Imitate your way to originality
Original? Imitate? Those seem to be two words that are at odds so close to each other!
If, like me, you have trouble creating, and often get stuck or at an impasse, focus on imitating as a first step. Through the process of imitating something you like, you might feel inspired to make changes to it, no matter how small. Maybe you’ll change the colour (don’t be afraid to do this-children aren’t!), size or some other aspect of it–this all counts as change, and by making changes you are exerting your personal touch on something, and expressing your individual taste or style. That’s right: you’re slowly but surely working on being more of an original (artwise, that is-you’re already an original). Once you’ve mastered making small changes, try making big changes while keeping the same main idea.
Take drawing for example: let’s say you found someone who draws in a style you like, and you found a drawing of theirs that you’d like to copy. As a small change, you copy the image (it’s a figure of a man wearing pants) to the best of your ability, but change the size of the object the guy is carrying. A bigger change would be altering what the person is wearing-the artist had originally depicted a man in pants: try drawing him in shorts instead, and embrace the challenge of adding legs that match the style of the rest of the picture. You may find you’re decidedly up for the challenge–or not. If you aren’t able to do this, go back to making small changes and work your way up.
After some time spent making larger changes to a style you’ve imitated, you will begin to feel confident creating your own style. It can be influenced by others but the goal is to come up with something that you feel is more you than anyone else. You’re no longer just imitating!
October 1st, 2007 at 9:03 am
Excellent suggestions…we all have to start somewhere and this is an ideal jumping off point.
January 17th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
[...] got me thinking about this article on getcrafty.com about how imitating can lead to originality. I borrow ideas from numerous sources [...]