Art, growth, change and sketchbooks

Music credit: Breathe in, breath out by Ludlow via Epidemic Sound

Notes on my creative practice

This time of year always finds me in a reflective mood. It prompts me to think deeply about my creative practice, where I am and where I want to be. Last year, I wrote some notes called "Things to remember/my guiding principles," all about my creative practice. Ironically or perhaps entirely predictably, I then forgot all about them. I often write notes about my art and art-making, which helps me to think, solidify and organise my thoughts.

These particular ‘notes to myself’ seemed to be about the need to strive less and give myself more space and time. Let ideas percolate and grow. Slow down. No need to always be on and productive. Give ideas enough time to become. Let things unfold and unfurl.

Start, stop, more, less.

I often use a simple ‘start, stop, more, less’ framework to review my creativity and shepherd my thoughts. I might revisit my old notebooks and look back over what I have written. I get my sketchbooks out and look at what I have created. I think about mindset, energy, process, subject, approaches and ambitions. I consider what excites, enriches, or diminishes my enthusiasm.

Although I forgot I had written the exact list of things to remember, the wisdom contained in its words was clearly evident in how I navigated this year. I gave the ideas more time to become…

Making more space

With this mindset, I stopped pushing as hard this year and slowed my output, making more space for fun, creative moments that didn’t need to be productive. I created simply for joy, letting ideas grow slowly. I eased up on myself, lowered expectations and worried less.

This approach is not easy for me, as art is both my passion and my livelihood. I am delighted that art is my job, but it also brings pressure. When creativity also pays the bills and mortgage, staying carefree can feel irresponsible or even foolhardy, at least, I sometimes think so. In the past, to escape doubt or unpredictability, I’ve simply worked harder: more hours, more effort, more output.

A shift in perception

I have found that over the last decade or so of professional art-making, I have traveled through many different terrains, some of which demand exceptional effort and others that demand ease.

This year, I stopped pushing quite so hard and started going with the flow more. I loosened the reins, approached things differently, and lowered my expectations. I turned down a few high-profile opportunities that could have advanced my career, but would have taken all my time.

I gave myself more time and spaciousness to paint and create without an end goal or deadline. More than anything, it was a shift in perception: I worried less and trusted myself more. I invited in more fun, let ideas grow, and I found an expansiveness and a genuine excitement in my work.

Everyone is different and our creativity goes through cycles that require different energies and effort levels, sometimes we need to reach and sometimes we need to let go. I find the start, stop, less, more thought process so useful for framing my thoughts on my creative needs…perhaps you may find it useful to.

Types of sketchbook

Here are some of the sketchbooks I like, but sketchbooks are a personal preference and come in so many different shapes, sizes and varieties, the sketchbook that is right for me, may not be right for you. 

The best sketchbook to use is always the one you already own. 

1. The Venezia Book from Fabriano

2. Stillman & Birn, Zeta Range

3. The Ebony Artist Book from Daler Rowney (this is the large A3 size sketchbook)

4. Dylusions Creative Journal Large from Ranger

(Some of these links are affiliate links, if you buy something through them, I might earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you. I only ever share the products that I actually use. )

Colour and comfort zones

“On a rainy day, colours begin to glow; that’s why a cloudy, rainy day is the kind I like best. That’s the kind of day when I can work.”

Friedensreich Hundertwasser

 From the film Hundertwasser’s Regentag narrated by the artist (1971)   

“Where you stumble, there lies your treasure. The very cave you are afraid to enter turns out to be the source of what you are looking for. The damned thing in the cave, that was so dreaded, has become the centre.”

Joseph Campbell

 Reflections on the Art of Living: A Joseph Campbell Companion (1991, ed. Diane K. Osbon). 

This week I’ve been thinking about creative comfort zones
and the small ways we can choose to step beyond them.

The known and the unknown

An interesting dilemma for an artist is the balance between comfort and growth, safety and discovery, the known and the unknown. Over the years, I’ve built a visual language with shapes, colour combinations and processes that now feel instinctive. Experience has shown me what I love, but I also recognise the importance of intentionally challenging myself to go and grow beyond that comfort zone.

Aiming for daring and inventive

I don’t always want to create art from a place of cosy comfort or just repeat what I know I can do. I want to be daring, inventive and adventurous in my art-making, too. So that means I often try to challenge myself to step away from what feels safe and comfortable.

On the other side of familiar

This week I’ve been trying to push myself out of my comfort zone with colour, experimenting with combinations that challenge my usual choices. Giving myself small creative problems I don’t yet know how to solve to help me to stay engaged and curious.

Seeing what’s on the other side of familiar. Seeking the treasure Joseph Campbell refers to. Working with new colours I don’t normally choose keeps my practice fresh and offers a little creative tension to wrestle through. Growth and discoveries often come from these moments of discomfort.

Two works in progress…

Creative discomfort

Introducing something new, or challenging or different and doing things in our art practice that we don’t usually do is energising.
It is a little uncomfortable and a little exciting.


