Six Creative Tips

Here are six tips I use to inspire and develop my work.....

Tip 1 - Look for colour combinations around me.

I seek out the colours I'm drawn to - they often look great because of what's next to them! I capture them with my phone, crop them and use an app like Canva to identify the colour combos that work for me.

You can use anything that catches your eye - Old Masters, nature and existing designs, even your clothes for inspiration.

I will often then make small colour studies using the combinations I've discovered. I love using wax or oil pastels, they're immediate and allow you to layer and scratch through.

I don't spend a fortune on brushes - DIY ones are just the job to scale up cheaply.

Tip 2 - Want to paint looser?

Reduce your control - scale up your brush; use your non-dominant hand to paint or draw; and avoid looking at what you're doing, so called blind contour drawing.

All these can make your image a little messy and haphazard, but that's where the magic happens. This is about experimental discovery and its part of getting looser.

Moving your hand, wrist and arm in a less familiar way creates different effects and marks, enriching our visual vocabulary.  

Tip 3- Don't be a slave to composition rules!

I'm aware of composition rules - the rule of thirds, the golden circle etc but I'm not a slave to them. If you fancy it, go ahead and create focal points on the cross section of thirds. Placing high contrast here, putting the lightest light next to the darkest dark attracts the viewers attention.

I often echo colours and shapes to move the eye around an image. And I almost always avoid a centre bullseye of contrast. But rules are made to be broken aren't they?!

Don't over complicate it - if a 'rule' suits your intention for the painting then that's fine, but don't be a slave to it.

Tip 4 - Create a series of work.

I usually work in multiples, up to 12 or so paintings of different formats and sizes, all progressing together. Working on several pieces at once stops me over focusing on one piece and getting too much into the detail.

but I also love the iteration that evolves whilst working between pieces. It enables ideas to develop and results in some great surprises. It also creates a harmony between pieces, which can be seen in some of the blooms seen here.

Tip 5- Make your peace with Mud!

Mixing warm and cool colours; or complimentary colours together can result in earthy hues, which can be great but it can also result in a muddy mush! If you want neither - I find the best way is to work with cools or warms solely til that area or layer is dry. Then work in the opposite temperature. 

But mud also creates a great opportunity to make glorious neutrals.

Take the mud and add lots of white and you'll have a fab, harmonious neutral.

You can also add a small amount of 'mud' to each colour on your palette to create harmony between the hues. So embrace the palette that goes a little muddy!

Tip 6- Make your colours more sophisticated.

Rather than using paint straight from the tube, shift your its hue slightly by mixing in a touch of another paint on your palette.

Subdue tube colours by adding a small amount of its complement colour, or add a little 'mud' (by combining a little of every paint on your palette) to it. Even adding a tiny amount of any colour from your palette will give greater interest and sophistication to tube colours, as well as creating a unity between colours. What's the worst that can happen?

What are your top tips?

Let me know.....

For more insight into my practice you might like the following blogs:

Finding my Palette

Tips to Calm a Busy Composition