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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The power of asking ‘why?’ and why we make art

I was a child who asked ‘why?’ a lot… and I’m still doing it.

Questions that start with why, tend to fast track understanding and help when making art…Why do I like this composition? Why does that look visually pleasing? Why is this part of the painting not working?

Collage pieces

Me as a child drawing in a sketchbook. 

In my twenties, before I became an artist I taught creative thinking skills to businesses.

We used a technique called 5 x Why. It is a powerful and easy way to get to the absolute heart of an issue, challenge assumptions and get to the deep, perhaps hidden answers.

You just keep asking why, multiple times to unpack each answer until you unearth the magic, truth or essence…Here’s a quick example:

Q: Why do I make art?

A: Because I enjoy it.

Q: Why do I enjoy it?

A: Because I get to explore colour and pattern.

Q: Why is colour and pattern important to me?

A: Because it makes me feel more connected to the beauty in the world.

Q Why is being more connected to the beauty in the world important?

A: Because it helps me to navigate every day with a sense of wonder and awe.

Q: Why is navigating every day with a sense of wonder and awe important to me?

A: Because it helps to remind me of the magnificence and meaning of a life well lived.

I moved fairly quickly from the reason I make art is because I enjoy it, to the fact that I make art to help remind me of the magnificence and meaning of a life well lived… It is a simple yet profound tool which can help in both art and life.

Today I want to explore a little more about why we make art and more specifically why I make art…and I used this simple technique to get to the answers. You may want to try it and see if it uncovers anything for you.

Sketchbook pages turned into wall art

A finished painting 

Pieces of collage inspiring a painting

Expressing myself without words

I believe art making is a primeval and ancient instinct. It’s part of the human experience, our ancestors made art when they lived in caves. We decorate and we adorn.

For me art is a form of self-expression. An outlet for my thoughts, feelings, and experiences. By making art we capture the intangible and make it tangible. In a way, art is a universal language that transcends words.

Acrylic painting on paper

Making sense of the world

Creating art is a way to question the world around us and our place within it.

By creating we are analysing, interpreting, and engaging with our surroundings. I spent much of my time as a young child drawing, I think it is an innate way to try and make sense of the world and how we fit into it and I am still using drawing as a way to understand and connect with the world.

Pencil drawings from The Still Life Lab

Understanding who I am

When we create art we bring what is inside us, out onto the page. Art making involves introspection and self-reflection helping us to process emotions, better understand who we are and what we’re interested in.

Painting and collage on wooden board

A journey of seeking and finding

Art making can feel like a perpetual journey of seeking and searching.

Because I make art I notice more in the world and perhaps notice more about myself. I pay more attention to details and become more fascinated by accidental and unexpected beauty, a striking shadow on a wall, water droplets gathering on a leaf, tiny moments of beauty, tiny moments of delight, tiny moments of connection with the world around me..

Abstract acrylic painting

A way to manufacture joy and adventure

There is something joyful to me about making art, connecting hand, head and heart.

Creating something from nothing. Art making can feel like a personal playground. Enjoying the tactile nature of art materials, inviting in a sense of possibility, of risk, of adventure with every new page. Creating my own small universe of colour and pattern. Doing something for the sheer fun of doing it, with no expectation of the outcome. Creating a place where I am myself, where I meet myself and where I understand myself.

And what about you?

“Why do I make art?” is an interesting question to reflect upon. Your motivations may vary from mine and will perhaps evolve and change in different seasons of your life… articulating to yourself why art making is important in your life can be a beautiful and illuminating exercise.

And perhaps if you’d like to be making more art and you aren’t, then you may like to ponder on why this is…sometimes understanding our barriers and hurdles can be a crucial part in overcoming them.

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The creative soup

In this video I share with you some of my recent art explorations which show an ‘eclectic’ selection of interests, approaches and processes, a creative soup of sorts, where things gets mixed together, combined and blended in the hope of finding a new set of fascinations.

I love exploring lots of diverse ways of making art and often have multiple irons in the fire at any one time. I’m often nurturing more than one idea and more than one way of making art...

Experimenting with a variety of materials, subject matters and techniques and pursuing lots of different lines of inquiry at once helps me to find my next big thing.

Sold out

Original Painting: Patchwork Plants and Golden Threads One

Following the whispers

As I’ve just finished a set of six paintings, I am looking for the next creative pursuit, the next line of inquiry, the next idea that I want to explore, expand and develop.

I find that after I have completed a series of paintings there is always a bit of time where I am searching for my next destination. I make lots of stuff, give myself permission to mess about, to create unfinished things, to cast the net wide in the hope of finding my next thing. I have to follow the whispers and the bread trail to see where it takes me.

Bringing things together

I often layer my interests, ideas and influences together and that is what I think can make our art unique to us. We all have different things that excite us, we all have a different visual language, different associations and bringing these together can ensure our art is a reflection of our own idiosyncrasies and uniqueness.

