Copywork or Emulation is vital when learning art skills like drawing or painting, but it also shows up in language learning, studying math, writing and more. I’d almost bet that this is something you’ve already done without even thinking about it. I remember copying comic book pages by Jim Lee when I was young. Copying them and looking at them carefully inspired me to develop some of those early skills. I have them somewhere… I’ve also done direct copies of masterworks by Rembrandt at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I really believe that copying is one of the fastest ways of improving the quality of your work and studying aesthetics.

There is a danger with doing copies though. And it’s not copyright… It’s not illegal to copy others’ work, even those that are still alive, it is a problem when you claim it as an original. But that’s not really what you want it for anyway, it’s just there to help you improve your skills. The real danger though…is in the limits you place on what you choose to copy. If you exclusively focus on one style of art, more often than not, you just become a bad emulator of that art or artist. What’s best is to make collections of work you love from a wide range of sources, especially the works that inspire the artists you admire. Who are they looking at? What you’ll find is that as you broaden your copy collection, that you’ll acquire bits and pieces from each of those artists and merge them into something that is uniquely yours. Something that becomes an identifiable style associate directly with you. And that means you can bring something that no one else has to the table and you will be sought out for it.