Blog / 2014 / What the Artist Adrienne Lewis Did for Me by Copying My Style

On my blog, I talk a lot about the wide brushes I use and their impact on my style, about the influence of wood panels on my painting technique, about how injury and chronic illness affect my art, and about how my style evolved generally as well as about the process of creating specific artworks. It’s pretty easy to pick up tips about how to copy my technique if that’s what you’re after.

My style is imitated quite a bit, but, for the most part, artists who use my art credit its influence publicly, and the value of that recognition is hard to overestimate.

Because I know that, I talk a lot about the artists whose creativity inspires mine, but I go further as well: I work hard to avoid taking too much from other people’s art. And “too much” is actually very easy to define: all an artist has to do is ask themselves if they’d be okay having their work juxtaposed with the inspiration’s work and shown publicly. Discomfort at the thought of that happening might indicate that the artist is taking too much. For more on that, check out this video.

I’ve had to rethink a few things in my life after discovering Lewis’ art, but one thing I never thought twice about was my commitment to the public domain. It may feel like you’re having all your energy taken when you’re copied without acknowledgment, but that doesn’t mean that art shouldn’t be shared freely. It’s just a matter of figuring out how to get your energy back.