Welcome to another blog post of MiiCreative’s Art 101 series where we teach you basic art concepts and learn something that will help you jumpstart your creative juices. For today’s article, we will be discussing the different painting styles that are easy for beginners to follow if you want to create stunning artworks using different styles. But first, what is a style and why is it important in the first place? Well, an art style provides a glimpse inside the artist's artistic thinking, allowing you to better comprehend the artist's vision, theme, and sentiments represented in the painting. While it is critical for new artists to focus on building their distinctive style and discovering their own unique manner of expression, it is just as important to try different painting styles for you to learn something new. Accordingly, an artist's sense of style often evolves as the artist gets confidence through practice, extends their knowledge database with the styles they have learned, and as they go on a path to discover their signature style with the medium they work with and the concepts they learned through imitating other styles. Wanna know the different painting styles for you to try? Keep on reading to learn more!
The way painters represent scenes in their work has developed over the course of time. Over time, two main art styles have emerged: the Western art (such as Impressionism, Realism, Classicism, and Abstract Art) and the Eastern art (printmaking, oriental art, etc.). Dive further into understanding different painting styles as it is a wonderfully intriguing subject that will provide us with insight into the many styles of art from across the world – not only does it help painters improve their skills, but it also gives them the opportunity to learn something new about culture and history. Both of which are important in the process of creating artworks.
So, before we proceed to the list of different painting styles for you to try, let us dive deeper about what style is and its importance for artists in the next section.
What is Style and What Makes it Important?
The features that identify the painting, such as the artist's use of shape, color, and structure, to mention a few, determine style. Another significant component in establishing an artwork's style is to look at how the painter utilizes the medium, taking into consideration the approach or technique that the artist employs. The concept or driving force behind the artwork is another part of art styles. All of these aesthetic features are established by the decisions made by artists when creating their artwork.
With all of this, each artist develops his or her own particular art style over the course of a lifetime. The style of an artist may adjust and change as the artist matures as a painter and as an individual. Aspiring artists frequently imitate the styles of artists they like which is fine. However, with time, you must learn how to create your own signature style that will distinguish you from the other artists.
Easy Guide for Artists: Five Painting Styles for You to Try
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Abstract Art:
Abstract art, also known as nonobjective art or nonrepresentational art, is a style in which a piece from the actual world is represented by the artist's way of utilizing patterns, colors, shapes, and expressive markings but separated from its actual or purest form. Forms and gestural markings depict objects, whereas colors express feelings. In other words, this is a subjective, non-representational kind of painting that aims to mimic the essence of real-life things in a condensed or rearranged manner in order to showcase the artists' perception of reality through abstractions.
This style is appealing for a number of reasons, the major one being that it is simple to develop in comparison to other styles, and the second being that it is exploratory and totally subjective. While abstract art may not describe reality the way we perceive it using our eyes, it does express your inner spirit through creative invention employing your intuition.
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Optical (Op) Art:
For many years, artists have been fascinated by the mechanism of vision, as well as optical phenomena and illusions. They have frequently been a primary preoccupation of art, just as much as historical or literary topics. However, in the 1950s, these fascinations, along with new technological and psychological concerns, bloomed into a trend. Op, or Optical, art uses abstract patterns with a striking contrast of foreground and backdrop - commonly in black and white for best contrast - to create images that confound and thrill the eye. While some people see this style as a sub-branch for abstract-geometric style, Op art is a distinct style in its own right, with its complicated dilemma for perception and illusion.
With its emphasis on illusion and perception, some experts suggest that it has previous roots. It might have descended from effects used by the Old Masters, such as trompe l'oeil (French: "deceive the eye"). The great thing about this painting style is that it uses minimal colors since the emphasis is given on the pattern and shapes to be drawn in your canvas. Though almost any color can be used and combined, it would be best for beginners to stick with the classic black and white.
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Mixed media art:
A mixed media artwork is one that incorporates many painting and drawing materials and methods rather than just one. Collage objects such as pieces from magazines, newspapers, pictures, fabrics, clay, or cardboard can be utilized. A mixed media painting can even be as "basic" as utilizing two materials, such as acrylic paints on top of watercolor or a combination of oil paints and oil pastels.
Mixed media is one of the painting styles for you to try during your beginning phase of your creative journey because it employs different techniques while teaching you how to make them harmonious and balanced together. In many situations, the mixed media technique draws attention to how disparate elements join together to form a complex image. It may also include three-dimensional objects and textured pieces with collage and painting. This enables art to rethink and innovate traditional art media.
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Pop Art:
Pop art is a kind of art that arose in the 1950s and flourished in the 1960s in America and the United Kingdom, drawing influence from popular mass culture. During the 1960s and 1970s, several groups and nations contributed to this iconic movement, making art more accessible and recognizable than ever. Who could forget the iconic Campbell soup can painting or the bright Marilyn artwork? The goal of this art is to immortalize everyday or popular objects that we usually take advantage of, and turn it into something memorable and iconic.
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Pointillism:
This style emerged during the time when the Impressionism art movement was most dominant and it was popularized by artists George Seurat and Paul Signac during the mid 1880s. Pointillism is the art of adding little strokes or dots of color to a surface such that they appear blended together from a distance to form one unifying image. According to Seurat and Signac, the viewer's eye would merge these to produce a more spectacular composition than any formed by combining colors traditionally on a palette.
While this style is impressionist in nature, you can still combine it with other art styles such as realism and even minimalism.
We hope this list of painting styles for you to try will help you experiment with art styles and techniques so that you will be able to come up with your personal style in time. Happy painting and stay creative!
