Hey folks!
I find it helpful to draw inspiration from areas that are not scratch related. James Victore’s burning questions video series is one of them. James is an art director, designer, and author. His video series always inspires and encourages me to create and I thought it might do the same for you.
This is a truly great episode on finding your style, that we can apply to our scratching:
Video Highlights
I address finding your own style or voice. You can only find your own voice when you abandon what everyone else considers “good” and make the work YOU like.
- 00:40 – How do you find your own style or voice?
- 00:46 – How do you find your own style or voice when there is so much going on (Dribbble / Behance = portfolio sites)?
- 01:03 – PROBLEM – You are looking around too much, you are not LISTENING.
- 01:12 – Where to find your voice and signposts
- 01:44 – Looking around at things that are fashionable and “success”.
- 01:52 – Successes that don’t work for you.
- 01:55 – Looking at other sites and other artist “copies”.
- 02:13 – Success isn’t an auto trace!
- 02:28 – 3 Things you need to do:
- learn everything
- forget it
- design
- 03:23 – Do the work!
- 03:33 – Wanting it and time.
- 04:29 – The GREAT thing about finding your voice.
YEH!
How this relates to scratching
Here are the things I think that we can take from this video as they relate to scratching:
- It’s easy to get overwhelmed watching other peoples scratch videos on YouTube and Facebook.
- Why not stop copying other peoples scratches and learning their techniques?
- At some point you have to cut off and get in the zone.
- Turn off the internet.
- By all means do learn all the scratch techniques, but then try and forget the technicalities and start coming up with your own versions and unique play on them.
- Practice yo cuts! Yo meaning your cuts and not anyone else’s cuts.
- Tune into your cuts and your own unique expression.
- See what combinations you come up with when you are unhindered by what everyone else is doing.
- Your scratching style is inside you and is unique to you. Embrace it!
Summary
It is very easy to get overwhelmed and distracted looking outside ourselves for a style, with scratch videos appearing on YouTube and Facebook on hand 24/7.
When that happens, why not switch it all off and go do your own scratch work?! That is where you will find your style.
Until next time…
Happy Scratching! 
– Emma