The Path of Progress : Blending Art Styles

If you've been following my art journey for a while you may have witnessed the many changes and transformations that my art has gone through. I've gone from celestial watercolour paintings, to intricate ink illustrations, to digital collage, to abstract paintings! I find it hard to stay with one style when there are so many exciting ways to play around with art and expression, and through all these changes I have given myself a hard time for not being able to keep true to one medium or style.

Maybe I just haven't found my soul style yet (if there even is such a thing) or maybe I was never meant to confine myself to one style. I'm trying to be more forgiving and accepting of how my creativity manifests nowadays and the main trigger for this realisation is an inspiring conversation I had with Jessica Andersdotter & Lianne Williams. These wonderful ladies are amazingly talented artists and I have the great honour of being able to call them my friends too! I was musing on Twitter about not having a one "true" style, umming and aahing over whether I wished to pursue my abstract paintings or detailed ink illustrations as my main focus when Jessica and Lianne came up with the most brilliant idea of combining the two into a signature style! Why it had not occurred to me before I will never know, but in that moment I was so inspired and excited to try it that I went ahead and created my first piece, a bumblebee illustration. I was instantly enamoured with it, and I think a large reason for this is that it reminds me of the work of Kim Krans, the artist and creatrix behind The Wild Unknown Tarot & The Animal Spirit Oracle, my two favourite decks! Feeling elated with how the first piece went, I set about creating the next, featuring the skull of a cat! Although I didn't like it quite as much as the first (which is usually the case for me when I'm experimenting) I still really liked how it turned out and the magical/whimsical feelings that I got from it!

Although I do not wish to confine myself into just one style anymore, I can't help but feel content and satisfied in taking the first steps towards developing a signature style of my own. I'm very much excited to develop these further and I can't wait to see how it progresses and inevitably transforms!

My bumblebee illustration is available to purchase as a print here!

My cat skull illustration will be available to purchase soon!

August Art Goals!

Gosh, it's been a little while since I last posted about my art goals. The last time I updated you all on them was June.. last year! My art goals are back though and I'm pleased to say that I think they will be a more regular occurrence over here on the blog!

Regularly settings goals for yourself is a great practice when you're trying to improve or explore a new route. Having something to look upon and reflect on how you're progressing and how you feel about it is an amazing resource for yourself! Though the trick to getting your goals to work for you and not the other way around is learning how to hold yourself accountable, something I'm still learning myself! But as with most things, I think it will come with practice, so we're back to setting ourselves some goals for the month!

One of the things I struggle with when setting goals is that I just want to do ALL the things so will end up making a list of 10, 15, maybe even 20 goals! Of course I become overwhelmed by such a massive list whenever I try to do something and inevitably abandon ship! This time I'm going to TRY to keep it simple by limiting myself to just three goals this month to see how I get on.

So after a long think, here are the goals I want to accomplish this month!

1. Start a regular sketchbook practice!

I swear this seems to be like a constant goal for me haha! Obviously keeping up with a regular sketchbook practice can have a tonne of rewards but it's still something I tend to struggle with, I think it's my inner perfectionist causing chaos there! I want to be able to sit down with my sketchbook at least every couple of days to just play around in it and hopefully discover or develop some new skills to use in my work! To have a dedicated space to practice and experiment will be incredibly helpful in moving forward and improving with my art so I'm setting this as a goal again!

2. Experiment more with abstract paintings!

If you look back through my posts to the beginning of the year you'll see that I was doing a lot of abstract paintings in acrylic. Lately my buzz for abstracts has been reignited and I've been experimenting with a couple of mixed media abstract paintings! I really love how they have been coming along and have already discovered a few new little tricks that I love to use so I definitely want to continue with this!

3. Practice with some colour studies!

If I'm to be creating more abstract paintings again then a particular resource I would like to develop is a catalog of colour studies and experiments. My sketchbook will be a perfect home for this so I can flit through it to see what colour combinations catch my eye as inspiration for a new painting! It's also just good practice in general for any artist to play around with colour, after all it's a skill that can be transferred over most mediums and styles!

So those are all my art goals for myself! I will check back in at the end of the month to chat with you all about how it went and what I can do to improve for my next set of goals! In the mean time I would love to hear about your latest goals and how you're planning to tackle them!

A New Project : Creature Compendium

Lately I've been looking at my recent artwork and have felt frustrated by the lack of consistency between pieces. I think part of this is due to me being so busy with commission work; which is utterly amazing; that when I do sit down to work on my own stuff I tend to flit between ideas and mediums. I decided that to counteract these feelings it would be best to start a fun little personal project! I sat down and started making a list of what I wanted to focus on. I knew I wanted to go back to my monochromatic art and since I've been enjoying creating a lot of digital art with an inky style, that this would be my main focus. From here I started listing adjectives I would want to describe the finished work; whimsical, slightly creepy, witchy; which helped me narrow down onto a subject matter! I also made a small list of what I wanted to improve on, which was botanicals, animals, bones, and minerals! Once I had set all these parameters in place an idea came to mind which sounded like it would be so much fun to work on. My own Creature Compendium of original nature spirits!

I was so excited to start working that I created a list of twelve prompts to keep me focused and so far I've ticked off the first two, Peonies and a Luna Moth.  From my peony prompt I was able to create my first creature, a peony Eyeshy, a nature spirit that inhabits a variety of flowers and peeks out of their centre with a single eye. My Luna Moth prompt inspired the creation of my second creature, a Luna Mothalope, a variety of antlered moth spirit.

So far I'm really happy with the first two illustrations of this new project and I'm excited to create more creatures! I hope you find them interesting to look at!