Joy as a compass…

I used to think I had to “find my style.” Pick a lane. Pick a niche. Pick a version of myself that made sense on the internet.

But the more I tried to choose...the less like me it all felt. So I stopped chasing a style. And I started following joy.

The delight of a scribbled mark.

Colour combinations that made my heart sing.

The lines that happen when you’re not overthinking, when you’re not trying too hard. And after years of this, I can tell you: You don’t have to find your style. If you follow what feels good, it’ll find you.

You don’t have to find your style. If you follow what feels good, it’ll find you.

Because joy isn’t just a feeling or a byproduct of art making. It’s the compass. The method. The map that leads you home within your own your art.

Paying attention to all the things you love in your own art is the best way I know to make art that feels good and that embodies your style…

P.S. Joy Filled Flowers is a self-paced sketchbook class that helps you loosen up, experiment with mixed media, and bring joy back into your creative process and sketchbook practice. Online. On-demand. £58

Layering ideas

There’s something magical about flipping back through old sketchbooks. The pages are a container for our past ideas, experiments, and creative selves, some ideas are fully realised, others are only partially explored and developed.

What if these pages contained the sign posts to something entirely new?

Small sketchbooks made from scraps and abandoned pages

One of my favourite creative exercises is revisiting old sketchbooks and creations and weaving together different ideas, techniques, and themes to create something new. Layering together ideas as a way of honouring past explorations while pushing into new territory.

If you’re feeling stuck, uninspired, or just curious to see where your work can go, you may like to try this for yourself.

Gather and reflect

Start by pulling out a few of your older sketchbooks or art works, especially the ones you haven’t looked at in a while. Consider your work without judgment. Instead of critiquing, observe with curiosity. What stands out? Are there patterns, motifs, or color combinations that still excite you? Maybe there’s an old idea or composition that didn’t quite work at the time but feels full of potential now.

Hunting for clues

Look for ideas to pick and mix, mix and match. Are there any sketches, techniques, or themes that you could combine together that perhaps you wouldn’t normally put together. Maybe you have a page of delicate floral studies and another filled with bold, abstract mark-making. What happens if you created something new which combines these two ideas? Or perhaps there’s a color palette from one thing that could breathe new life into a completely different subject.

Try making a list of interesting pairings, that you gather from your own creations:

• Watercolor washes + intricate pen line-work

• Geometric collage shapes + loose gestural painting

• Drawn details over bold botanical shapes

• A sketch from years ago + a technique you’ve recently mastered

Pick and mix experiments

Now it’s time to play. Create a new piece or sketchbook page inspired by what you have found. Let go of expectations and approach it as an experiment. Maybe it turns into a finished piece, or maybe it’s just a stepping stone toward something else, but either way, it moves you forward.

Here are some more suggestions of ways to mix things up:

• Redraw an old sketch using a completely different medium

• Redraw an old sketch using a completely different set of colours

• Take a tiny detail from an old sketch and scale it up into a full composition.

• Concept stack. Take three completely different ideas from different sketchbook pages, or previous creations and combine them into something new.

Let it evolve

Creativity thrives on curiosity, so don’t be afraid to push the boundaries a little. What happens if you introduce an unexpected element? What if you challenge yourself to work in a size or format you’ve never tried before? Sometimes, the most exciting breakthroughs happen when we step up to and outside of, our comfort zones.

The beauty of looking back

Revisiting old work isn’t about repeating the past necessarily, it’s about mining it for lost treasure and using it as a bridge to something new.

Every sketchbook holds layers of who we were as artists at different points in time, and when we mix those layers together, we often uncover something surprising.

So, the next time you feel stuck, flip through your own work with fresh eyes. The inspiration you need might already be waiting for you in what you have already created.

Our previous work can give us a sign post to our future creations…

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Balancing chaos and focus in art making

Creativity often swings between inspiration gathering and disciplined execution. At the start of any creative endeavor, we might need a little chaos—openness, curiosity, and exploration. But to bring an idea to life, we need the opposite: clarity, focus, and determination.

Sometimes, we need the scattergun. Sometimes, we need the laser.

