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.

Sketchbooks: searching for beauty and treasure

In this video and blog I take you with me as I hunt back through sketchbooks, some old, some more recent looking for inspiration and I chat about the importance of using the ‘beauty of what we love’ to guide our creativity.

I am looking back through my sketchbooks for several reasons:

• To pick up lost threads and re-familiarise myself with what is calling to me within my own art after taking a break from creating

• I am looking to see if there are any pages in my sketchbook which I particularly like, which are worth scanning and which could possibly work on a larger scale as wall art

• I am also doing some thinking and preparation for an interview with FIDA worldwide about the importance of sketchbooks. You can read what I said in the finished interview here

Looking back through your own creations with an inquisitive heart is often a useful way to take stock. It helps that I have years and years of sketchbooks I know, but I think it can be a useful practice at any point in your creative journey...

Spending time carefully looking at and considering a pile of your own art creations can be an interesting exercise in connecting, noticing and getting specific about the things you love in your own work.

Our art work often reflects something of ourselves back to us…it can provide us with bread crumb trails and signals about the next path to take or the next thing to create.

Be a detective, seek and identify the specific moments in your own work which fascinate you the most as these could contain the clues that you need for which path to follow in your artistic investigation.

This year I have been drawn back to a line from a poem from Rumi the Sufi poet. “Let the beauty we love, be what we do.” It’s a philosophy that is so useful to bring to our art making and life if we can.

The full section of the poem is

Today, like every other day,
we wake up empty and frightened.
Don’t open the door to the study and begin reading.
Take down a musical instrument.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

From Rumi: The Book of Love: Poems of Ecstasy and Longing, by Jalal al-Din Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks.

It strikes me that this is a powerful sentiment for now, when many of us wake up feeling empty and frightened by the things that are happening in the world.

It speaks of letting our own light shine, being truly ourselves, letting our own creativity galvanize us and lead the way, not letting other’s expectations of us get in the way of the things we love to do, the things we must do. That creativity is important.

It reminds us to listen to what is calling to us, if we are able to amongst the noise, to pay attention to what makes us feel alive, interested and curious, to create rather than consume.

It suggests that perhaps letting our own unique flavour of creativity flourish is a way to bring light, show gratitude, live well... That perhaps creativity can be considered an important act of devotion, gratitude, or rebellion...

So consider this a small reminder and rallying call to try to let the beauty of what you love, light your own path and let it be your own guide and mentor…

Creativity can be a balm for the soul

“A lot of people don’t feel creative because they’re physically and emotionally exhausted. The recipe for your life should be this: rest until you feel like playing, then play until you feel like resting, and then repeat.”

— Martha Beck, Quoted in the Los Angeles Times 7th January 2025

2025 has unfolded slowly for me. I’ve been poorly with something resembling flu and have spent much of this new year in my pyjamas coughing …

Pencil sketchbook pages from last year

I have done little in life or art, but now I am feeling a bit stronger I have spent some low-key, quiet time meandering in my sketchbook.

Playing with some simple drawing materials… Expecting very little of myself, creating as a lovely distraction. Manufacturing small moments of joy, just as a nice thing to do. Creating for the sake of creating, not for any outcome, just for the experience of doing it.

A sketchbook from a few years ago…

It has made me think about the healing nature of creativity and how beneficial my sketchbook practice has been to me through difficult passages of life.

The last five years have presented a small rollercoaster of personal challenges, as I’m sure they have for many. I’ve had some on-going chronic health issues, my mother died after being ill for many years and we had a house flood which meant we had to re-build the bottom floors of our home whilst living in a hotel for many months… and through it all my sketchbook practice has felt like an anchor, it has been a wonderful balm for my soul and a comforting creative place to go.

Creating in my sketchbook has felt restorative, enriching and up-lifting, sometimes fun, sometimes a necessary source of calm and distraction. A small place to go and be creative. A place where I can just do a little, or sometimes a lot. Sometimes a place to rest and refuel, sometimes a place to wonder and be wild.

Previous sketchbooks

When life seems to derail our creativity, and when things happen that dampen our natural desire to create … it is perhaps in exactly these moments of life that creativity can be important.

In times of difficulty, small creative moments are perhaps more crucial, they can provide hope, light and encouragement. When we create art we are reminded of valuable lessons which are also needed for life. Our whole life is a creative act, which requires courage, problem solving, tenacity, a sense of adventure and optimism. And when we make art we remind ourselves of our ability take a blank page and make it into something meaningful.

A creative practice can be life-enriching and supportive, whatever is happening…

My sketchbook has been both a refuge and an escape. Using a sketchbook has provided a nourishing playground, a sanctuary and a safe harbour when waters have been choppy. It has been a place to ground both myself and my art.

Small handmade art journals

My sketchbook practice has been so valuable to me only because my expectations are so low.

The stakes are low. It is a place for me to create for the joy of creating, a place to create art for the sake of creating art. A place to make anything I want to make. A place where the activity is perhaps important than the outcome. Scribbling and mark making is sometimes enough.

