Abstract painting process

Setting a direction

I am working on some new small paintings. The way I paint involves hope and optimism.

I have no idea how these paintings will develop or what they will become. I just have to trust that I can navigate my way through, one decision at a time. There is a paradox in the painting process I find, it involves both a ‘letting go’ and the tenacity of ‘keeping going’.

Before I began this series, I spent time thinking about the kind of paintings I wanted to create.

I looked back at my sketchbooks and created some studies, thinking about how I wanted these new works to feel. I wrote down a few guiding words; antique embroidery, weird and wonderful vessels, pattern and lines, hidden treasure, spaciousness coupled with complexity.

There is no one way to build a painting

There is no one way to build a painting. My process suits me. I build up layer after layer of richness, colour and paint. Holding my intentions loosely. Responding to what is. Letting go of the plans and perhaps heading in a different direction entirely. I never know how my paintings will turn out until they are finished. I quite enjoy this uncertainty. And these paintings took an unexpected direction…

The layered process

Painting in layers is both a process of discovery and concealment. The ability to add and obscure makes painting with acrylics a dance between flow and frustration. Often, the final painting only really reveals itself in the later stages.

I find that a painting tends to evolve in distinct phases:

1. Play and possibility

The early layers are free and experimental. I tend to start with a single colour ground, just a single colour covering the whole board. Then I add paint marks and coloured shapes. Knowing that only small remnants of these layers may show in the finished work allows for boldness and spontaneity.

2. The messy middle

The painting process can feel like a tussle at this stage. The composition starts to emerge, but the painting oscillates between looking promising and looking lost. It often feels like a wrangle, I have to paint over sections I love to find a composition that works. Some days, I leave the studio feeling like the paintings are worse than when I started, some days everything flows beautifully. This stage always seems to require tenacity and hope.

3. Refinement and resolution

I keep turning up and making one decision after another. Gradually, clarity arrives. The painting begins to make sense, and I shift into refining details, making small adjustments until everything feels in place.

The obstacle is the way

As Marcus Aurelius put it nearly 2000 years ago: “The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”

I welcome the difficult bits and the problem solving involved in creating a painting. The grit makes the pearl. I don’t really want the painting process to always feel easy and simple. I don’t want to know how a painting will turn out before I’ve even started. Sometimes I like the challenge of working through obstacles. The reward is in the overcoming of the difficult bits and developing something that feels good to me.

Capturing wisdom

I take time to reflect as I work and once the paintings are complete. Taking stock. Capturing wisdom. Understanding my own creative process strengthens my intuition and deepens my artistic practice. Here are some questions I ask myself, perhaps they will be helpful to you too:

• What did I learn?

• What worked?

• What do I want to remember for next time?

• What did I enjoy?

• What are my observations on the process?

• What advice do I want to give myself?

To be continued…

Painting is not always a smooth journey, but the good bits and the problem solving are what makes it a meaningful endeavour. It’s in the layers, both the literal ones and in those of experience that we find satisfaction, that we create art that feels like our own, that means something to us.

I will come back and show you how these paintings turned out. I also intend to do another series which is closer to the original indigo and white studies, but let’s see what actually happens…

Materials

These paintings are still works in progress, but were made on 30cm x 30cm wooden panels from Cowling and Wilcox using a variety of paint including: Sennelier Heavy Body Paint, Daler and Rowney FW Ink and Liquitex Soft Body Paint

A sketchbook of fragments

This video for was filmed in December 2023

In this video I show you the progression of some abstract paintings, I take you inside a couple of my sketchbooks and share a specific approach I sometimes use to start and fill a sketchbook….I also share a few books I’m currently inspired by.

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Original Painting: A Joyful Home Two

If you ever find yourself with an assortment of paper scraps, abandoned sketches, old art excercies or leftover bits from other projects you may like to try this. Instead of letting them pile up or throwing them away, turn them into a creative and joyful sketchbook practice.

I call this my Sketchbook of Lost and Lonely Fragments, it’s a low-pressure, intuitive way to explore composition, color, and mark-making.

Getting started

• Collect scraps of paper, painted off-cuts, patterns, abandoned doodles, or any interesting textures and colors that speak to you. These could be anything from torn magazine pages to leftover swatches of paint on a palette.