As I write this, I’m in the thick of filming my next online course. The process of creating this course has made me reflect on how creativity often demands two distinct modes: exploration and execution.

For the past two months, I’ve been in the scattergun phase—of coming up with ideas, hunting, gathering, experimenting, and throwing ideas at the wall to see what sticks. I’ve been absorbing books, discovering new artists, writing notes, journalling, sketching, expanding different techniques, and letting curiosity lead the way. This stage thrives on novelty, variety, and stimulation. It’s a time for playful chaos—inviting in fresh ideas, mixing influences, and allowing creative sparks to ignite.

But now, I’m in the laser phase—actually turning the ideas into a reality. Taking all the threads and creating the thing. This requires a completely different mindset: deep focus, structure, and an ‘all-in’ mentality. The distractions that once sparked ideas now threaten progress. Instead of jumping between concepts and tasks, I must commit, push through challenges, and sustain intense concentration.

This dance between divergence and convergence happens in most creative endeavors. It happens when making art—we start with an open field of possibilities, then gradually we define a path, make firm decisions, and commit.

Navigating the two modes in art making:

Embrace the scattergun phase fully

• At the start of a project or new body of work, embrace the ambiguity and uncertainty. There is often a lot of ‘not knowing’.

• Experiment with different materials, colours, techniques, styles and subjects—invite in the ‘new’ or novel without pressure or expectation.

• Seek inspiration from unexpected sources: museums, obscure books, nature, seek outside of your usual circles of reference...

• Fill sketchbooks with unfiltered ideas—sketchbooks are often divergent thinking in action…lots of experimentation, gathering, connecting dots…

• Follow your intuition. Let curiosity guide you. Resist the urge to make sense of everything immediately—connections and breakthroughs often emerge over time.

• Give yourself the opportunity to rest and the space to think if you can; creative ideas often surface when the mind is relaxed. “I’ll sleep on it”…is a truism for a reason. Allowing a little spaciousness into our lives, is fertile, it can allow ideas to take shape and grow.

• Gather inspiration like you’re building a virtual pinboard—often, magic happens in the weird combinations and unexpected connections.

Commit to the laser phase when it’s time

• Finishing an artwork or any creative project often requires a real focus and concentration. Align deep work with your natural energy cycles—concentration flows best when you work with your own rhythms.

• Set aside dedicated ‘studio’ time to refine, develop, and focus on your work. Set a timer for an set period of intense concentration and deep focus

• Trust the instincts you developed in the exploration phase—this stage is about shaping, not second-guessing.

• Reduce distractions (social media, external input) and fully immerse yourself in the process.

“Efforts to deepen your focus will struggle if you don’t simultaneously wean your mind from a dependence on distraction.”

― Cal Newport, Deep Work

Know when to switch gears

• If your work feels chaotic and unfocused, it might be time to narrow in and commit to a single direction.

• If you feel stuck or uninspired, loosen up—step away, explore new references, invite in something new or experiment freely again.

Creativity in art and life isn’t about choosing one approach over the other—it’s about learning to move between wild experimentation and disciplined refinement. The scattergun fills the well; the laser brings the vision to life. It seems to me that both are essential.

Monochrome magic

This video is one from my vault and was filmed in 2022.

Simple and striking

Colour is fascinating in all its sumptuous and seductive hues, but I am also very attracted to the simplicity and strikingness of black and white. In this post I share a few thoughts about working in black and white and a few of my favourite art materials.

Contrast and composition

The black and white palette is the most high contrast one there is, the lightest of lights and the darkest of darks. And as contrast and difference are what can make an artwork feel interesting, black and white can be a powerful and bold combination.

When using just black and white the composition of an artwork becomes more obvious, there is no colour to hide behind and this can be quite helpful in seeing how shapes, lines and all the constituent parts interact.

It pares everything back to its bones and I enjoy the elemental nature of this…when working in colour there are so many decisions to make, just using a few black pens takes away a lot these decisions.

Sometimes colour can obscure what is happening with a composition, in black and white the composition becomes extremely obvious.

