The illustration journey

Hi, this is my first blogpost. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Feliza (yes like happy in Spanish but with and A at the end). Please call me Feli.

Finding your voice or style as an illustrator

It’s been a while since I wanted to share with you a little bit of my personal experience and some tips about illustration and finally the moment is here!

For this first blogpost I decided to talk about finding your own voice as an illustrator in the most real and honest possible way. I’d like to help you to understand a little bit what is exactly your own voice and how we all eventually find it

It’s a topic that for many of us, means a “struggle”. Let’s be honest. But let’s start by explaining what does exactly mean to find your own voice or your own style.

I don´t want to write this like a guide to “find your own voice, style or language” because I’m sorry to tell you guys but it doesn’t exist such a guide or formula to find it.

We have this concept that we need to have our own style that is going to define us forever. And I’m going to put you an example with our own life. Every person has his or her own journey or experience to live in their lives, and through this journey many things can happen: it changes us, it shapes us, and it defines us in different ways. So to sum up: We are changing human beings.

So when we decide to illustrate in a professional way, we have to remember that the process of being an illustrator is something like this: Finding our own voice, style or language is a never ending journey. And this is OK. I mean this is the beautiful and sometimes frustrating part of the process of becoming an illustrator, just like in you real life we are always trying to find ourselves.

For this this journey we don’t have any google maps, or guide that could lead us through the final goal: finding our own voice. But what we do have is our traveller companions: techniques, skills, our interests, what we like the most, where do we want to go, discipline, our stories, constance and others.

All this companions and more of them make the hole secret recipe to find who we really are or “our own voice”. For this journey I advise you to experiment with different companions and discover different results that will allow you to find you in a creative way; how to express yourself in a honest and comfortable way. But how do we do this? Illustrating my friends, there is no other way.

The worst enemies for this journey are: comparing ourselves with other illustrators, insecurity, lack of confidence and the fear of failing. These are definitely not the creative activators that we are looking for to improve in our journey.

And of course I must remind you guys, that in this journey of finding ourselves there will be moments where we won’t feel well about what we are doing or where are we going so don’t be afraid of CHANGING. With this I mean, let’s give an opportunity to those illustrations we don’t feel well about, don’t be afraid of making mistakes. Sometimes making mistakes lead to amazing ideas or illustrations that will make you style unique and finally will define you.

I know that style is about constance but that doesn’t mean you have to be unhappy or controlling everything that you do in order to be successful. The most important is to always enjoy your journey. Don’t be so hard with yourself and have fun. This journey is nor lineal, if it were so, it will be very boring.

Begin your journey, ask yourself what things do you like in life, what things inspire you to illustrate?.. And remember don’t compare yourself with others, your journey is unique and the process for everybody is different. ¡Enjoy the jorney!.

#illustration #findingyourvoice #illustrator #ilustración