Find Your Artistic Voice: The Essential Guide to Working Your Creative Magic

A great reminder, sometimes we forget.
I re-read periodically. It a great basic, a refresher. The artist interviews are interesting, however, I do wish some of the artist did have a ton of degrees behind their names.

Cute sound book on the artistic voice
This is a very enjoyable, simple to read, sound book with advice for artists, from beginners to emerging, on how to develop our artistic voice. It delves into what an artistic voice is, why is important having one, how to find it, and the struggles on how to get there. The book inserts ten interviews with renowned professional artists (mostly illustrators and mostly women) in with the author poses these and other questions to them, and discusses the creative process in general. The artists interviewed are: 1/ Sean Qualls & Selina Alko. 2/ Andrea Pippins. 3/ Fin Lee. 4/ Kindah Khalidy. 5/Andy J Miller. 6/ Daniele Krysa. 7/ Kate Bingaman-Burt. 8/ Libby Black. 9/ Ayumi Horie. 10/ Martha Rich. My fav interview was, Kate Bingaman-Burt’s. Congdon’s delightful humorous illustrations spread throughout the book. I really love her style.Our artistic voice is the art that we make when we listen to our inner truth and convey it to the world in specific ways. Our artistic voice is made of “all of the characteristics that make your artwork distinct from the artwork of other artists, like how you use colors or symbols, how you apply lines and patterns, your subject matter choices, and what your work communicates.” (p. 7).Congdon says that to find our voice we need to show up, make art every day, be disciplined, practice-practice-practice, ‘positivize’ boredom and embrace our fears and self-doubt. We also need tons of patience because, as mastering a musical instrument takes years of hard work, so does Art. Embracing our fears and doubts is especially important for beginners, and, that being the case, we have to have compassion and patience with ourselves and our mistakes, with the disasters and ugly pieces, because they’re the stepping stones on which our artistic voice is gonna be built. For the rest, all the interviewees agree on the fact that hard work and expressing our personal truth and who we are, are the recipe to find our artistic voice; except for some ‘geniuses’, most professional artists have to work at it. Congdon says, “The unfolding of your voice requires showing up and working hard. It requires being willing to create failures, to ask for feedback, and to go back and try all over again. It requires staying open. It requires moving outside what’s comfortable and being vulnerable.” (p. 119).Congdon also advises twelve strategies for developing our own artistic voice, and they are:1/ Marke art every day, even for a few minutes. 2/ Don’t stop, keep going, when thigs get hard or tought. 3/ Embrace the monotony and boredom to break through and experiment. 4/ Create challenges for ourselves and stick to them, no matter who’s paying attention to them, even if it’s just ourselves. 5/ Learn to practice mindfulness when we go outside into the world to notice new things, new colours, curious weird stuff. 6/ Find a space to be alone to create. 7/ Find a feedback partner or critique group. 8/ Take classes. 9/ Brainstorm. 10/ Develop your vocabulary of interests, knowledge, and ideas. 10/ Support other artists and learn from other artists. 11/ Stay open to all experiences.MINDThe book is intended mostly for artists who want to have an artistic career or are professional artists. Yet, the advice is great also for everyone, even beginners like me, who want to have a distinctive voice and express their own views of the world.THINGS I MISSEDThe interviews with other artists are very interesting, but I see them fitter for a blog or art magazine, and some of the most important points they make could have been summarized or the reader without the need to go through the whole interview. Besides, I would have loved having the invited artists’ artwork featured int he book (like 2-4 i medium size mages per head) as well as their website and social media accounts listed.

Life transforming
This book is a necessity for every artist. It was such an easy read because it felt like a conversation. Lisa’s book is not only inspiring but transformative as it highlights and tackles a problem that most creatives face – the act of finding your artistic voice/style. We often see famous artist and we forget that they were once amateurs (literally a paraphrased quote from the book). Famous creatives found their voice and it all came from conscious and intentional practice.I gave this book five stars because it’s just pure gold. The illustrations and the messaging were so good. You just have to read it to get the full picture.

helpful information
I am not a professional artist and do not aspire to be one but I have made my own artwork off and on over the years and was an art education major as an undergraduate. I had never thought about my own voice and was interested in discovering what was possible if I challenged myself. I found many helpful suggestions and ideas in this book—some thoughts to ponder for sure. I also liked the interviews the author conducted with a number of working artists to allow more than one perspective. The section on how to manage influences from other artists without falling into imitation was especially useful. I would recommend this—the author met my expectations.

Such a wonderfully inspiring book.

Excelente libro, totalmente recomendable para artistas de todos los niveles. Muy claro, preciso, práctico y auténtico. Me encantaron las entrevistas y el contenido muy valioso.