• Randomly glue them in to your sketchbook. Try not to overthink this bit, start adhering these fragments across the pages of your sketchbook.

• Use the whole sketchbook. Work through your entire book, placing snippets on each page. This disrupts the intimidating blank page and provides a playful starting point for future creativity.

  Developing the pages

• Once your base of fragments is in place, you can revisit the pages at random and begin developing them further:

• Explore intuitive mark-making. Use pens, pencils, markers, or paint to add details. Try drawing lines, shapes, patterns, or shading to interact with the fragments.

• Experiment with composition. Let the placement of your scraps guide your creative choices. Try and create a balanced page by emphasising certain areas, using colors and exploring contrasts.

• Play with different materials. Collage, stitch, paint, or even cut through pages to create unexpected layers.

• Let surprises happen. Approach the process without a fixed outcome in mind. The goal is to stay playful and see what emerges naturally.

  Why you many like to try this approach

• It reduces the pressure of perfect. By starting with an already ‘disrupted’ page, you bypass the fear of the blank page.

• It encourages playfulness. The randomness of the fragments leads to spontaneous and surprising compositions.

• It fosters creative exploration. Working in this way encourages new ideas, unexpected juxtapositions, and unusual combinations.

• Turns scraps into treasure. Re-use your abandoned art experiments. What was perhaps discarded now becomes an integral part of a creative process.

I think creating in this way is an invitation to embrace imperfection and spontaneity. It’s a reminder that art doesn’t need to be pre-planned or polished—sometimes, the most exciting discoveries come from embracing the unknown and unexpected.

So consider this a small invitation to gather your scraps, open your sketchbook, and start creating.

Books and links

• Mark Hearld Workbook published by Merrell 2012, words by Simon Martin. You can follow Mark on instagram

• Picasso on Paper, a catalogue from the The Royal Academy of Arts 2020, to accompany the exhibition of the same name. There is a Youtube video of the exhibition here

• Brian Wildsmith, 123 first published in 1965, by Brooklyn Art Books for Children. There is a website cataloguing Brian’s books, art and illustration here or there is an instagram account managed by his family

  The two sketchbooks I show is this video are 1. The Venezia Book from Fabriano and 2. A3 Ebony Artist Sketchbook from Daler Rowney.

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The beauty of dreams

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. ”

— Eleanor Roosevelt

I have just finished some new paintings. I have named this series of just three paintings The Beauty of Dreams after the quote above. Believing in the beauty of our own dreams seems to me like a potent and powerful spell.

A small act of hope, purpose and magic all mixed into one.

It’s a quote I love and it came to mind as I was finishing these paintings. They have taken a good while to unfurl, I have worked slowly on them for many weeks until they became what they were going to become. Embedded within each one are layers of acrylic paint, detail, line work… small moments of hidden treasure…

When they were nearing the end phase I kept thinking they had a dreamlike quality… there was something about them that felt like they were part twighlight, part dream-state, part bathed in starlight. So when it came to naming them I kept circling back to the idea of dreams and hope…

I initially thought I might call them Mid-Summer Night’s Dreaming but it somehow didn’t feel exactly right. Then I remembered the quote above and I felt like it just suited them….like it was for them.

I try and take my time naming a painting. As the paintings develop I keep a list of words and phrases which occur to me as I work, that have resonance… a running list of possible names or just fragments of thoughts. I think about what I am trying to convey, the feeling that is embodied in the painting...how the painting makes me feel.

Naming a painting is like a small milestone, a closing ceremony, a gift to the painting and the viewer, a mark of completion, a small badge of respect, a sense of identity for the new painting that has been created…

Tuning into our own wisdom…

In this video I chat through some personal thoughts about the art making process... The things I’d like to remember for myself and which I thought may be useful to also share with you.

I’ve just finished five new paintings. I just love how they turned out, but there were some ups and downs along the way… a little wrangling and a few days of challenge. I find the journey of a painting is not always smooth…

Risk and reward

I had a few days in the studio with all of these paintings where I didn’t love what was happening… I thought that perhaps they would never become finished paintings, sometimes that just happens.

