Favorite Works vs Your Own Work

[JessieNebulous]

I'm curious to find out how closely your work resembles your favorite works by other artists. For example, I love Van Gogh. His brushstrokes, the movement and excitement, the intensity, it all speaks to me. But my own work is absolutely nothing like that. I keep things smooth, no discernable strokes, and my work is generally described as pretty and whimsical. I also tend to choose marine creatures and trees as my subjects, which is also very different. I think the only possible Van Gogh-esque quality in my work is the intensity of color. I also adore oil paintings, but have never once used the medium, and do not have a natural aptitude for painting the way I do drawing.

So, my question is: how closely does your own work resemble your favorites in terms of style, subject, color, etc? Because it seems reasonable you'd start by mimicking your favorites but that isn't what I've done at all, and I'm just curious if anyone else can relate, or if I'm just kind of a weirdo.

 

[Hermes2020]

My experience echoes yours: my own stuff is inspired by the works of favourite artists, but I think there is only a superficial resemblance. I suspect that may be a good thing, though.

 

[john]

Like you Van Gogh may be my favorite if I had to name one. And I would like to attempt a painting in that style, but I guess I've just wanted to experiment with my own creativity and find my own thing. Problem is that what I like seems to change all the time. Like a kid in a candy store.

 

[Lazarus]

What im thinking about is to start painting VG method in plein air, its really intresting to get the feedback feeling when doing so.

 

[Bartc]

My favorites are the Impressionists and the Post-Impressionists. My work definitely resembles their styles - sort of a mashup - and some of their subjects. Other painters tend to identify my style with Van Gogh, but I think that's kind of misleading, though immensely flattering. I think that's because I tend to drift back into expressive brush strokes and colors and strong viewpoints. Vincent would not be amused!

 

[Artyczar]

It wasn't until the last couple of years that I noticed how much my work was highly influenced by my favorite artists from the very beginning, and we're talking almost 40 years back now. I loved Paul Klee and Van gogh. They were my two favorite. I also loved Kandinsky, who I found before Klee. I mimicked some of his work in the beginning, then quickly phased it out, but not on purpose that I can remember.

I started into a new style I guess you could say and started using some stenciling in some of my paintings, until someone said I was copying Jasper Johns. I was like, "who??" So I looked him up and loved him! But I stopped using the stencils. I did use a lot of targets for a while though, which I'd used before I knew who he was, but I continued to use them anyway. I just stopped with the stencils.

I think a lot of my stuff resembles some Van gogh because I make a lot of landscapes and I paint thick. My skies often have movement in a similar way. I always felt unaware of it, but more recently I see it.

The work that I'm totally drawn to these days doesn't resemble my work too much. I even kind of try to incorporate a lot of different artists into my work, but it always feels like it doesn't work. Maybe it will take 30 years the way my early influences did.

But I tend to like other artist's work way more than I like my own work. I'm not a huge fan of my own art.

 

[JessieNebulous]

It wasn't until the last couple of years that I noticed how much my work was highly influenced by my favorite artists from the very beginning, and we're talking almost 40 years back now. I loved Paul Klee and Van gogh. They were my two favorite. I also loved Kandinsky, who I found before Klee. I mimicked some of his work in the beginning, then quickly phased it out, but not on purpose that I can remember.

I started into a new style I guess you could say and started using some stenciling in some of my paintings, until someone said I was copying Jasper Johns. I was like, "who??" So I looked him up and loved him! But I stopped using the stencils. I did use a lot of targets for a while though, which I'd used before I knew who he was, but I continued to use them anyway. I just stopped with the stencils.

I think a lot of my stuff resembles some Van gogh because I make a lot of landscapes and I paint thick. My skies often have movement in a similar way. I always felt unaware of it, but more recently I see it.

The work that I'm totally drawn to these days doesn't resemble my work too much. I even kind of try to incorporate a lot of different artists into my work, but it always feels like it doesn't work. Maybe it will take 30 years the way my early influences did.

But I tend to like other artist's work way more than I like my own work. I'm not a huge fan of my own art.

I used to not like my own work very much either. I was super critical of it, and always found it lacking. Then I developed a neurological motor dysfunction, and stopped doing art for a number of years. I thought my days as an artist were over. When I picked it back up, I basically had to relearn to draw. But I was so thankful and happy that I was able to continue with art that I learned to love my work. I even love my "ugly" pieces I generally don't share, for the fact that there's lessons to be learned from them.

I hope you someday learn to love your work too

 

[Artyczar]

One out of every 20 or so, I like.

 

[drizzlewither]

OK lemme just lower the cultural tone in here a few dozen levels

I look to comics as my strongest influence but the comics I have most adored do not have the visual style I want to draw. My top two Joe Sacco's Palestine/Footnotes in Gaza and Derf Backderf's My Friend Dahmer, very much an indie crudeness (both artists I suspect are fans of R Crumb).

