Dry pastel crayons

When your art is your work or when you’re blogging about what you create, the spontaneity is easily lost. You want your clients and buyers to be happy and you want to give your blog visitors a valuable experience. Your art becomes an achievement.

Part of you goes about your day thinking “this would make a good blog post” or “now I know how to solve that detail in the commission I’m working on“. Sometimes you feel you’re producing art and regardless of what mood you’re in, the job is due tomorrow. Even though you love your job, it’s partly become an obligation.

When you put your creative life on display or make a living as an artist, it’s easy to loose sight of creating without intention, just for the sheer joy of it.

A blog or an online portfolio can be a creative outlet in itself and a great way to stay motivated and hold yourself accountable for your creative projects. A way to document your creative journey and to connect with others.

On the other hand, blogging takes a lot of time and puts you on a schedule. You can begin blogging for the comments on your blog, and maybe you start looking for validation from your readers, rather than from within yourself. In a time when we seem more busy documenting our lives than living our lives, it takes deliberation to find a peaceful space that hasn’t got anything to do with other people or how they perceive us. To create a space that has nothing to do even with our own expectations.

A creativity lab. So can you plan to be spontaneous? Write your own permission slip? Can you make room for experiments, happy accidents and non-judgemental creativity? Find time and space to change your mindset?

This autumn I’ve reserved Friday afternoons for spontaneous explorations and I promised myself that I wouldn’t display any of the art from these sessions here on my blog. It’s been a process that’s about loosening up, improvising, letting go of expectations, being associative, having fun and allowing art to unfold intuitively. I’ve been working quickly with natural media. Each Friday a new theme and different mediums. The emphasis is on getting into flow rather than stepping back and judging.

I’ve spent time getting messy with acrylics, oils, dry pastels, clay, oil pastels, watercolours, textiles, charcoal and gouache. Working on different types of canvases such as cardboard, different kinds of paper, wood panel and canvas. I’ll admit that after the first two sessions I felt disappointed with the “result”, even though the whole point was to let go of expectations, but after that it’s been much easier to let go, have fun and step into the freedom of playful creating.

Paintbrushes

Palette with acrylics: earth tones

Tags: acrylics, art, blogging, collage, crayons, ease, flow, gouache, ink, natural media, oils, painting, watercolours

iPhone photography: My desk in the studio. August 2010

Welcome to another day in the studio! Today I’m so excited and relieved to finally have got the printer to work!!!! I daren’t think how much time and money I’ve spent trying to get it to work ever since April! It’s been such a drain. Most of the time I love the independence of running my own creative business, but sometimes doing everything yourself can feel pretty heavy going and especially when you run into a silly technical problem like this one with the printer. Phew… I’m sooooo happy it’s been resolved!!!

Breaking Ice. Detail of art print

Breaking Ice, a painting I made at the end of March, came out beautifully on the heavyweight, matt paper with ultra sharpness that I purchased early on this summer! This paper really brings out the colours and gives the print a gorgeous, sumptuous feel and appearance. Oh, joy! I’m thrilled and nervous to finally be able to put Breaking Ice up for sale in the shop!

iPhone photography: Lunch. Sandwich and orange juice

It can only be downhill from here! At least today. We went for a swim in the lake after lunch. Dinner out tonight to celebrate that the printer finally works!

Leaves and acorns. Sketch and inspiration

Here’s a sketch and some inspiration for a new project I’m working on right now. (See the reflection of my iPhone that I used to snap the photo with, at the bottom of this picture?) Leaves, acorns, greens and simple organic shapes… I’m still playing around, following my intuition, seeing what happens and enjoying trusting the creative process. I’m not sure what I’ll make of it yet, or what it wants to become… Maybe it’ll turn into desktop art because soon it’s time for the Summer Edition of Club Marmalade Moon and something green and organic would be perfect for a summer desktop, wouldn’t it?

Tags: art, celebration, creative process, gratitude, painting, prints

iPhone photography: Ice melting on the lake in April

Ice in April. As you can see, it hasn’t melted much since March, when the ice on the lake inspired me to make this painting and for all my efforts, I still can’t coax the printer into making a good print of Breaking Ice. In stead, it prints horrible washed out and pale, faded prints. I think it simply just won’t cooperate with the latest operating system, since everything was working fine before I upgraded. Isn’t it frustrating when dealing with technology is like walking in sand?! Two steps forward, and one step back. At least I got this dreamy, serendipitous iPhone photo out of the process.

iPhone photography: Test print of Breaking Ice

Tags: art, painting, prints

Breaking Ice

I just finished this painting as a thick layer of mist rolled in from the lake. “Breaking Ice”. The colour palette is very much the same as in this reference photo I took of ice floes on the lake. Inspired by nature, the turn of the seasons, the lake, the beauty and miracle of an everyday experience or “ordinary magic” as mosaic artist Concetta brilliantly phrased it.

Tags: art, blue, green, natural media, nature, painting, prints, spring, winter

Brooch with crescent moon button made by Mousy Brown's House.

I’ve dedicated this week to working on a series of digital paintings based on sketches and ideas that have been evolving the past few months. Now the time is right for working on them, I’m giving the project time and space and I feel full of creative energy! Isn’t it easy to forget that there are cycles to creativity?

In the meanwhile the ground is still covered with slowly melting ice and snow which tricked me into forgetting that it’s Easter next week! Spring is on its way, and soon it’s time to put together the Spring Edition for members of Club Marmalade Moon.

Speaking of Easter, if you’re looking for a fun crafting project for a beautiful Easter decoration, friendly, clever and crafty Mousy Brown’s House has just the thing! This is also the source of the extraordinary gorgeous purple and gold brooch (in the photo above) that I’m the proud owner of. Notice the vintage button with a crescent moon? What amazing, thoughtful and creative attention to details!

Now I’ll sink back into painting.

Tags: art, creative cycle, digital art, natural media, painting