Gathering inspiration: A peek into my process and my art journal

Have you ever wondered how artists think? How they come up with ideas? I'm peeling back the layers of my creative process to show you how I came up with ideas for some of my recent paintings.

I’m fascinated with the creative process, with how artists think, where they draw their inspiration from, and how they come up with ideas. So today, I thought I’d try to peel back the layers on my process.

I will use the four pieces I created last month for the Seek, Gather, Create mixed media scavenger hunt, which I shared in Creative explorations #2, to take you through my creative process and thinking.

I looked at the prompts each week as the constraints with which I had to work. I wasn’t limited to only using the prompts, of course, but they played a big role in how I thought about executing each piece of art. This is very different from my usual way of working, which is to throw everything and the kitchen sink in my journals without any real planning {though there is a method to my madness, but that, perhaps, is a post for another time}.

With that background set, get yourself a mug of coffee, and let’s jump right in!

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Week 1 prompts: Wildflowers, Raindrops, Fish, A bear

My heart, quite literally, sank when I saw those prompts. I drew an immediate blank — I mean, what? A bear. Fish. Wildflowers. Rain. What is even happening here?

After hyperventilating for a while, I thought about skipping the week, but the prompts kept circling around in my mind, sneaking into my dreams, and following me everywhere I went.

Now, I’m not usually the best with prompts. I like to paint without planning. Which is why I like the challenge of this particular challenge, but this was too much of a challenge {and yes I know that’s a lot of challenges in one sentence, but it was a real challenge! Ok, I’ll stop now.}

I thought about polar bears and salmon runs; grizzly bears attacking unsuspecting hikers; bears eating fish; Jamie Fraser fighting a bear with a knife {any Outlander fans here? I’m a book-first fan of the series, though let’s be honest, I adore Sam Heughan}; and I wanted to cry.

It was all too…bloody! Bear attacks…bears eating fish….oh wait…bears eat honey too! At least Winnie The Pooh does. And just like that, I had my idea — all it took was a mental romp through National Geographic, the freezing Arctic, and a side of literature, before finally coming to stop at a beloved children’s book.

I decided to find a Winnie The Pooh quote as a starting point…something that would help me to come up with a plan for this painting. And because I didn’t feel up to painting a bear, I decided to use a more illustrative style, which isn’t something I do much of, so this was an interesting exercise for me. If it’s going to be challenging, let’s lean right into it!

Once I had my quote, the rest of the pieces fell together. I used some blue acrylic paint to lay down rain drops across the page, collaged in a bear silhouette, but instead of making it a boring black, I went with blues and filled him up with wildflowers. Some wildflowers on the page as a nod to the quote, and a fish drinking the rain, because why not?

And that’s week 1 done! Now, on to week 2. It couldn’t get more challenging than this now, could it?

Week 2 prompts: Fabric, Pebbles, A puzzle, Acid or fluorescent green

Well…perhaps not as challenging as week 1, but acid green? Fluorescent green? I don’t do green! Not a fan. Avoid it. Hide it beneath layers more often than not. So I just ignored the green for a while and focused on the rest of the prompts.

Pebbles. Hmm. Should I stick some pebbles into my book? It may be fun! Glass pebbles? Fish tank pebbles? But I don’t want to be Ms. Obvious. And I don’t want to interpret this prompt quite so literally. I settled on a stencil that reminds me a bit of rocks, and I decided I would fill in the spaces with small painted “pebbles”.

I also knew what I wanted to do for the puzzle. I have a nice stash of jigsaw puzzle pieces that I’ve been holding on to for years. I decided to alter and incorporate some of those pieces in my final painting.

But I wasn’t sure how to weave fabric into this, and at this point, I didn’t even know what story these elements would tell. And then, there was the question of the green…

I decided to start with the element I was absolutely certain about — the jigsaw pieces. I placed a few pieces on my journal page to get a sense of how many pieces I would need to alter, and to see if just moving the pieces around while thinking over the prompts would spark some ideas.