Creative discomfort can often lead to breakthroughs and discoveries, so sometimes it’s good to actively welcome it in, go do something you don’t usually do and see where it takes you…

Materials

• The very large sketchbook I show in this video is A3 in size (a double page spread is A2). Ebony Hardback Sketchbook, Portrait Orientation, A3 Size by Daler Rowney

• The paint I’m using is a mixture of Sennelier Abstract Acrylic and Liquitex Heavy Body acrylic paint

• The paper I’m mostly using in this video is from Seawhite of Brighton size A1 300gsm cartridge paper torn into smaller sheets and also some old watercolour paper which I’ve had lying around for years, I am guessing it is from Fabriano and it is 350gsm

• The brush you can see me using in this video is a silicon brush

Some of these links are affiliate links, if you buy something through them, I might earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you. I only ever share the products that I actually use. 

Wayfinding as an artist

I’ve been reading about the human art of wayfinding. How we find our way in the world.

Before maps and machines we learned to navigate our world by noticing. We paid close attention to our instincts. We remembered routes by experience. We found our way by moving through the landscape and being curious, interested, adventurous, attentive.

Wayfinding is part of what makes us human. It is rooted in observation, memory and trust in our ability to figure things out as we go. To get lost and then get ourselves back on the right path or track.

Wayfinding is the perfect analogy for my kind of art making. There is a need to get comfortable with not knowing where I am heading and trusting I can get myself there anyway.

Right now, I’m finding my way through. I am making lots of things. Small studies. A series of creative experiments that are starting to feel like they’re pointing me somewhere interesting, I’m not quite sure where yet.

I’m learning to trust that the clues are already there, embedded in the work. That if I keep making and keep paying attention to what I’m drawn to, the subjects, the shapes, the themes, the colours, the motifs, the marks… they’re saying something, leading me somewhere. I just need to listen to what it is and follow the signs.

It feels like I’m wandering and wondering. Letting ideas evolve and build. Not needing to have a clear sense of direction, yet. Noticing. Following the trail. And allowing whatever it is that wants to emerge to take its time.

I used to find this part extremely hard, the not knowing bit can be uncomfortable. The unfinished-ness of it all. But I’m starting to understand that this is the work. The being in the midst of it all. The being attentive. The making without needing to define or explain or get it right.

Like wayfinding, art-making is its own kind of navigation. Feeling your way forward, marking your own trail, learning the landscape by being in it, up close. With your hands and heart in the process.

So that’s where I am. A little unclear of where this work is heading. A little unfinished. But enjoying the discovery. And trusting that I can figure it out ‘en route’ (on the way)…

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PS: If you’re wanting to sharpen your own creative instincts and use the objects in your home to inspire a body of mixed media art you may like my course The Still Life Lab

Finding inspiration in our everyday lives

Music Credit: Mountains by The Eastern Plain

Reflecting on the ‘why’ of our art is such an interesting and enlightening exercise. Why do we create what we create? Why are we drawn to certain subjects or approaches?

Vases, vessels, cups and mugs have always fascinated me. Small intimate, domestic objects of beauty. My parents had a love of ceramics and vases, I inherited many of them when they died. And I think that’s part of why I’m still drawn to them now.


They feel symbolic, a container of life, an emptiness ready to be filled… They hold memory, usefulness, beauty. Often handmade and handheld. A moment of decorative delight. Always purposeful. A small reminder that ordinary objects can carry deep meaning.

Draw what is there…

Lately, life’s been a bit busy. And often when I feel like this, I try and make making art easy for myself. The way I like to nurture my creativity is to draw what is already around me or to use what I already have. 
A favourite cup. A jug on the shelf. An interesting house plant. Things that feel familiar.
Reassuring.
 Part of my day to day life. The things that are right there in front of me.

Still life drawing has become a kind of small ritual to literally and metaphorically still my life.
 To slow me down enough to re-connect back to my self, reconnect back to my sense of home, my sense of psychological safety. A way of grounding myself in the here and now. 
A way of making something without needing it to be extraordinary.

The art of noticing

You don’t need a big idea to make a drawing.
 Sometimes, what you need is already in front of you. Still life observations and drawings help me to pay attention to shape and shadow,
 to pattern and line,
to the relationship I have with the objects in my home.

Drawing is a way to connect to my belongings,
to cherish what’s familiar, to remember that even the smallest things can hold meaning and beauty….

Perfectly imperfect

None of the drawings in my sketchbook are polished.
 Most of them are full of searching lines. Some feel clumsy. 
They contain finger prints and smudges. But that’s the magic of it. We don’t need perfect subjects or perfect pages. Sometimes we just need a pencil and a bit of time. And something ordinary to connect with.

Materials

In this video I was drawing in my sketchbook with a 14B pencil :

The pencil I was using was a Faber Castell Pitt Pencil Matt Graphite Pencil 14B

The large sketchbook is A3 in size (a double page spread is A2). Ebony Hardback Sketchbook, Portrait Orientation, A3 Size by Daler Rowney

These links are affiliate links, if you buy something through them, I might earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you. I only ever share the products that I actually use.