If I am wrestling with a painting I often find that adding something completely different, unexpected, something bold, something uncontrolled helps me to get out of a rut. `Sometimes I need to shake things up,

Introducing a little risk can lead to reward. Perhaps a huge sweep of colour or completely painting over sections… I applied this idea to all of these five paintings. At a certain point in each painting I did something bold and unpredictable…I completely changed the colour palette I was using, I painted right over a whole painting, I applied paint in thick uncontrolled daubs and as soon as I took a bold step, I began to see possibility and began to fall in love with them again.

The grit makes the pearl

I dont really want the painting process to always feel easy and simple. I actually relish the challenge of working through the the difficult days, it is part of what I love about being an artist. I appreciate the problem solving...and try and remember that it is the grit in the oyster that makes the pearl…

Capturing wisdom

After I finish a series of paintings, I try to take a moment to reflect on the process, to take stock, to think through what I did, how I did it and what it felt like. To ask myself a few simple questions as a way to better understand myself as an an artist, as a way to clarify my thoughts and to access my own wisdom.

Learning to tap into and trust our own wisdom is so important as artists. This kind of exercise helps to strengthen that muscle. Here are the type of questions I ask myself incase you’d like to do the same:

• What did I learn?

• What worked?

• What do I want to remember?

• What did I enjoy?

• What are my observations on the process?

• What advice do I want to give myself?

• What must I remember for next time?

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Original Painting: The Wisdom Tree

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Original Painting: Deep Roots and Wide Branches

How a painting progresses

I’ve been working on some paintings for the last few weeks. In this blog post I wanted to share these paintings with you and give a little insight into my thought process and painting process.

Quick View

Space to Dream

SETTING AN INTENTION

Before I started painting this series I spent some time thinking about the kind of paintings I wanted to make. I looked back at my sketchbooks and previous painted studies. I made a few notes on how I wanted the paintings to feel and be. Setting the broadest of intentions for the work. I wrote ‘dreamlike, bold, interesting objects.”

I chose to use acrylic paint as I wanted to build up layers of paint and for each painting to have a hidden history which occasionally reveals itself.

I also spent some time thinking about the colour palette.…but this changed in the process of making them. And then I started, My one definite plan was to keep coming back to the paintings day after day until they were finished and to use my sketchbooks as a resource and guide rope.

LAYERS OF PAINT

I built up layer after layer of paint, letting each painting take shape and become what it was going to become. These paintings were painted with Sennelier Abstract Acrylic Paint on 360gsm paper from a UK brand called Seawhite of Brighton.

I find when I work with acrylics in this way, it can be a fascinating journey of both discovery and concealment. The fact you can build up layer after layer is what makes painting with acrylics, for me, a dance between flow and frustration. It’s not until the later layers that the painting comes together and reveals itself.

Quick View

The Spaces Between Things

Quick View

Still Spaces

STAGES OF PAINTING

In creating paintings this way, I seem to cycle through phases of ease and effort. The early layers start with a sense of play and possibility. I freely engage with the colours and paint. As I know that only tiny remnants, if any, of these early layers will show through in the final painting, there is a freedom and boldness that comes at the start.

Then comes the difficult middle bit, where it all looks a bit muddled and messy and I’m not sure what to do next. Each painting seems to oscilate between ugly and good looking so quickly. It’s in this middle phase where I am trying to consider composition and work out the direction of each painting and what it might become.

Quick View

Spacious Blue

This middle phase always seems like a little bit of a tussle, a rewarding wrangle, I have to paint over sections I love to find a composition that works. Each painting frequently looks bad in this phase and I find it hard to believe it could ever become beautiful. But I persevere and keep going. Some days I leave the studio feeling like the paintings are worse than when I started the day. But then the next day everything just comes together and I can see what they might be.

The final phase of my painting process is where I refine, clarify and resolve each painting. Here I make smaller, less dramatic changes until I am happy that all the paintings are how they should be.

As these paintings progressed I kept thinking about making space, the importance of spaciousness, the sentimental importance of the objects we travel through life with….giving myself space to dream and unfurl. And somehow the final paintings do appear a little dream-like to me.

SPACE TO REFLECT

Once I believe they are all complete and finished, I leave them for a few days or more and keep coming back to them to see if I spot anything that jars, or distracts or doesn’t feel exactly right to me.

This time and space to reflect gives me a new perspective and more objectivity, Looking at them long and hard when I’m not in the process of actually painting them is a helpful thing.

