How My Art Style Has Evolved: From Expected Work to Intentional Creation
When I look back on my early years as an artist, I see someone who was simply doing what was expected, producing prints of all kinds, following briefs, staying within the lines both literally and creatively. It wasn’t pointless; those years taught me technique, discipline, and how to respond to direction. But the work rarely felt like mine. It was art shaped by instruction, not intuition.
Over time, something shifted. Maybe it was restlessness. Maybe it was curiosity. Or maybe it was my ongoing relationship with mental health, the way creating became less of a task and more of a lifeline. Whatever the catalyst, I moved into a self-directed exploration of sculpture and life drawing. No one asked me to do it. I simply needed to learn how to shape forms with my own hands, to observe real bodies, real gestures, real imperfections. Sculpture grounded me; life drawing reminded me to see.
Those two practices cracked something open. They pushed me closer to the core of why I make art: connection. Connection to the material, to the moment, to myself.
That path eventually led me to sustainable painting and the slow, meditative process of creating my own pigments. It’s an old practice that feels new every time, grinding color, mixing oils, using earth and plant matter as my palette. It’s the opposite of the fast-paced, expected work I started with. Sustainable materials require patience, presence, and respect. They force you to collaborate with the world around you, not just impose your ideas onto it.
And yet, I can see now that everything, every print, every brief, every sculpture, every drawing, has been connected. The threads run through technique, experimentation, and especially mental health. Art has always been a way for me to process, regulate, express, and rebuild. Even when I didn’t realize it, my style was evolving as my mind was healing, unraveling, and reassembling itself again and again.
Today, my work is defined less by medium and more by intention. I create slowly. Sustainably. Authentically. The pigments I make are tied to places I’ve been, materials I’ve touched, moments I remember. The sculptures and sketches carry the imprint of my emotional landscape. The prints, yes, even those early ones, were the foundation for everything I’ve become.
My art style isn’t a straight line; it’s a spiral, always circling back, each time deeper, clearer, more honest. And while the mediums may shift, one thing remains constant: every piece is rooted in experience, in growth, and in the ongoing journey through my mental health. Everything has always been connected; now I simply create with the awareness of that truth.
With love and minerals, Ellie Jane