What My Daughter's Art Journey Taught Me About Developing Authentic Style

When my daughter was younger, we'd spend hours drawing together. She was maybe eight or nine when we started with the basics - simple shapes, proportions, the fundamentals that give you something solid to build on. Those sessions stretched on for years as she progressed through more complex subjects.

Eventually, she developed a keen interest in figures, particularly these animated characters that weren't really in my wheelhouse. But I knew enough about figure drawing from my own background to point her in the right direction, help her understand the underlying structure that makes any figure work.

Then something interesting happened. Those regular drawing sessions started to fade. Not because she lost interest, but because she was entering a different phase - one that every serious artist must navigate alone.

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The Long Road Most Artists Don't Take

My daughter was developing her own unique style, and that's not an easy thing to do. It would have been simple for her to just settle in and try to paint or draw like her influences. That's the comfortable path, the one most artists take without really thinking about it.

But she was smart enough - through some combination of natural instinct and maybe things she'd absorbed from our conversations - to understand that copying someone else's solutions wasn't going to get her where she needed to go.

What Authentic Style Actually Represents

Here's what I've come to understand about artistic style, partly through watching my daughter's journey: an artist's work is the result of their entire life experience. Their energy, their understanding of the mediums they work with, their emotional connections - all of it feeds into what emerges on the canvas or paper.

There's frustration in authentic work. Depression sometimes. Happiness, sadness, joy - the full spectrum of human experience. There are the specific life experiences they've had, the particular journey they've walked. You'd have to live their life, face their challenges, and develop their specific relationship with their materials to truly replicate their authentic expression.

The real problem with trying to copy another artist's style is that you're seeing the surface result without understanding the depth of experience that created it.

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Why Every Artist Has Unique Potential

I believe every artist has the ability to paint or draw in a way that no one else can. That's not motivational speaker rhetoric - it's a practical reality based on the simple fact that no two people have identical life experiences, emotional responses, or ways of seeing.

Learning from other artists is valuable. I encourage it. Borrow techniques, try new approaches to subject matter, experiment with different ways of conveying ideas. These influences become part of your artistic vocabulary.

But in the end, you have to understand that your own experiences, your skill set, your particular mindset will merge with those borrowed ideas over time. You typically don't see those results in one day - authentic style develops gradually through sustained work.

The Studio Reality

What I'm proudest of in my daughter's development is that she put in the time to find her own voice. When I look at her current work, I can see her personality in it. There are things in her art that remind me specifically of who she is as a person - her way of seeing, her particular sensibilities.

That kind of authentic personal expression doesn't come from books, YouTube tutorials, or blog posts (including this one). It comes from spending hours and hours in the studio, working on things that feel challenging and meaningful to you personally.

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The Courage to Be Yourself

Developing your own style requires a kind of courage that's easy to underestimate. It means moving away from the safety of proven approaches and trusting that your own responses and instincts have value.

My daughter made that choice without me having to push her toward it. She recognized intuitively that authentic artistic development meant finding her own path rather than walking in someone else's footsteps.

Your Goals and Intentions Matter

I'm not in any position to tell anyone what they should or shouldn't do with their art. These are just observations from watching one young artist navigate the challenge of finding her authentic voice.

But I would encourage you to consider this: your goals and intentions as an artist are important, but so is recognizing the unique opportunity you have to create work that could only come from you. That opportunity exists whether you're just starting out or have been painting for decades.

The question isn't whether you're capable of developing an authentic style - it's whether you're willing to do the sustained studio work required to discover what that looks like for you specifically.

As both a father and a teacher, watching someone choose the harder path of authentic development over comfortable imitation has been one of the most rewarding experiences I've had. Your artistic voice is worth the effort it takes to find it.