And then believing they could be finished turns into knowing they are finished…. and they are.

Need a little sketchbook inspiration?

Take the Sketchbook Love Class.

It is FREE today

Looking back to go forward…

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In this video I show you some recent studies, sketches and sketchbooks and chat about how I often review my artwork as a way to take stock and inform my next art making move…. 

Spending a little time looking back over previous creations is a lovely way to recall, retain and be reminded of things that may have been forgotten and can bring clarity about what to make next.

REMEMBERING AND REMINISCING 

Looking back over work we have previously created is like catching up with old friends, remembering and reminiscing. 

CONNECTIONS AND COMBINING

When we look at our work collected together we are better able to see connections and themes and ways in which we may like to combine elements and ideas together to create something new. 

I find it useful to review my work with an inquisitive eye, asking questions such as:

• What do I find interesting here?

• What is calling to me?

• What do I find visually pleasing? A colour, a mark, a line quality, a combination or juxtaposition?

• Why does this appeal to me?

• How does it feel?

• How do I want my current art to feel?

• How could I evolve this?

• How could I develop it?

I find that what I have already created holds important signs or signals and reviewing it can ignite something new or prompt me to explore and expand on a theme or technique, spending time ‘mining’ our own creations can be a useful way to better understand our own artistic sensibilities and style.

THE PAST INFORMS THE FUTURE

There is a lovely continuum in art making, everything that we’ve made before, we bring to our new creations, nothing is ever wasted, it’s like everything we’ve already made informs everything to come….and I relish that continuity and evolution…

Need a little sketchbook inspiration?

Take the Sketchbook Love Class.

It is FREE today

How to make a simple sketchbook

In this video I show you how to make a simple sketchbook from one large piece of paper. The bigger sketchbook in the video is made from an A1 sheet and the smaller one is made from an A3 sheet.

I make these simple one page sketchbooks very frequently and have for many years. There is something extremely tactile and pleasing about making a simple art book. I like the fact that it’s just one piece of paper, no pressure, no expectations, it feels expansive and freeing.

The great thing is that you can make them from any paper you have that you can fold and you can make them from abandoned art experiments or drawings if you’d like to…. in the video I am using paper which is approximately 150gsm in weight.

Art and life: sketchbooks, paintings and art books

In this video I show you some new completed paintings and trace their origin back to some old sketchbook pages. I share a couple of my favourite art books, talk a little about art and life and share some of my latest sketchbook meanderings…

The artists and books I mention:

Angie Lewin: Plants and Places by Angie Lewin, published by Merrell 2010

Barbara Rae: Barbara Rae, words by Bill Hare, Andrew Lambirth & Gareth Wardell, published by Lund Humphries in 2008

Available paintings

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Online art classes

Mixed Media Sketchbook Class £20

Make a Concertina Sketchbook £30

Colour and Pattern Sketchbook Class £20

Mark Making Sketchbook Class £20

A Playful Approach to Still Life £40

Make an Experimental Mixed Media Art Journal £30

Art demo: abstract painting inspired by shapes

Music Credit: Supine by Peter Sandberg via Epidemic Music.

In today’s video I demonstrate a way to build up an abstract painting using layers of acrylic paint and shapes.

In a previous video I shared a drawing exercise which created a grid of shapes. Today I take some of the shapes from that drawing exercise and use them to develop striking abstract painted pages in a sketchbook. It is a method you may want to explore as a way to progress your original drawn ideas and use your repertoire of shapes in a painting. You can watch the original drawing video here if you’d like to:

In today’s painting demonstration I am using heavy body acrylic paint from Sennelier in a Daler Rowney A3 Sketchbook which has 160gsm paper.

This paint has quite a matte finish (although I think it is technically described as satin) so it doesn’t tend to result in sketchbook pages which stick together, some heavy body paint can be quite glossy and it is this shine that results in finished pages sticking together, despite them being dry when you close your sketchbook.

This demo and exercise is messy and playful and it can create interesting and surprising results…(if you enjoy a pristine sketchbook or are at all concerned that the paint you are using might possibly cause your pages to stick together you may want to try this on a piece of paper instead). I hope you enjoy it.