PS: If you’re wanting to develop your own experimental approach to Still Life inspired art you may like my course The Still Life Lab

The painting process: an unknown destination

I never know where a painting is going to end up when I begin to paint.

There’s usually no defined path, no confirmed route map, no colour plan taped to the wall.
Just a brush, some paper, and a commitment to begin and keep going.

This used to scare me.
Now, it’s the whole point.

Sold out

Original painting: The Button Keeper's Dream

£305.00

The way I paint is often a form of improvisation.
Marks and brushstokes responding to what is already there…
Small decision, small decision, small decision.

It’s like walking into the forrest with no clear path ahead, working out where I am going as I go. I build up lots of layers of paint hoping something interesting will develop.
I often think the painting process requires an optimism, a commitment to problem solving, a hope that everything will turn out for the best.


The Australian artist John Olsen said:

“Painting is a means of self-enlightenment.”

And I think that's so true.


Because it’s not just the painting that reveals an image, the process often reveals something of myself to me as well.

Original painting: The Button Keeper's Delight

£305.00

Sometimes I don’t know what my paintings are about until I have painted them.

That’s how this new body of work arrived.
I didn’t set out to paint a memory.
But as I was painting these paintings, I could feel there was a visual memory that I was reaching for that was just out of reach. The paintings were reminding me of something important and I couldn’t quite place it.

And then a scene returned:
a wooden tray. A box of antique buttons handed down generation to generation.
A small visual memory that felt important to me.
Me as a little girl, my mother encouraging me to play with her button box on a large wooden tray
“Sort them however you like.”
Playing with the little circles and dots of colour,
arranging them again and again, over and over.

I’d forgotten all about this small domestic scene from 45 years ago. But when I looked at these paintings it came right back to me. So I have named these paintings The Button Keepers are layered, luminous, and slow-built paintings.
They hold both clarity and mess. Brightness and darkness. Nostalgia and hope.
They don’t really illustrate a story
but they did sort of uncover one.

We don’t have to know the ending before we begin.
In art or in life. We don’t have to “figure it out.”
We can build the meaning as we go.

We can stay open.
We can stay curious.
We can keep showing up, even when the path forward is unclear. Slowly, hopefully, something interesting reveals itself to us…

Original painting: The Button Keeper's Treasures

£305.00

Original painting: The Button Keeper's Memories

£305.00

Walking myself home: creativity amid the chaos

Making anyway

There’s scaffolding going up outside my studio. We have folk working on our roof, noise, drilling…

It strikes me this is a good metaphor for modern life, there is always noise and distraction, always something loud going on right outside our window…how do we create and make art despite of this?


This week’s video is about creativity as a decision and finding small ways to lower the stakes and allow art making to be fun when life gets in the way. 
It’s about ‘making anyway’ in the middle of mess, noise, and distraction.

It’s a decision

I’ve learned this over and over again: Creativity doesn’t have to wait for perfect conditions. Sometimes making art is a decision. A small act of rebellion against life’s everyday difficulty and frustrations.

I think the key is to make it as easy for yourself as possible. Keep your expectations low, keep your ambitions low. You don’t always have to make something of significance. Make something simple. Make something fun.

So this week I made a tiny, scrappy art-book. Made from one piece of paper which was painted on both sides with smears of acrylic paint. Cut some wonky windows. Glued it together. Added some bits of collage, doodles, and a few stitches of embroidery.
Nothing fancy. Just… something.

Notes to self

And as I played, I copied a few “notes to self” from my journal and stuck them in:

• Seek out surprise and delight

• Treasure small things

• Make art-making fun

• Cutting and sticking is cool

It was sort of silly. Not for sale. Not for a project.
But it gave me exactly what I needed; a window of calm. A little creative joy. A little playfulness. A pause from the minor irritations of life.

Creativity as a way to come back to ourselves

Because when life feels scattered and decidedly un-playful, creativity helps me come back to myself.
It’s how I walk myself home.

Reaching towards beauty

There’s a quote I love from The Mill on the Floss, the book by George Eliot published in 1860:

“We can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly alive.
There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger after them.”

This quote is about human nature and the fact that longing isn’t a weakness but part of aliveness. To me, it also sums up why art-making matters. When we create, we’re reaching toward beauty, a hunger for something good, however small, however fleeting. And that reaching is its own kind of hope.

Maybe I’m getting too deep. Just go make something for fun.

Make something unimportant

Go cut and stick something.
Go make something unimportant for the joy of making.
It really is good for the soul. Sometimes the point isn’t what you make it’s what that making gives you…

Links and resources

• If you'd like to make your own tiny art-book,
I’ve got a blog and tutorial here about how to fold and cut it.

• If you want a whole week of creative play you may like this free Art Oasis online retreat that I am teaching in

• And if you're feeling the pull to go a little deeper in your creative practice,
you might like to explore one of my self-paced classes they're full of ideas, encouragement and gentle art experimentation.