Or not, depending on my mood
I’m still really enjoying experimenting with neurograhic art – it may just be fancy doodling, but I can easily become engrossed in it. For some reason I keep seeing abstract flowers within the shapes created by the lines… perhaps these drawings/ paintings are truly the landscapes of my mind?
Sharpie and watercolour paint on A3 watercolour paper, and a hefty dose of imagination and artistic license! 🙂
PS here is the original line drawing for this one…
I’ve realised that when it comes to neurographic art I still struggle a bit with drawing my initial lines straight from my subconscious – without meaning to I find I usually have some kind of a conscious idea in my head that probably gets in the way of any real spontaneity.
Apparently it’s a good idea to use a penny on the page, and let the pen tip drive the penny across the paper, drawing a line wherever it goes. I still choose where I start each line but it certainly helps give a bit of quirky randomness to the design that hopefully comes more from my heart not my head.
I decided to record today’s creative venture at each step, just for fun. Pic 1 shows the basic lines in progress across the page, and pic 2 records where I’m at once I’m done with the penny. Then pic 3 shows all the intersections rounded off, and pic 4 shows added circles and semicircles drawn freehand to create more balance and interest to what I already have on the page.
Looking at my drawing, I decided I perhaps saw a few abstract flower shapes within the design, so started colouring them in accordingly – and I chose to use watercolour paints today instead of just markers and gel pens. Pics 5, 6 and 7 show the progress of the flowers – and pic 8 is the finished drawing once the leaves are painted in.
I’m really happy with how it’s turned out, so I’ll certainly try using the penny to draw the initial neurographic lines again, and the watercolour paints were also fun to use 🙂
Today’s neurographic, done mostly with sharpies and added glitter gel pens on a much bigger piece of paper than yesterday.
I think I might try one outlined in permanent marker and coloured in loosely with watercolour paints, just to get a bit more expressive ‘flow’ in my overall design 🙂
Poetry is my favourite write Making words sit together so tight Patterns flow and abound In the shaping of sound Rhyme and meter creating delight
A friend has recently introduced me to the concept of neurographic art, so I thought I’d look into it and have a go.
From what I’ve read online, it was introduced in 2014 by a Russian Psychologist and Philosopher, Pavel Piskarev, who believes in using art and aesthetics to improve your psychological mindset.
It’s basically simple creativity through building up random squiggly lines on a page made by allowing your subconscious to take over – like doodling, but with multiple wandering lines intersecting, then softening and curving the corners and colouring in the resulting design.
Apparently neurographics can be used as a form of art therapy, working through problems by thinking of them as you are drawing your many Piskarev lines slowly but without conscious control, and letting your creativity flow to see what comes from it.
As someone who has to work hard to learn to paint with my heart (what I feel) rather than my head (what I think) and struggles a bit with creating abstract art, and as someone who loves both doodling and colouring in, I thought this would be a perfect experiment for me to try out.
These four little 6×8 neurographic drawings were done over this weekend with a pack of Sharpies – I really enjoyed the creative process, I certainly found the smoothing-off and curving of the intersections calming in a gently repetitive way, so will definitely be trying this again! 🙂
My Flower of the Day today is another painting, a semi-abstract, stylised canvas painted using a reference photograph depicting wild poppies growing in the grass verge at the side of a narrow country road 🙂
A semi-abstract painting of allium flower heads for today’s Flower of the Day and Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Abstracts 🙂
The ‘zing’ I’m referring to here is not necessarily something that is always visible in my paintings, but is definitely something effervescent I feel growing within me. It’s a kind of bubbling curiosity that helps me build up confidence in trying out new things to see what works best.
After a full month of playing about with different painting styles for my A-Z – some reasonably successfully, some not quite so much – I find at the moment I’m perfectly happy to keep my options open and continue to paint in whatever way suits my mood on any given day.
I had been intending to paint something fabulously ‘zingy’ for my final post, but in all honesty at this point in the proceedings I’m simply running out of creative steam. I’m feeling tired, and didn’t feel much like coming up with a dazzling grand finale flourish to finish off with after all.
So my final A-Z painting is a prickly purple thistle, done yesterday afternoon in acrylics with a painting knife (and a water spritzer bottle to create the faded fuzzy background) on a compact 8×8 inch canvas. It was great fun to do, and really didn’t take long at all.
I’m definitely going to continue exploring and experimenting as I go along because regardless of style or substance, successful or otherwise, I’m finding I really do enjoy painting with a passion, which surely has to count for something…
Finding joy in the simplest of things
Love the freedom expressive art brings
Every painting technique
Brings a feeling unique
Some speak softly, while others just sing…
For this year’s April Blogging through A-Z Challenge I’ve decided to follow the art-inspired theme of me, now in my 60th year, exploring and experimenting with how to paint using acrylics, gouache and watercolours. After a couple of false starts this is a relatively recent journey I began in earnest a few months ago. So far it’s been an even split between fun and frustration, getting to grips with all these new painting skills, but I’m determined to keep going with it this year and see where it takes me… 🙂
You Tube painting tutorials have been an absolute God-send for me over these past few months. There are so many different artists with You Tube channels, there’s bound to be someone somewhere who appeals to your way of learning?
I’ve watched endless rounds of tutorials on watercolour painting, gouache painting, acrylic painting, palette knife painting, and anything else of any potential relevance (and admittedly also some of no relevance whatsoever). I’ve listened to advice on countless issues, and have picked up tons of helpful tips on technique.
But sadly you can’t learn to paint by virtual osmosis so sooner or later you have to stop watching and start actually painting yourself – and that’s when the fun really begins, and the frustrations, and the failures…
PS The basic composition and stylised design of this particular painting was inspired by a YouTube tutorial by Elle Byers Art…
For this year’s April Blogging through A-Z Challenge I’ve decided to follow the art-inspired theme of me, now in my 60th year, exploring and experimenting with how to paint using acrylics, gouache and watercolours. After a couple of false starts this is a relatively recent journey I began in earnest a few months ago. So far it’s been an even split between fun and frustration, getting to grips with all these new painting skills, but I’m determined to keep going with it this year and see where it takes me… 🙂
I’ve always loved the retro stylised design of old fashioned travel posters and would really love to be able to create my own. I know that traditionally, posters (and other such illustrations) were initially painted in gouache so I’ve been keen to give it a proper try.
The first painting I tried in gouache (last August) was a beach scene I attempted to paint in flat shapes of solid colour like a poster and sadly it was not done at all well – I hadn’t planned the composition properly, or thought through the basic shapes well enough, and the colours I used were too strong and too wrong so it was a total disappointment all round.
But I definitely do want to explore further how to use ‘flat’ gouache properly so I’ve experimented anew with creating a stylised colour-block painting of a street view scene in New Orleans (quickly snapped from the car window in passing during our visit last year) and thankfully this one has turned out a lot better…
For this year’s April Blogging through A-Z Challenge I’ve decided to follow the art-inspired theme of me, now in my 60th year, exploring and experimenting with how to paint using acrylics, gouache and watercolours. After a couple of false starts this is a relatively recent journey I began in earnest a few months ago. So far it’s been an even split between fun and frustration, getting to grips with all these new painting skills, but I’m determined to keep going with it this year and see where it takes me… 🙂
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