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Online art classes

Fun, Experimental Semi Abstract Still Life Class £40

A Playful Approach to Abstract Acrylic Still Life £40

Mixed Media Sketchbook Class £20

Colour and Pattern Sketchbook Class £20

Mark Making Sketchbook Class £20

Make an Experimental Mixed Media Art Journal £30

Make a Concertina Sketchbook £30

One page sketchbooks

In this video I show you how to make a simple sketchbook from one piece of paper and a way to tidy them up by gluing and cutting.

I make these simple one page sketchbooks very frequently and have for many years. There is something extremely tactile and pleasing about their intimate scale. I like the fact that it’s just one piece of paper, no pressure, no expectations, it feels expansive and freeing.

The great thing is that you can make them from any paper you have, I happen to have a lot of heavy watercolour paper (350gsm) and I use that but you can use what you have to hand, you could even use cheap computer paper. These sketchbooks end up with 8 sides, so the end result will always be an eighth of the size of the paper you started with…

I sometimes begin the art work before the page is folded into a sketchbook, there is something about the surprising and unexpected compositions that come with the folding which I enjoy.

I’ve made them from abandoned drawings or from scrap pieces of paper, reusing and recycling and making something from not very much. I might take a painting that hasn’t quite worked and use it for the start of one of these art books, adding collage, painting over sections, turning the unloved into the loved.

Thank you to artist Sue Brown for the idea of gluing these sketchbooks. you can of course just make them by folding and one cut if you want to keep them super simple (the gluing helps if you are using thicker paper and want to neaten them up, because thick paper doesn’t fold as well and so the end result can get a little wonky.)

Understanding our art by writing

I’m a great believer in writing things down. Sometimes the act of putting pen to paper can turn the intangible into the tangible. Asking ourselves questions and writing down our answers can help us to articulate our intentions and ideas to ourselves. It can help us find clarity when we are a little unclear. Our answers can also serve as a reminder and prompt along the way.

A sketchbook made from one piece of paper

One page sketchbooks

In this video I share how I use one page sketchbooks as art note books.

You can learn how to make a one page sketchbook here if you would like to.

Writing to understand

Writing about our art can help us to organise our thoughts, collect and capture ideas and can give us ideas when we are feeling under-inspired. Here are some questions you may like to use as prompts for your own writing:

• What am I interested in exploring?

• How do I want my art to feel?

• What processes do I want to explore?

• What do I want to start/stop doing in my art making?

• What artist’s are currently calling to me and why?

• What art materials do I want to use?

• What advice do I need to give myself?

• What can I do to nurture my creativity?

I like to keep adding to my one page notebook as ideas occur to me, I try and capture those fleeting observations before they escape. It creates a useful resource, a map of inspiration and ideas…

The beauty of things

In this video I share some insight into a recent series of paintings. This collection of abstract still-life paintings is inspired by some of the objects and things in my home…

“These artworks are loosely inspired by some of the objects and artefacts in my life and home. The objects I find beautiful and the things that have meaning to me.”

HELEN WELLS

Inspired by beautiful things…

I’m fascinated by the objects we travel through life with. Objects that we invite into our lives, into our homes and houses and our connection to those objects. These paintings celebrate that bond and are loosely inspired by some of the things in my home…and evolved from ideas I developed in my sketchbooks.

My sketchbooks are where everything I make starts. They are the birthplace of all my art. They are where my ideas percolate and develop, collect and gather. My sketchbooks are where I experiment and where my ideas unfurl and take shape. They are where I get to understand myself as an artist and where I get to understand the things that excite me and make me curious…

My hope is that these abstract still life paintings bring a moment of joy and invite a smile. They are bold, bright and exuberant…

Sketchbook pages

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Original Painting: Ornaments and Objects, 50cm x 50cm

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Original Painting: Cosy Corner, 50cm x 50cm

Making collages to inspire paintings

In this video I share a process I use to help me find new ideas and compositions…

CREATING COLLAGES

I make photocopies of things I’ve created, such as pages in my sketchbook, I collect together abandoned drawings, and offcuts and oddments from my art practice and I use all these pieces and fragments to create temporary collages which I then photograph.

The photographs are then used to inspire further drawings and paintings and then those drawings and paintings might be used to inspire something else…its a creative stepping stone.

