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…

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This mindset shift which has helped the most…

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…

Collages made from magazines

Music credit: Don’t Give up on Love by Ludlow via Epidemic Sound

In this video I share a small creative exercise: making collages from our imagination and an old magazine.

SIMPLE BUT NOT EASY

This kind of simple art exercise or challenge is an important part of my art journey. The premise is simple but the execution is not always easy. It involves thought and problem solving and working within constraints and trying to make something from not very much…

REFINING SKILLS

Just like any other discipline, art requires practice to refine skills, to develop self awareness and expand our zones of comfort. I enjoy incorporating small challenges into my art making, whatever the outcome may be. Being relaxed about the outcome is key, I think.

HAPPY WITH AN AVERAGE OUTCOME

I’ve now learned to be happy with not always loving what I create, particularly if iI’m just exploring or doing exercises.

I know that making average stuff is just part of art making. It’s actually a really important part…. It has taken me a long time to understand this though.

I used to think that everything I created must look lovely. That if I created something ugly it meant I wasn’t a good enough artist. I was insecure in my own abilities and wanted my work to somehow prove to myself that I was indeed good enough. This desire for perfection did not help me make better art, it added a weight of expectation and too much pressure. It just caused me unneccessary suffering along the way and a feeling of stuck-ness.

Putting too much significance on the outcome and wanting something to look good meant I became stuck doing the things I knew I could do. It meant that the joy of art making was always wedded to the outcome. It also meant that I didn’t allow myself to take any risks or push myself. Now I fully accept that not everything I create will work out how I want it to and actually if it always does I’m probably playing it too safe. Ofcourse I still want to make beautiful art that feels good to me, but I believe that creating art that I really love comes from creating lots of art, sometimes successful and sometimes not so much….