Finding ideas for a new group of paintings

Sometimes, you really have to dig.

I'd just finished a series that kept me working through a full five months of spring and summer.

Its inspiration had begun during a visit to Laos, where I’d been pondering the destruction of land and communities caused by war - ruminating on bomb craters, to be exact. I painted hidden unexploded bombs beneath gentle rural landscapes, trying to come to terms with what I’d seen. It was pretty grim!

Fortunately, the work evolved. First footpaths appeared; then I started thinking about roads, river routes, stone walls, patchworks of paddy, all the various marks of humans on landscape. As the series progressed, ideas emerged about geological layers, old stone shelters, and megalithic monuments. 

My understanding of what I wanted to say with the series had changed significantly, becoming richer, gentler and more complex as I went on. It was so exciting to see how a small, brutal idea could be expanded and transformed into something so beautiful.

After putting the 21 paintings of We Mark the Land onto my website in September, and having taken a bit of a break, I felt like I’d cleared the decks sufficiently to begin something new. I wanted to dig into another series, eager to again see the evolution of my ideas on canvas. But it took some patient searching to find the right starting point.

Unreasonably, I’d expected a new idea, ripe with complex possibility, to show up pronto.

It does feel pretty exhilarating to have a great big juicy idea present itself. One with more facets of possibility than the Koh-I-Noor diamond!

I know inspiration can come in a blinding flash, but for me it’s a far slower process. It’s more like patiently turning over many small pebbles in a stream until find the one I want.

I reminded myself that the last one did not arrive quickly or fully formed; in fact, it took months, growing organically from one stage to the next.

A small idea will do, thanks!

So instead, I’m looking for a small, initial spark to get me started. That feels like a much more achievable goal: one small but promising idea, one that can start off in a basic way, but can naturally expand as I work.

In her book The Creative Habit , Twyla Tharp calls the process of looking for inspiration ‘scratching’, as in digging through everything to find something:

“Scratching is what you do when you can’t wait for the thunderbolt to hit you. As Freud said, “When inspiration does not come to me, I go halfway to meet it.” - T.T.

I do like to scratch in books, art galleries and social media, where I follow hundreds of amazingly creative people who appear to have endless supplies of creative ideas. We’ve all looked for inspiration online, and used in moderation it can be a brilliant way to stimulate new thinking.

But I think there are serious drawbacks to taking this approach to discovery. Often, I find that other people’s ideas don’t sustain my interest very long, and I’m back to trolling for another in short order. Worse, I risk starting to believe I haven’t any ideas of my own. Or thinking that mine are rubbish.

Most crucially, it’s a mug’s game - because I cannot learn the habit and build the confidence needed to find what is original to me.

Scratching around on my own turf: 3 ways

If I want an idea that will grow and will sustain my interest for weeks or months, then it’s got to come from me. I get the most satisfaction when my work has started with my own ideas. Ultimately I’ve got to scratch around on my own turf.

Here are three ways I like to do this. I use them individually or in combination.

Looking for leads in my art journals

I’ve made a practice of using art journals to document techniques, unusual marks, colour combinations, really anything I discover as I paint that seems like something I’d want to refer back to later on. I also jot down words and phrases I come across that might be useful. These visual and written notes are simply reminders of anything I found interesting at the time, and I make it easy on myself by keeping these journals close to my work area. (If you’d like to read more about this, here’s an earlier post on art journals).

It’s easy to use this ever-growing catalogue of reminders to myself-in-the-future. I make myself a mug of coffee, get comfortable, and turn the pages of my journals. They are invaluable places to scratch, now that I’m looking for a speck of inspiration. It’s almost a sure thing that I will find something here to pursue. It only has to be a speck after all.

Experimenting freely

Sometimes it’s possible to paint my way to an idea. The trick is not to try overly hard to find it, but instead to have a playful attitude, and an experimental mindset, and then see where that takes me.

My only “task” when I work this way is to watch for clues. I’m looking for clues about what’s interesting, what I’m enjoying, what I might like to explore further.

This is exactly what I was doing when I got excited about a particular combination of blue, violet and green. Perhaps I could build a series around that palette? Would that be enough? Maybe not, but it was a great clue.

Flow-of-conciousness writing

Have you tried this? It’s an effective technique for surfacing ideas.

I set a timer for ten minutes. Now I write down whatever comes to mind, no matter how random my thoughts. I write quickly, without overthinking, without censoring or stopping to edit. I keep writing until the timer goes off.

The point of this exercise is to access ideas and associations that lie within us, even at a sub-conscious level - your intuitive, inner voice begins to speak. As I write, mundane initial thoughts lead to more interesting places, usually about half-way through. If I find I’m following a string of intriguing ideas when the timer rings, I sometimes opt to keep going.

I use this technique in addition to the free experimentation I’m doing, and to augment the specks of inspiration I find in my journals. Often I’ll get started by one of those methods, then use flow-of-conciousness to go deeper and find different associations.

When the above-mentioned blue/violet/green palette began calling me, I felt I wanted to expand the simple idea of colour into something more complex. I began the ten minutes of writing with the names of the colours at the top of the page, and wrote down every association that surfaced - when I hit on a particularly strong one, I knew I’d found the series.

What’s next?

I’m now a two months along with the blue/violet/green paintings, and my concept of what it’s about continues to evolve. I know now to trust this process - to start with the simplest idea, and allow it to grow with time, action, and reflection. If everything goes to plan, this group will be ready to show by the end of the year. Then it’ll be time to scratch for a new idea!