I love seeing artists’ process; how they get started with their paintings, the tools they use, the way they use color and texture and line.
So today, I thought I’d share snippets of my process from an art journal spread that I worked on this week, using a mix of words and images and video.
Not all my pieces start the same way, and this isn’t a “recipe”, in the sense that I don’t follow these exact steps or do things in this, or any, particular order every time.
Painting intuitively means that I’m going with instinct, with flow, listening to my impulses. This is a snapshot of one of my painting sessions and a glimpse into how I follow my impulses. I hope you enjoy this peek into my process!
Studio Diaries is a free weekly newsletter exploring art and creative living. Sign up to receive notes on the creative life, a monthly sketchbook/creative prompt, as well as short process videos and pages from my art journals.
My eyes fall on the color pencils, and I pull one out — it’s a Dark Brown Derwent Colorsoft pencil — and I decide to take it for a walk across the page.
Almost immediately, I see a face looking out at me, and I sketch it in.
In a departure from how I usually paint faces, I mix up some paints and go right in with a layer of acrylics.
And then comes the dance with the paints. Mixing up colors right on the page. Swirling them around, etching into them, even letting some of the paints skip onto the face.
And then, still more layering, more etching, and making a glorious mess.
Even — gasp! — painting right over that gorgeous face.
{But if there’s one thing I’ve learnt over the years, it is that layers make everything better, and richer.}
As you can probably see, the lines of the face were slightly visible. So I picked up my Derwent Colorsoft pencil and sketched the face right back in.
And then, I started to “sculpt” the features. Adding in subtle shadows and highlights, letting the layers that were already on the page do most of the heavy lifting.
And this little beauty started to emerge.
From here, it was a process of adding subtle shadows and highlights to create some more depth in the face.
Once I was happy with the way the face turned out, I turned my focus to the orb on her head. Some glazing, doodling, and a bit of shading was all it really needed to create a sense of depth and mystery.
Once my main subject was almost complete, I turned my attention to the background.
I knew that I wanted to maintain that sense of movement while toning things down a bit; the best way to do that: glazing.
I used some yellow and green gold, varying the transparency of the glazes on the page, and leaving some areas unglazed, as you can see in the image above.
Things were starting to look good, but that sense of mystery, of radiance, wasn’t quite there yet.
So far, I had been flowing between intuition and deliberation, but at this point, I snapped out of my intuitive flow and started to want to control things.
From experience, I know that too much control ends up in stilted results, so I put my paints down and went to brew myself a cup of coffee.
The ritual of making coffee and fixing myself an afternoon snack grounded me, and my mind started to wander. And as usually happens, I started to “visualize”1 the painting I had just left on the table, and to sense the energy or the feelings that it evoked in me.
And then it just came to me — radiating light — and I knew exactly how I wanted to finish the painting: with rays of golden light radiating from the orb.
And, ta-da! Here’s the finished painting.
I hope you enjoyed this little visual glimpse into my process!
Our week 5 chat space is open!
I love the cozy intimacy of our weekly chat space, seeing your wonderful work, and cheering you on your art journeys! I can’t wait to see more of your beautiful creations, so come on over and share your art!
The chat is only open to subscribers, making it a cozy, intimate way to connect with fellow artists. I’d love to see you there! xx
I say visualize because it’s widely understood, but I really cannot visualize in my mind’s eye — I have aphantasia, which means my brain doesn't form or use mental images as part of my thinking or imagination.
Share this post