Let’s stop adoring our creative heroes

(1 min story #108)

As artists, designers, and illustrators, we all have role models who inspire us. Beginners and students, in particular, tend to cling to their heroes initially.

But all that idolizing eventually gets us nowhere. At some point, we must pick up the pen and ask the only important question: What exactly fascinates us about our hero’s works? The answer is right in front of us. As we contemplate the artworks, we observe ourselves. What happens to us as we do so? What touches us? Is it perhaps the colors, the strokes, the subjects, the material? Finding this out while becoming active in the process is the key to our own artistic style.