You grow up and learn how to do things. Expectations and experiences mold you. The same thoughts travel the same paths in your brain, carving deep ruts they can't easily escape.
Artistically, you live in a bubble.
You solve problems in the same way. You approach your projects with the system you've designed...a system that is proven to work for you.
The funny thing is, other people may have worked out better solutions to your problems.
I was thinking about this today as I was scratching out a drawing on a piece of paper. I wasn't pleased with the results, and I didn't know what to do to get the results I wanted. In a tiny fit of frustration, I found some artwork that is similar to what I had in mind, then imitated the pen strokes. It helped a lot.
I doubt I would ever have thought to solve my artistic problems in the same way that artist did.
Now I know that I can look for solutions to my artistic problems outside of myself.
This is the definition of "influences." Who did you look to when you were trying to solve that artistic problem and didn't know how? Who showed you a different way of doing things?
The beautiful thing is that I'm not teaching you to rip off another artist. I'm teaching you to expose yourself to new artistic solutions. Expose yourself to techniques and ways of seeing the world you would never try on your own. Expose yourself to lots of things, and, equally important, try those things out for yourself.
You can read all you want. You can look at stuff all you want, but you don't really learn unless you try things out for yourself.
Copy techniques and compositions. Throw different perspectives into your pot and see what kind of artistic gumbo you come up with.
To become the best artist possible, you have to get outside yourself.
None of us succeed in a vaccuum, which is a hard to for someone like me to accept.
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