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.
Here you’ll find stories, videos, inspiration, art making advice and gentle nudges to help you create art that feels exciting to you.
Art and life: sketchbooks, paintings and art books
Tracing how my sketchbooks influence my paintings and sharing some favourite 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
Online art classes
Art demo: abstract painting inspired by shapes
A practical tutorial about painting abstract pages 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. I take some of the shapes from a previous drawing exercise and use them to develop striking abstract painted pages in a sketchbook.
In this 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.
Online art classes
One page sketchbooks
Making a small sketchbook from one piece of paper
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
Writing to gain insight and clarity…
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
A little background on a recent series of colourful paintings…
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
Making collages to inspire paintings
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…