The materials

Here is a run down of some of the materials I use, they’re just the ones I like, but I often get asked about which pens I use, so here they are:

BLACK PENS

• Pigma Micron Fine liner Pen for fine lines

• Pentel Pocket Re-fillable Brush Pen (this is the pen I use for the large sections of black, it is refillable with cartridges)

WHITE PENS

I can’t whole-heaertedly recommend any white pen, in my experience they are all often a little difficult. I often revert to a dip pen and a small pot of white ink.

• Molotow One4all white acrylic pen

• Sakura Gelly Roll 10

• Uni Posca Marker Pen Fine

• Uni Ball Signo Broad

I’m also just trying out some Zig pens from a brand called Kuretake which have had good reviews and I will let you know how they pan out…

OTHER MATERIALS

I often use black Indian Ink from Jackson’s Art and stick in pieces of photocopy with matt medium or a glue stick.

SKETCHBOOK

The sketchbook I use here is called the Venezia Book from Fabriano which comes in several sizes and has 200gsm paper and 48 sheets or 96 page surfaces. I mostly use the largest one which is 23cm x 30cm as it can take quite a bit of wet material and collage and the double page spreads in this size book lay quite flat…

Constraints

The limitation of using just a few pens and a limited choice of black and white quite liberating. Sometimes constraints can be, paradoxically, very freeing in art making, they can make it easier to start and cut down the decisions needed when infinite possibilities lead to option paralysis…

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A mixed media sketchbook tour

In this video I take you on a tour of a full and completed sketchbook and chat about searching for joy and delight in my art making..

This sketchbook took about six months to fill up. I know from the outside that it probably appears that my whole life is just full of care-free days spent colouring-in in my sketchbook… but the reality is that I have to actively find time for my sketchbook practice.

So here I wanted to talk about fitting a sketchbook practice into your day-to-day-life and how I do it.

Connection and kindness

When life is busy with client work, running a business, deadlines etc, playing in my sketchbook can feel like a luxury or a bit self-indulgent. But actually I know it is neither a luxury nor an indulgence.

My sketchbook practice is a tool for connecting with my creative self.

For me, creating in my sketchbook is a nurturing act, an act of kindness to myself, a form of self care and self expression. It is actually probably more important to me than lots of the other things in my life which, on the surface, would appear to be far more important.

Prioritising creativity

When I go for a week or more without using my sketchbook I feel a little disconnected from my self, a little bit adrift and a little unanchored from the creative side of me.

I find that creating art is like a homecoming, a grounding, it feels like I’m reconnecting and checking in with my self. It is a way to better understand myself, my world and what I’m interested in. So sometimes I have to actively make time for my sketchbook, to recognise that it is a priority to me and organise my life accordingly.

It is a habit which enriches my life, fills my creative-well and a practice which keeps me inspired and fluent in my art making, my sketchbook is the engine of my art making, so I find time for it, even when I don’t seem to have too much time to spare.

Frequently, I have to literally carve out time for my sketchbook, steal time from somewhere else or utilise the time I have better to ensure I get some time with my sketchbook. For example, this Summer I paused making YouTube videos and these newsletters to give myself more time to make art… This meant I had more time to paint generally and more time to use paint in my sketchbook, use messy materials and take time to play about. Life is always a balancing act and I often have to recalibrate and check-in with myself to ensure the pendulum hasn’t swung too far away from art making.

Small windows of time

When I’m busy I often end up fitting my sketchbook practice in whilst I’m waiting for something to cook, or in bed, or on the phone or whilst watching television with my husband at the end of the day… sometimes these scenarios are not optimal and demand a simplicity of materials, one pen or one pencil, but I find that a small stolen window of time is better than none at all.

I never ever manage to work in my sketchbook every single day.

This sketchbook is an Artist Sketchbook from Daler Rowney which has 54 double page spreads, it took six months to fill up... which means I fill a double page spread about once every four days on average…

I find that little and often keeps the creative conversation alive. I love it when I have a whole afternoon to potter and play in my sketchbook, but sometimes life just doesn’t allow that, so I find what time I can.