A temporary collage made from old drawings, and photocopies of things I’ve created

FOLLOWING A BREADCRUMB TRAIL

Art making is often like following a breadcrumb trail through the forest to an unknown destination… I never quite know which path will lead to something magical and which will lead to a dead-end. I like the fact that making art can feel like a journey into the unknown...

A painting in my sketchbook (left) inspired by a collage made from pieces of an old magazine (right).

COLLAGES MADE FROM MAGAZINES

If you don’t have offcuts of your own art to use to create a collage, you could try with pieces cut from a magazine.

Above is a small collage I’ve created by cutting interesting bits and bobs out of a magazine.

Creating a composition from random found shapes and pieces is like constructing a puzzle… it involves lots of questioning and thought and is not always as easy as it may appear. ‘Does this look balanced? Is this interesting? Is it too busy? Is it too boring? Does it work as a unified whole? The sort of questions you need to ask when creating any art work are tested by this type of excercise. In all these experiments, I’m seeking discoveries, learnings, revelations…flexing my creative muscles.

I believe most artist’s have a seeker’s soul. Looking for fragments of ideas, trying to figure things out, attempting to join the dots, make connections, piecing things together to better understand themselves and the world around them. Trying to find out who they are as artists and how they want their art to look, feel and be in that moment…

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This mindset shift which has helped the most…

Music credit: Ludlow, Masterpiece of Mess

In this video I talk about how my art making changed dramatically when I stopped concentrating on the flaws in everything I created and started appreciating and seeking the things I loved about my own art. This change allowed me to appreciate my personal sensibilities, tune into what made my art feel like mine and improve my skills.

I love this quote from Ira Glass, the American writer and broadcaster. It is about writing but is true and applicable to all forms of creativity…

“All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple of years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer.

And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have.

We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know it’s normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work.

Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”

IRA GLASS QUOTED IN 2009 WHEN TALKING ABOUT THE THE ART OF STORYTELLING ON CURRENT TV

This idea is true not just for beginners but for everyone who is at a point of transition, or trying something new or integrating a new process into their existing approach.

Our ambitions can be greater than our abilities and that is just part of the creative process…my advice is to keep going and keep paying close attention to what you like, enjoy and care about in your own work…

Collages made from magazines

Music credit: Don’t Give up on Love by Ludlow via Epidemic Sound

In this video I share a small creative exercise: making collages from our imagination and an old magazine.

SIMPLE BUT NOT EASY

This kind of simple art exercise or challenge is an important part of my art journey. The premise is simple but the execution is not always easy. It involves thought and problem solving and working within constraints and trying to make something from not very much…

REFINING SKILLS

Just like any other discipline, art requires practice to refine skills, to develop self awareness and expand our zones of comfort. I enjoy incorporating small challenges into my art making, whatever the outcome may be. Being relaxed about the outcome is key, I think.

HAPPY WITH AN AVERAGE OUTCOME

I’ve now learned to be happy with not always loving what I create, particularly if iI’m just exploring or doing exercises.

I know that making average stuff is just part of art making. It’s actually a really important part…. It has taken me a long time to understand this though.

I used to think that everything I created must look lovely. That if I created something ugly it meant I wasn’t a good enough artist. I was insecure in my own abilities and wanted my work to somehow prove to myself that I was indeed good enough. This desire for perfection did not help me make better art, it added a weight of expectation and too much pressure. It just caused me unneccessary suffering along the way and a feeling of stuck-ness.

Putting too much significance on the outcome and wanting something to look good meant I became stuck doing the things I knew I could do. It meant that the joy of art making was always wedded to the outcome. It also meant that I didn’t allow myself to take any risks or push myself. Now I fully accept that not everything I create will work out how I want it to and actually if it always does I’m probably playing it too safe. Ofcourse I still want to make beautiful art that feels good to me, but I believe that creating art that I really love comes from creating lots of art, sometimes successful and sometimes not so much….

Abstract art and art books…

In this video I share a little of what I am up to in my art practice at the moment, painting on paper, the art books I’m currently reading and loving and a few recent adventures within my sketchbook…

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Original Painting on Paper: A Vibrant Life One

ART BOOKS: John Walker, The Blue Series, Messums Art Gallery, Catalogue, published in 2023

David Mankin, Remembering in Paint by Kate Reeve Edwards, published by Samson & Company 2021

MUSIC CREDIT: If I wrote you a song, by Melanie Bell vie Epidemic Sound

Abstract art: progression and process

Today I wanted to share a little insight about how my paintings progress and develop. I thought I’d show you some abstract paintings I’m currently working on at different stages of un-dress and un-doneness.