A sketchbook is personal. Your sketchbook, your rules. It’s a place to primarily make art for yourself, to let your interests and style iterate and unfold, it’s not about displaying art, getting approval or finished and finessed works, it’s a place to work things through, figure things out and have a creative conversation with yourself. Or just to play about with materials, to colour-in, because that is what you need in that moment.

Pencil and felt tip pen sketchbook page

Whatever is happening in our lives, creativity can support us in small and large ways.

Creativity is an important way to express ourselves, connect with ourselves, understand ourselves, a way to cope, a way to find hope, a way to meditate, think, feel, process and reflect.

Ultimately making art is a way to come home to ourselves…

A pencil drawing in my sketchbook

You might like this:

Here are some other posts which you may enjoy:

Mixed Media Sketchbook Tour

The Ebbs and Flows of Creativity

Artist’s Sketchbooks

A pencil Still Life drawing

Drawing and exploring in a sketchbook

Escaping into colour

Music credit: La Fille Sans Larmes By Lo Mimieux via Epidemic Sound

"Color is a power which directly influences the soul."

Wassily Kandinsky

The comfort of colour

When the world feels dark, the days short and the sky is continuously grey and wintery, I crave colour.

I cocoon myself with colour. Colour can be comforting and consoling. Creating small colorful corners to retreat to, whether that be within the pages of my sketchbook, the pages of an art book, on my desk or within my paintings.

In this video I share some new colourful paintings with you, I review my year in sketchbook pages and show you a beautiful art book published in 2021 by Taschen which celebrates the art of Brazilian artist Beatriz Milhazes.

New paintings

I have just completed four small paintings on wood panels.

They are bright, bold and hopeful. I find hope in colour-soaked moments...and wanted to inbue these paintings with that sense. Inspired by a series of pages and fragments of ideas which have developed over time in the pages of my sketchbook.

I often find my art making feels like a giant and long lasting game of stepping stones. I need to try things out, test ideas, let ideas develop and percolate before they are ready to show up in paintings….

Beatriz Milhazes

If you are interested in the art of Beatriz Milhazes you may like to:

1. Visit her website or instagram page

2. Watch this youtube video from several years ago where she talks about her process

3. Visit this page from the Whitecube Gallery which includes artworks, and a recent video about the work she has completed for the 60th Venice Biennale in 2024

Creating simple abstract collages

Music Credit: Softly to Myself by Kylie Dailey via EpidemicSound

“The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct.” Carl Jung

Today’s video is all about abstract collages and small creative challenges.

In a previous blog post I chatted about a new book called: Make Every Day Creative, Art Anyone Can Do by Marion Deuchars, published by Skittledog 2024. I said I would pick a project from within it to share with you…so in today’s video I share a collage exercise from the book.

Creating collages from random shapes is such an interesting creative challenge.

On the face of it arranging pieces of paper is a simple thing, but creating a composition we find interesting and visually pleasing requires us to dance between sponteniety and thoughtfulness…Trying but not trying too hard.

Essential play

These playful tasks can be an important addition to our art practice, small projects where the process and the discovery are more important than the outcome.

Play is often underrated and is an important part of art making.

Carl Jung said that the “The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct”, whilst Albert Einstein said “Combinatory play seems to be the essential feature in productive thought.”

Sometimes play can feel like an indulgence, but I think it’s probably nearer a necessity…it’s how we discover, innovate, try things out, problem solve, learn tolerance and adaptability …

Further reading

In the book, Make Art Everyday by Marion Deuchars and within this video a couple or artists are mentioned;

• If you would like to find out more about the art books of the early 20th Century Russian Avant Garde artists this is a good article from Getty with further links to explore ( the specific artists mentioned in the book are Natalia Goncharova and Aleksandr Rodchenko)

• Matisse is renowned for his cutouts and collages, you can read more about his approach in this article from MOMA.

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An abstract travel sketchbook

In this video I share a holiday sketchbook, how I prepared it before I went away, the materials I took and what I actually did within it.

I filled up the whole sketchbook from the brand Stillman & Birn, on my week away. It contains all sorts of fragments and ideas. Notes to myself, a curation of other’s wise words, quick observational drawings, scribbles, patterns, marks, repeating motifs…

Its pages were a place to amble, ponder and play. A place to think and be.

Drawing and meandering in my sketchbook at the airport and on the train made the time fly and turned what is usually a dull experience into a delight. I enjoyed the journey.

I drew a few quick drawings of what I could see from my hotel balcony, spending time looking and drawing becomes an experience in itself. This sketchbook is now a physical reminder of a treasured week. Memories and experiences are embedded and imprinted within its pages.

It was also a great reminder that small windows of time making art can add up...

This sketchbook is perhaps not a traditional travel sketchbook. There is no one way to do anything. In our sketchbooks we get to decide what we do and how we do it. There is a freedom and an excitement in that. We get to curate and create in a way that is personal and unique to us and that is part of the joy…

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