I love it when a few simple lines or shapes capture the essence of a subject, so I really enjoyed this exercise from my studies with Newlyn School of Art, UK.

My recent explorations of line and shape have been such interesting experiences. I’ve really enjoyed the shift in perception from observing representational subjects to exploring abstract elements like line and shape. Guided by Jane Davies’ wonderful book, Abstract Painting: The Elements of Visual Language, I’ve continued this exploration by playing with patterns and collage work.

This was another exercise just to grow my creative “muscles”… 30mins to play with the question, “How many ways can I make a circle?”

Last week I started my morning in the studio with 30mins of practicing switching off my analytical mind, and working quickly and uncensored to make layers of lines using different kinds of tools, mediums, and marks.

One of the things I’ve always enjoyed in my art-making is methods and materials that involve working in layers. I love art that has a rich sense of a story that has evolved, with evidence of earlier parts of the story still peeking through to be enjoyed.

I’ve been taking a class and loving the stuff we’ve covering on colour theory. Mixing colours is so meditative, and I love seeing the new colours that emerge, especially when you add white to a dark colour and the underlying colours within the dark colour are revealed.

I’ve recently completed a series of collage artworks on paper and I’ve been thinking about how I’d like to frame them.

I’ve been feeling drawn to play with an old love of mine again… magazine collage art. In the past, my magazine collage art has been representational art of landscapes, skies, and botanical subjects. This time I wanted to explore working in this medium to create completely abstract compositions.

These mini mixed media abstract landscape sketches were created without any planning or stopping to analyse. Many artists refer to this unplanned way of working, making it up as you go, as “intuitive art-making”.

With all of the exploring and experimenting I’m doing in my art-making this year, one of my commitments I’ve made is to this sketchbook.

I recently wrote about all the ways that my art-making is inspired by movement. One of those kinds of movement is the movement I witness in nature.

These have become my uniforms for most weekdays… my painting clothes and shoes…

Since my art-making and my life in general are both so inspired and fed by my experiences of connecting with nature, one of the things I’m exploring is how I can bring the sensory experiences and textures of nature into my work process even more.

I’ve never painted with a pre-planned and pre-mixed palette before. I’ve always just created my colours as I worked, and I also often used some colours straight from the tube.

My recent abstract commission has left me hungry to experiment more, mess more, play more … so I’ve been playing with all kinds of toys in my studio these past few weeks.

As I’m setting off into the new year, I’ve been taking some time to look back on all the art I’ve made since I committed to my art career at the end of 2020, and seeing what I can glean from that as I feel, think, and dream about what I want to create in 2024.

If you’ve been following my work for a while, you know that my first career was as a therapist and so I really appreciate the therapeutic value of art-making and I can see how I’m exploring my personal challenges, delights, and questions through my art-making. It’s fascinating and wonderful that the process of making art is so full of opportunities to know myself better and to heal and grow. I’m so grateful that I get to do this with my time and energy.

I should have known when the collectors offered the phrase, “loving what is” as a working title for the commission, that it was going to require me to grow in my ability to love what is!

Last month I enjoyed being interviewed about the inspiration and process behind my paintings. I love how they’ve integrated film of our beautiful neighbourhood Park, Maxima Park, that inspired my Wandelen series of paintings!

Making our lives is a creative act that, much like a painting, is full of choices about what’s important to us, what we want to focus on, and what we want to express. What if I replace the word “art” with “living” in Aristotle’s quote …