ALIGN THE PROCESS WITH THE INTENTION

Every artist has a different process and it’s important that the process you choose to use or develop reflects the things you are interested in. Our processes are a vital part of the mix, they are part of our art decision making, part of how we want our art to feel and be.

There is no one way to paint a painting. I try and ensure that the way I paint a painting emphasises and aligns with my sensibilities and reflects how I want my art to feel…

So for example I love delightful details, layers of complexity, rich maximalist combinations, I want my art to be bright and playful but also have a depth and complexity. I enjoy exuberance AND control. I like a sense of seeking and finding. I enjoy my paintings when they feel like they have a history, like they are interesting objects with a past. I want to celebrate beauty in the mundane. And because I have really thought about all this, I am better able to develop art making processes which give me these results.

TWO QUESTIONS

So in a nutshell it is useful to think “what are my paintings about?” and “how can my processes support and align with this?”

My story

I became an artist a little later in life, in my late thirties. I didn’t go to art collage and gave up studying art when I was just seventeen. My route to becoming a full time artist has been a rather circuitous one. I didn’t create anything at all in my twenties, then spent my thirties obsessed with art, but only ever as a hobby. It wasn’t until my forties that art slowly evolved to become my full time career.

As a child, I was always drawing. I dreamed of being a textile designer. I loved spending hours creating elaborate and intricate patterns from my imagination. I used to get through so much paper that my father started to buy me large rolls of wallpaper lining-paper to keep up with my insatiable demand for something to draw on.

Recent artwork

Recent art work

Drawing from 40 years ago

My Mum was studying contemporary textiles when I was little, so she was always sewing or taking me to the haberdashery. Thread, fabric, colour, pattern were the back-drop to my childhood. I have always been fascinated by pattern and colour

But then at seventeen when a school time-tabling clash wouldn’t allow me to study art with my other subjects, I gave up studying art and I gave up creating art and I allowed it to just slip out of my life.

A little bit of heartbreak brought me back to art making. A relationship breakup when I was 28 or 29 left me moping around with no summer holiday plans. I decided to book myself onto a two week painting summer school at a London art college. It was there that I started a much more fulfilling love affair… I fell completely and utterly in love with drawing and painting.

For nearly all of my thirties art was a hobby, I tried to go to art collage and was rejected after a terrible interview, so I just thought that creating art would remain a life enhancing, life enriching hobby.

In my late thirties as I climbed the career ladder at the charity I had worked at for for nearly a decade, I began to feel that perhaps I had laid my ladder against the wrong wall.

I had a clear epiphany out of the blue one day, that I really did want to make art a more significant part of my life… so I set about trying to make art my career.

I took tiny steps in the right direction. I started to try and sell my art online. I entered competitions and group shows and slowly and surely things started to happen. I won a Winsor & Newton watercolour competition which meant my art was displayed at The Saatchi Gallery in London. Eight of my paintings were displayed at one of Gordon Ramsay’s restaurants… I build my confidence, learnt new skills and made art my part time career and then eventually my full time career.

Recent sketchbook pages

Recent sketchbook pages

I’ve now patch-worked an art career together through trial and error, finding out what works and what I enjoy. I love the career I have built. I license my work for wall art, branding and products. I sell my original paintings and complete commissions for original art projects such as for hospitals. I have written a book about mixed media sketchbooks and I teach online classes.

Drawing and exploring

In this video I share a little of my art process when creating something new. I like to draw and explore with different materials and approaches, think through doing… gradually unpack an idea. Get stuck in and see where it takes me.

Abstract art and art books

MUSIC CREDIT: If i wrote you a song, by Melanie Bell via Epidemic Sound

In this video I share a little of what I am up to in my art practice at the moment, painting on paper, the art books I’m currently reading and loving and a few recent adventures within my sketchbook…

ART BOOKS:

John Walker, The Blue Series, Messums Art Gallery, Catalogue, published in 2023

David Mankin, Remembering in Paint by Kate Reeve Edwards, published by Samson & Company 2021