Reducing friction

I make using a sketchbook super easy….I carry a small sketchbook and pen in my bag, this massive sketchbook is stored under an armchair in my living room with a box of different art materials and a few brushes which hold water in the handle. All I need to just start, is right there, there is no friction, no need to get materials sorted, no decisions to make at all… it is all just there waiting for me and encouraging me to create…

Making it easy

Is there a way you could make your sketchbook more accessible and easier to use? I think it’s a good question to ask… ‘how do we make creating easier?’, sometimes the answer is about lowering our expectations and sometimes the answer is just about putting your sketchbook where you are most likely to use it….

Searching for joy and delight

Music Credit: Supine by Peter Sandberg via Epidemic Sound.

In this video I take you inside my mixed media sketchbook and share a speedy art demonstration experimenting with ink…

I often write notes to myself about my art, things I want to explore, things to remember, ideas to expand upon, fragments and whispers I want to capture.

Sometimes I list the things I want to do more of or the things I want do less of…

I’ve always found writing to be a useful way to think…by pouring words onto a page, I organise and clarify my thoughts and bring light to what I believe.

Joyful abandon

Recently a phrase has repeated itself in my notes and thoughts in terms of how I want my art to feel. “Joyful abandon.” has appeared twice in my notes… I only noticed it when I read back through them. And then I noticed I’d written it not once, but twice, on different days…in the same week. A subconscious thought made visible.

And what did I mean? I think I meant I want joy and delight to be the things I seek in my art making, my north star…

In this season of my life I want to lean-in to what I find and feel to be joyful…and perhaps abandon the things that don’t support this. There is something unapologetic, exuberant and enthusiastic about the concept of ‘joyful abandon’ that resonates with me. A lack of inhibition and constraint that feels expansive.

When there is so much darkness and difficulty in the world, it may perhaps sound naive of me to be seeking joy. The last few years have been a little challenging for me, I have struggled with some ongoing health issues and various other challenges, and it is exactly this difficulty that has made me more attuned to joy, more keen to seek it out, to celebrate it and appreciate it….

Seek what you value in your art

Creating art isn’t always easy, there will often be problems to solve, fallow seasons, perhaps times when it feels more challenging than others, sometimes art making will feel vulnerable and exposing, we will often get in our own way, but making a decision to seek out what you value the most and do less of the things that don’t serve this seems like a good ambition to me…

Art inspired by objects

In this post and video I want to talk about how the objects in my life inspire my art.

CONNECTING TO THINGS

I’ve always been super inspired by nature and being outside, trees, organic forms, foliage and flowers. In the last few years though, I have also been fascinated with objects and items in a domestic setting. Art making helps me to connect to myself and the world around me. It is a way to understand who I am and what I am interested in. It is an ongoing conversation with myself which unfurls, develops and evolves.

INSPIRATION IS ALL AROUND

And in recent years a lot of my art has been an exploration of my connection to home and the items that accompany my everyday. The objects and things that I travel through life with. 

Why am I so inspired by the domestic?

I’ve been thinking about my relationship to home and the things in it a lot recently. 

EMOTIONAL CONNECTION

Over the last couple of years we’ve all spent far more time inside our homes, haven’t we?  

When our house flooded and we had to live in hotels for several months, I missed the familiar objects of my day-to-day. The importance of home has perhaps also taken on a different meaning for me since both my parents died. My home now represents a feeling of security and grounded-ness, of roots becoming established. 

My home brings together objects and items that I love, which mean something to me, but also just random things I like and enjoy. I like the fact my home contains a layering of things, some with meaning attached, some picked up in a junk shop just because they are interesting or unique.

I came across this quote from Matisse:

“I have worked all my life before the same objects… The object is an actor. A good actor can have a part in ten different plays; an object can play a role in ten different pictures.” Henri Matisse, 1951

The objects we surround ourselves with play a part in our lives, they are actors on our stage. They may reflect who we are, what we love, our taste, our preferences and our experiences. Our things can be a wonderful source of inspiration for our art making because in some way they are a reflection of us…

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If you’re looking for an art process to help you create beautiful abstract and semi abstract acrylic paintings from objects in your life, you may like to check out my class Objects to Abstracts: