Writing Our Point of View

Just read another artist's blog about creating work, why we do it. Why does one choose to do a certain style of art? Rembrandt painted hundreds of self-portraits. Why so many? What led him to create so many images of himself? I identify with Rembrandt, I love black and white. He did many etchings and pen and ink drawings. He illustrated many scenes from the Bible. Was he a devout Christian? Why did he do so many Biblical themes? Why do I illustrate passages from the Bible? These are the most successful works I do. Maybe I am in a rut. The blog I was reading said that often we find a style that is successful and we are reluctant to do anything else. This is true of me. When I was younger I learned to draw by copying other artist's work. I worked a lot from photos as well. Now I just do my formulaic Bible quotes. The last couple of weeks I have been doing little self-portraits in pen and ink as well. There has been a temptation to do a Rembrandt self-portrait. I used to love to copy other artists work. I stopped doing them when I heard that this was frowned on by many as not art. I never sold these copies. I did not want to be known as a plagiarist. But this is a great way to grow and learn as an artist. In my opinion.
How do we avoid falling into the trap of creating the same thing over and over? How do we avoid a common pitfall: repeating ourselves? What happens when we get stuck doing the same old thing just because it is successful? This week I did little drawings of me in pen and ink and watercolors. I had great fun with this but would not show anyone the finished product. It is one of the first times in a long time that I avoided my formula. A good place to start.