Making personal artwork

3 things I've been trying, to bring a little more me to painting

This month I’m venturing in to a new creative project. I’ve been thinking a lot about my own creative process - how I structure my work, approach new ideas, bring them together and generally create a body of paintings.

Seeing as I’m at the beginning stages, I’ve been thinking lots about my research process. It’s one of my favourite parts - learning about other artists, other topics, and seeing what new ideas I can come up with.

photo by the one & only Euan Robertson

Here are 3 methods I’m exploring, to try making art that is more personal to me:

1. There’s a quote I read somewhere that follows the lines of: creativity can be as simple as smashing two unsuspecting things together. I’ve been enjoying playing with this idea, to see how it guides my art. There’s so much to take inspiration from, and I think getting away from short form content / looking at other artists work and looking at different media, disciplines and hobbies is such a rich well to mine from.
   
   Where I’m finding ideas right now:

   • video essays/films

   • textiles

   • walking around cities

   • documentaries

   • cooking

   • music

   
   I’ve found this to be so good, because it’s lead me to find connections between the seemingly unrelated hobbies and subjects, which in turn, has revealed themes and ideas I didn’t even know were important to me.
   

2. To kind of flip that first point on its head, I’ve been spending time figuring out who & what inspires the artists that I love. What are they influenced by? What lights them up? Try immersing yourself in that round of goodness & influence and see what it might unlock! I’ve been trying to dive deeper than the surface subject matter of their work, and find the artists, places, books, things that inspire them. Seeing how other people bring influences into their work can be really helpful in showing you a path to connecting two of your own interests together, and highlighting what is important to you.
   
   If you’d like to see how I’m approaching the very beginning stages of a painting project, check out my latest video here, documenting some sketchbook play to generate ideas:

   
   

3. Getting the mood right. What I’ve realised over they years is that I’m often chasing a particular feeling or mood to create in my paintings. Emotions are a big part of my practice, and I’m always trying to figure out how to visually represent the sense, the atmosphere, the feeling. The unseen stuff. When I come across something in my life that makes me feel that certain way, I take a note of it. A lot of the time it’s music. Lately it’s been adventure documentaries & visual essays. Sometimes it’s recipes (banana bread this month). That feeling is the reason I paint landscapes, and love working from memory. I try to surround myself with & consume as much of those things that ignite that mood or feeling in me as much as possible. (yes, that was two banana loaves last week).

   Jokes aside, the idea is that it takes me to a mindset, makes me feel ‘in the zone’ and hopefully, maybe, transfers into the painting. At the very least, it makes me feel great.
   
   If you’d like to share, how have you been exploring & finding personal themes or inspiration to take into your work?

   

   
   
   Why am I thinking about my creative process even more than usual? Over the next few months I’m sharing tutorials on Patreon that break down my personal process of structuring a new creative project. By sharing my own frame work & questions, I hope it’ll guide you to build you own creative framework to follow if you’re looking for a little structure. If you’d like to know more & check it out, you’ll find it over here! This is not a live course, and the monthly tutorials can be dipped into at any time.