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

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

Inside the art journal of Frida Kahlo

THE DIARY OF FRIDA KAHLO: AN INTIMATE SELF PORTRAIT

In this video I take you inside the art journal or visual diary of the artist Frida Kahlo. I share the book: The Diary of Frida Kahlo: An Intimate Self Portrait published in 1995 by Abradale Press an in-print of Abrams Books, with subsequent reprints in later years. You can read more about this book on the publisher’s website, it is still in print today…

It’s a book which I come back to time and again.

Frida Kahlo, one of the most iconic artists of the 20th century, was born in Mexico in 1907 and is famous for her self-portraits, characterised by vibrant colours and powerful symbolic imagery,

This book fully replicates 170 pages of her visual journal or sketchbook. She worked in the book for the last ten years of her life between circa 1945 and 1955 and it gives a intimate insight into the woman and the artist.

INTROSPECTION AND EXPRESSION

Her diary or sketchbook, I think, reflects both a deep introspection and bold self-expression. She has clearly used this book as a means of exploring her inner thoughts, emotions, and personal experiences, her identity and her place in the world.

IMAGERY AND SYMBOLISM

It’s packed with symbolic imagery, metaphors, personal, political, religious and cultural iconography all patch-worked together.

Pages from Frida Kahlo’s visual diary

EXPLORATION AND EXPERIMENTATION

It also shows all sorts of artistic exploration and experimentation, she mixes up various techniques, styles, and art materials. She combines elements of realism, surrealism with symbols and motifs to create a visually rich, and at times bewildering and beguiling whole.

I think she is exploring her personal pain and suffering and yet it also clearly demonstrates her magnificent wit, playful spirit and vibrancy…

Her journal feels like a significant work of self-expression, resilience and creativity…and I think it’s just fascinating.

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…

---