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.
Tuning into our own wisdom…
Risk, reward and reflections….the things I want to remember…
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?
This mindset shift which has helped the most…
Some thoughts on mindset and expectations…
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…