I've recorded this video to show you my process for painting and making a finished piece in my sketchbook. I create my work, big or small by building in layers, and in this demonstration you will see the full process reduced down to creating an artwork in less than an hour. Don’t forget to download my Markmaking & Painting Promptsheet to bring over 50+ ideas into your studio.
Intuitive painting is always an adventure. You start with no idea where you will end up. But in this video my painting took me to a desert, a kasbah and a camel - how wonderful!! By keeping within a colour palette and using shapes that evoke memories of places you’ve been to, you can recreate your feelings of a location in paint.
Adding.... adding..... adding.... more... more.... more.... until something gives me an idea or there's something that I like the look of that gives me a feeling of certainty that I'm onto something. I'm sure you know the feeling. Then once I've found the 'thing' or group of things then it's time to apply LESS IS MORE. So I'll start to edit and take away what I don't need. This is basically the process I use in all my work: Add, add, add... then subtract.
Starting a painting can be daunting - that blank canvas is like an empty stage waiting for brilliance to arrive! This can be a huge hurdle to overcome when expectations are high. So in this video I’ll share with you how to adopt the right mindset to allow yourself to freely create your best work, and what are some of the first steps you could take on that blank canvas to lead to success. Watch and then let yourself loose on your next painting journey!
It happens - sometimes a painting goes through a very ugly phase and a lot of artists give up and start again. In this video I go through this process with you - I create an ugly painting, and then I show you two ways to save it. And it’s amazing how quickly it becomes a fun, playful painting with a cohesive structure - instead of the chaotic crazy mess it was before.
Many of my students decide their paintings are too busy but then get stuck editing them. In this video I demonstrate the thought process in deciding what to take away and what to leave behind and how it’s all based on DIFFERENCES. Creating differences and then deciding which areas you like the best and reducing distractions around these areas, leaving them to be the focal areas in the painting. By doing this successfully you calm the painting and it becomes less ‘busy’.
Who doesn’t love flowers? In this demonstration I show you how to paint florals without getting hung up in petals, stamens, leaves and stems. Do you want your painting to convey the FEELING of the flower? Through combining a looseness of line and paint you can easily create gorgeous florals that are vibrant and fun.
Sometimes we can just put way too many colours on our palette and end up with a big muddy mess. Follow me as I use a limited colour palette to create a HARMONIOUS painting using beautiful colour contrasts and colour pairings that work together. With 3 warm, 1 cool colour and black and white you can create depth and luscious colour combinations. In this abstract painting the end result hints at a wonderful land of shapes with linear details with warm colour contrasting with subtle cool shades. Watch the video and try this exercise yourself to see what you can create.
One of the biggest problems that stops artists from beginning is a feeling of overwhelm. When faced with a blank canvas, the options seem endless and terrifying: where do I even start? What if I end up with something hideous? How do I know what to paint at all? This video will give you 2 techniques for getting started when you have a new canvas, that are fast and effective and will help to kickstart your creative process so that you can begin your painting easily and with beautiful and exciting results.
In this demonstration you will see how to create a beautiful abstract painting giving the SENSE of flowers bobbing in a breeze. My goal is to create interesting shapes of saturated colour with depth and complexity that suggests a floral form, but has the feeling of freedom and spaciousness. Using paint in layers, pencil and ink along with a palette knife and colour shapers beautiful effects can be created - watch and then try it for yourself.
If I could tell you the ONE thing that improved my work the most - this is it. Working on a group of paintings together improves results because what you learn in one painting can be directly applied to others.
In this video, I show you how I do this by using 5 paintings in mid-process to demonstrate how ideas can be applied to multiple works and how my paintings took big leaps forward as a result.
Follow the journey as I develop a painting using Collage and Paint. Intuitive painting is an allegory for LIFE - we start without knowing where we will end up, but one step leads to another and then another and then the next. Watch as I start this journey with some brown and blue paint and see where I end up.
