Originality and Big Art

I am teaching  Illustration 488 at BYU this semester. It is the business practices class for the seniors in illustration. Inevitably the idea of style arises and the next question someone always asks how do you find your own style. My answer to this is that you don't find your style, IT FINDS YOU. Brad Holland, one of the finest illustrators currently working summed up his search for his style by saying that the more he looked for it, the harder it was to find, but when he quit looking, he found it. Have a look at this very insightful short film about Brad Holland's work. 

Below are two of my favorite quotes dealing with this issue:


"Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.
 -C. S. Lewis


“Big art is the process of elimination. Cut down and out- do your hardest work outside the picture, and let your audience take away something to think about, to imagine.”
-Frederic Remington

Our style is a culmination of all we are about artistically. It is the summation of all life's experiences combined with how we draw and how we see and think. Just draw and draw and respond to what comes out. That will be your style.