Conventional....or Not?

I was coloring with my grandson the other day when it occurred to me that I'm a conventional artist. Even as a small child, when Mom would get on the floor and color with me, I was very particular about staying within the lines. I don't know if that idea came from her, or I was already there mentally. I know she encouraged me to stay within the defining lines on my color book pages, but she also taught me how to shade, where to put the shadows, and what colors I could use. Even that was fairly well defined, for instance if I was coloring a flower yellow, the shading color was a gold, or if red, I would use a crimson for shadows.
I find that as I am learning to paint, I have discovered that purple is a great shading color for red in my still life paintings. There are more that I can't think of right now, but it has opened a whole new world to see that I don't necessarily always have to go with a similar color to get the results I want. In fact, I should be looking for the true shadow color. Snow scenes are fun as the shadows can be purples, blues, peach or pink, grays, a myriad of color depending on the sunlight, and the mood you are trying to create.
With sculpting I still tend to be conventional in that I really like the old world look and have a hard time with whimsy. My favorite children's books have classic illustrations, even though there are a few illustrators such as Suzanne Urban of Smirking Goddess Studio that I would love to see create a children's story book with their delightful, whimsical, unique creations.
What sort of artist are you? Conventional, whimsical, abstract?
For a look at more of my Santa's created for this season stop by Reasons to Believe