Well, of course it did! While playing with the puzzle pieces, I remembered I had a print out of a jigsaw puzzle lying in my collage paper stash. I decided to tear that up and lay down a layer of collage, because sometimes just starting without a fully formed plan gives you a doorway into a painting.

I hated the collage pieces, though, especially all the primary colors. So out came the paints to push it all back. I decided to incorporate some light green as a stand-in for the fluorescent green, and just had some fun flinging paint at the page. By the time I was done, there were layers of acrylics and dyes, etching, washes and glazes. Still no idea of the story, though.

So I decided to move on to the next thing I was certain about — laying down the rocks and pebbles {I knew I wanted that across the bottom of the page} and altering/painting the jigsaw pieces. One of the puzzle pieces got kind of wobbly down the middle, maybe because I was over-enthusiastic with the water, but those wobbly bits reminded me of wings.

I cut the puzzle piece down the middle, because it’s a very good idea to act on your impulses immediately! And then I promptly started thinking about things with wings.

A key with wings? Pigs with wings? Heart with wings? Boring and predictable as so many first ideas tend to be. A woodland nymph? And I had it! A collage doll with jigsaw puzzle wings!

A quick rummage through my stash of collage papers and I found a few papers that would work well with my background. The fabric would be easy to incorporate on the collage doll, and I found a nice little contrasting fabric scrap. And then I remembered my spools of metallic threads, maybe I had a fluorescent green there?

And ta-da! It all came together. Simply going from one thing I knew for sure, and letting it lead me to the next sure thing, and the next, and the next, and the next.

Week 3 prompts: Something red, A leaf, Something smooth, A repeating element

After two weeks of working with challenging prompts, I seemed to be getting better at this! I immediately honed down on the prompt that I thought would be the most challenging to figure out — something smooth.

Glass. Mirror. Vellum paper. Transparent laminate. Tape. A leaf preserved between layers of tape and incorporated into my spread perhaps? How predictable, as usual! And then I had it, PET tape! And I had just the tape too — printed with flowers and leaves and tiny red cherries.

The PET tape I used in this spread is the Dusty Blue & Cinnamon PET tape from The Washi Tape Shop. I love how it blended seamlessly into my art journal spread. Also check out their gilded washi tapes — they are to die for!

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The colors on this tape reminded me of fall, which determined my color palette. The cluster of flowers looked like a gorgeous head piece, and just like that, I knew what this painting will be — a fall maiden, painted with luscious layers of acrylics and some scrumptious texture!

I added some red dots for the repeating element and to mimic the cherries printed on the tape, and et viola! She’s done!

Week 4 prompts: Shells, The letter ‘M’, Mustard, Stitching

This week’s prompts were the easiest of the lot. The letter ‘M’ reminded me of portals, which had been a recurrent theme in my paintings for years, so that became my starting point.

As I thought of portals, a landscape immediately came to mind, so I painted a stylized ‘M’ in payne’s grey and black, filling most of the page, and drew in a horizon line with a pencil just to give myself a scaffolding to build up the painting.

Looking at that huge, stylized ‘M’ taking up most of the real estate on the page made me want to immediately grunge it all up. The phrase ‘portals through time’ popped into my mind, which made me think of old wooden doors with peeling paint and old, cracked walls covered in layers of graffiti and peeling posters, and I knew just what I wanted to do.

I mixed up some mustard using cadmium yellow medium hue, raw sienna, and burnt umber; got out a few bright colors and a tub of white; and built up the layers of ‘time’. There’s a lot of etching and scribbling, layers of mark making, and thinned down paint smooshed onto the page.

When it all started to look time worn and layered and grungy, I got hold of some pistachio shells to use as a stamp. The organic shapes and texture it created are reminiscent of lichen growing on old walls.

That left just the stitching. I used some paper scraps that I had used to dab up the paint and mix up the mustard and added some stitching to it, I collaged on to the page.

A bit more paint to get it to merge a bit with the painting, some splatters of black ink, and I called it done!

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WOW, this is a long post, but I hope you enjoyed this glimpse into my journals and into my creative thought process.

Which of these paintings do you like best? Tell me in the comments, or simply reply to this email.

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