The following blog posts will focus on finding my own illustration style. Since I hope to work as an illustrator one day, I’m currently exploring ways to develop a personal and recognizable style. To do that, I’ll try out different methods and experiments to test new techniques and evaluate the results. I want to document this journey in my blog and share my experiences along the way.
To begin, I’m focusing on doing studies. Improving at drawing takes time, patience, and a lot of practice – mastery comes with repetition. That’s why I’ve decided to dedicate one week at a time to studying a specific subject, such as animals, objects, or body parts. Ideally, I’ll choose subjects I struggle with or want to improve in. During that week, I’ll dive deep into the topic.
The goal is to explore different ways of depicting the subject, try out new techniques, and find out which approaches feel most natural to me.
For the first week, I chose the raven – birds are especially difficult for me to draw. Over the course of the week, I plan to draw the raven in a variety of styles and techniques, from quick sketches to detailed studies and even abstract interpretations.
At the end of the week, I’ll reflect on the process with a short review:
• Which methods did I enjoy the most?
• Where did I learn the most?
• Which approaches do I want to continue using in future studies?
For me, the most important part isn’t a perfect final result, but what I learn during the process: understanding how I approach a subject, which techniques suit me, and where there’s still room to grow.
Reflection
Now that I’ve completed the first study, I’ve taken some time to reflect on the results. Overall, I really liked the approach and found it very helpful. After spending a full week focused on the raven, I can now draw it from memory, and understanding its proportions has become much easier.
I realized that you need to draw a subject at least once to really grasp how its proportions relate to one another, this became especially clear during the study. I also found the step-by-step approach, from rough sketch to detailed drawing, very effective and logical.
What I found least helpful was the geometric breakdown. It didn’t offer me any real insight, so I’ll skip it in the future. Instead, I’d like to add a color study next time to improve my understanding of light, shadow, and mood.
