the process, make notes on what I like and what I don’t like.

so first, let’s see…

What Defines an Illustrator's Style?

An illustrator's style is their artistic fingerprint. It's not just about the medium they use (e.g., watercolour, digital, pencil), but how they use it to tell a story. Key elements include:

• Line work: Is it loose and sketchy - like Quentin Blake or clean and precise - Alex T Smith? Are the lines thick and bold or thin and delicate? or perhaps there is no line work at all.

• Colour palette: Do they use vibrant, saturated colours - like Mary Blair or a more muted, soft palette - like Beatrix Potter? Do they use a limited range of colours or a wide spectrum or no colours at all and just black and white?

• Characters: Are the characters expressive and whimsical, or more realistic? Are they stylised in a particular way? Think about the distinctive look of a character by Dr. Seuss, for instance.

• Texture: Is there a lot of texture in the work like the collage work of Eric Carle or the grainy digital illustrations or is it flat and smooth?

• Mood and feeling: Does the art create a sense of fun and playfulness or is it more gentle and dreamy?

I strongly feel that the style should always support the book's narrative and emotional tone. However, the more I dig on this topic the more it get’s clearer on that it is a choice of an illustrator on how they want to do a book with their artistic flare. It is important to choose and loose at the same time.

As a versatile artist, I find that a very challenging process, however last year’s pathways mentorship with

David Litchfield

has been very helpful and his words are still hovering over my mind like a forever thing. Recently, I also watched a discussion on this same topic by

Katie Stack

and

Adam Ming

on one of their substack posts and that was a very good reminder on everything I have been attempting from last 6 months. Special THANKS to all these 3 wonderful illustrators, It allowed me putting everything together.

My self analysis from last 6 months.

Exploring everyday for an hour or two for self assessment was a challenging task as there were some days I felt I’m not good enough or trying all these was not working out and I’m falling behind feeling FOMO instead of JOMO.

But the result is worth to see and I’m now feeling proud to announce that I have finally found my own illustration style. Now, I’m going to stick with it to get more projects, pitch my own book dummies and perhaps have an agent to make my life a bit easy.

Have you ever tried this for your illustration portfolio? Please comment and let me know, it would be interesting to see what you have discovered for yourself.

My portfolio can be viewed at www.gunjabhatt.com and I would appreciate if you can share it with other like minded friends/people, artists, illustrators, authors, agents and publishers.

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Thank you.