Neil Gaiman's Sandman had many contributing artists, some of which I admired greatly, some of which I was meh about. Same with Judge Dredd - that series has been running since the late 70s, it's gone through all kinds of styles. I guess my aspiration would be to be "as good" at figure/perspective/etc as some of the Judge Dredd artists, particularly the earliest in black and white. If you only have black ink and white paper to work with you can't fudge things so easily, your drawing has to be right.

I don't know what my comics work would look like right now, because I haven't done any for ages. I used to get comments that my stuff was manga-esque which always made me ??? because I've barely even read any manga aside from a few Pokemon comics.

 

[john]

I would love to try and copy this one. I think it would be good learning experience and I would love to have something like this on my wall. Living room worthy.


Van Gogh considered it one of his most successful paintings, writing to his brother Theo that the ‘canvas absolutely kills all the rest’.

The harvest - Vincent van Gogh - Google Arts & Culture

Van Gogh considered this impressive vista as one of his finest works. The colours of the southern French countryside in summer dominate this painting: the ...

artsandculture.google.com

 

[Lazarus]

The only one that could paint the sky green shade and make them looks perfect like they arnt green.

Give it a try.

I would love to try and copy this one. I think it would be good learning experience and I would love to have something like this on my wall. Living room worthy.


Van Gogh considered it one of his most successful paintings, writing to his brother Theo that the ‘canvas absolutely kills all the rest’.

The harvest - Vincent van Gogh - Google Arts & Culture

Van Gogh considered this impressive vista as one of his finest works. The colours of the southern French countryside in summer dominate this painting: the ...

artsandculture.google.com

 

[john]

The only one that could paint the sky green shade and make them looks perfect like they arnt green.

Give it a try.

LOL I hadn't noticed till you said it. Yeah, it's a teal sky. I wonder if that's a case of pigment breakdown. Some of his red and yellows were subject to this. So if we try to copy it do we make it more pure blue?

https://cen.acs.org/articles/94/i5/Van-Goghs-Fading-Colors-Inspire.html

 

[Lazarus]

LOL I hadn't noticed till you said it. Yeah, it's a teal sky. I wonder if that's a case of pigment breakdown. Some of his red and yellows were subject to this. So if we try to copy it do we make it more pure blue?

https://cen.acs.org/articles/94/i5/Van-Goghs-Fading-Colors-Inspire.html

The only color we cant find in the sky is green and yet.

 

[Terri]

Great discussion, Jessie! It's really interesting to read the variety of responses. Thanks for starting this thread. ❤

I'm a big fan of van Gogh, as well as a lot of Picasso (excluding much of his Cubism). I love their bright bold colors, the thick lines. I definitely paint in this way a lot. I also learned oil pastels by copying both of these masters, among others, which likely led to this style becoming part of how I work - though not always.

I also love Monet, Chagall and many others whose styles I definitely have not adopted. I seem to favor the big blocks of color and geometric lines. At least at this stage, anyway. Go figure.

 

[john]

If Van Gogh was using red/green or red/yellow to gray out the sky and then the red went away it would leave a greenish sky.

 

[laika]

I loved Paul Klee and Van gogh. They were my two favorite. I also loved Kandinsky, who I found before Klee. I mimicked some of his work in the beginning, then quickly phased it out, but not on purpose that I can remember.

Klee immediately came to mind when you posted your mother and daughter painting, but not in a derivative way. I loved him very early too. I was fascinated by a big print of one of his paintings in an office waiting room when I was a little kid. Then, weirdly enough, there was a George Grosz print that I saw somewhere on more than one occasion. Next was one of Monet's boats at Argenteuil. I can't imagine what about these spoke to me as a little redneck kid!

I also loved Kandinsky...

I like his paintings that were almost non-representational. Like, "oh, that's a mountain," or "hey, there's a little horse."

 

[Lazarus]

If Van Gogh was using red/green or red/yellow to gray out the sky and then the red went away it would leave a greenish sky.

white/yellow Yellow orange red purple blue blue/black this is the order and law.

 

[Artyczar]

Klee immediately came to mind when you posted your mother and daughter painting, but not in a derivative way. I loved him very early too. I was fascinated by a big print of one of his paintings in an office waiting room when I was a little kid.

(Thank you by the way)...but that's so funny you say that because my first memory of being exposed to any art was in a doctor's office waiting room when I was a little kid. It was a print of an artist named Paul Jenkins. I also remember seeing a Kandinsky one after that. This was probably what proceeded me to seek out more abstract artists.

 

[Enyaw]

my first memory of being exposed to any art was in a doctor's office waiting room when I was a little kid

too funny .. I remember a Klee in my doctor's waiting room and one from a dentist office.. though that was later in life. I remember wondering what the heck it was.

 

[Terri]

You all saw Klee prints in dentist and doctor's offices? Sounds like I went to the wrong groups. I associate those places with the stuff I saw: black and white prints of cute little kids, dressed in vintage clothing, selectively hand tinted. There are photographers who made a living selling that kind of kitsch.