Sketchbooks are a brilliant hunting ground

My ongoing love affair with sketchbooks is no secret. I find that a sketchbook is such a great place to gather the threads and disparate ideas of my own art making, a safe keeping place to capture, collect, curate and connect…and then reflect. I am always hunting back through sketchbooks to pick up lost threads…

Current sketchbook pages

Looking through previous sketchbooks

The creative soup

In my own art making I’ve found that everything informs everything else, eventually everything connects in one way or another. It’s like a creative soup, it all gets thrown in and blended. Often one idea or way of art making will rise to the top and take centre-stage and all my attention, while the others wait in the wings, or ideas will combine and come together to create something surprising, something new.

So I encourage you to embrace all your disparate curiosities and celebrate them as a wonderful reflection of you…being multi-curious can be both marvelous and delightful.

Old sketchbook pages which are inspiring new explorations…

Books to inspire…

The two books I mention in the video are:

Art Against Despair written and published The School of Life 2022

Make Every Day Creative, Art Anyone Can Do by Marion Deuchars, published by Skittledog 2024

The story behind the painting

“Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant, there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing.”

— Georgia O’Keeffe

In this video I share some new paintings with you and chat a little about deciding when artworks are finished. I also talk about the layers of meaning behind a painting.

Unpicking what a painting is about or why we create in the way we create is an interesting and sometimes complex tapestry.

This series is inspired by a walk in nature and looking at the shapes of leaves and plants. And also…

The paintings are influenced by my childhood, by distant memories, by living by the sea, by my emotions and by my sketchbook…

We bring our whole selves to our art making, our visual quirks and sensibilities, our personality, our preferences, our life of experiences and we combine all these things, sometimes completely unconsciously, sometimes consciously in ways which are personal and unique to us, painting is often a process of making the unknown, known…

Abstract art: delight and difficulty

“The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.”

— Aristotle

In this video I chat about the painting process and share some ideas that may help you think about your own art. I show you some new paintings in their awkward middle stage…. I’ve spent a few days on them, but they are far from finished.

Slowly evolving

These partly finished paintings were created using heavy body acrylic paint on thick acid free 300gsm paper. I love acrylic paint and the way it layers up, that each painting can have a hidden history which occasionally reveals itself. Acrylic paint lends itself perfectly to layering, building up richness, depth and texture with paint.

Working with acrylics in this way, creating layer upon layer, can be a fascinating journey of discovery and concealment, covering bits up and letting other elements remain. A series of decisions which allow the paintings to slowly evolve and unfurl.

In the studio...

The bitter and the sweet

The early layers start with a sense of play and possibility. I love choosing a colour palette and being playful with paint. there is a freedom and boldness that comes at the start.

Then comes the difficult middle bit.

Each painting seems to oscilate between ugly and good looking so quickly. At this stage it can be helpful to reflect and organise thoughts through writing. To set clear intentions and find some clarity about how the paintings might feel….

For these paintings I pondered the idea of juxtapositions.

I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of opposites and how they work in tandem in an art work. I am currently reading a brilliant and thought provoking book by Susan Cain called Bittersweet in it she says:

”The bittersweet is about the recognition that light and dark, birth and death, the bitter and the sweet are forever paired. “Days of Honey. Days of Onion,” as an arabic proverb puts it. The tragedy of life is linked inescapably with its splendour,” Susan Cain

I find this idea of ‘two sides of the same coin’, of entwined dualities just beautiful and endlessly fascinating….I pondered this idea of opposites when I made some quick notes about how I want these paintings to feel. I wrote:

• Joy and depth

• Wildness and order

• Freedom and control

• Space and intensity

• Beauty with disarray

• Obvious and intriguing 

These ideas will now guide every practical decision and choice I make within the paintings. I will assess the paintings through this lens. If I want to add depth what will I do now? If I want to make this painting more joyful what shall I do now? These ideas will provide the guiderope for all the small decision making to come.

Delight and difficulty

The exciting and challenging thing about abstract art or semi abstract art is that it does not necessarily have to look like something which exists in reality, we can bring ourselves to the painting, bring our imagination, our emotions and our own inventiveness, We can perhaps try and communicate something a little intangible. This is the delight and the difficulty, the beauty and the challenge.

Making abstract art isn’t always easy but it is always wonderfully thought provoking…. it has encouraged me to think deeply about what I do, why I do it and how I want my art to feel….

Try thinking about this question when you are next creating art, “How do I want this piece to feel?” the answer may contain a seed of magic which will help guide you and enable you to create something which feels truly unique to you…

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If you are keen to create your own striking abstract or semi abstract art inspired by nature, then you may like to take a look at this class which is available to take immediately…

Finding art inspiration in nature

“Study nature. Love nature. Stay close to nature. It will never fail you.”

Frank Lloyd Wright

The colours, patterns and shapes of nature have been an enduring creative curiosity for me.

Looking at nature invites awe and wonder into my life and is the inspiration for much of my art. When I slow down and take the time to really study nature, it moves me, motivates me and inspires me.

A walk in nature soothes my soul, enlivens my spirit and informs my creativity.

In this video I share some of my recent sketchbook pages which have all been inspired by time in nature and a couple of art books and artists who have created stunning nature-inspired art…

The photographs of Karl Blossfeldt

The artist Olaf Hajek

I also chat a little about my new online art class Nature and Nurture which uses nature as a catalyst for creating art… So if you’d like to use the shapes and motifs of nature to nurture your creativity and inspire beautiful and unique abstract and semi abstract art you may like to check it out.