Art making ideasi
Ideas. Inspiration. A little creative mischief.
If you’re drawn to abstract and semi-abstract art, sketchbooks, colour and a little creative mischief, this is your corner of the internet.
In my blog you’ll find stories, videos, inspiration, and gentle nudges to help you create art that feels like you.
How a painting progresses
A little insight about how paintings evolve and develop…
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.
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.
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.
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.
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Looking back to go forward…
This blog is about reviewing our work, looking back at our art with an inquisitive and curious eye…
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…