Creative play
My style (see previous post about style exploration) is mostly quite flat, with little traditional texture (I do like to add texture with scribbles, mark-making and blocks of colour, though). And I love this style and have settled into it and it (currently – style is something that evolves with you and mine has definitely evolved over the last few years) feels very much like ‘home’.
But it’s so important, I feel, to include creative play in your schedule. And on a regular basis, too, whether that be daily, weekly or setting aside a couple of full days every month, or even a whole week or two each quarter.
Play with new media or tools. Play around with different colour palettes, or limited palettes – or throw in a mass of colour, if you usually use a very limited palette. Explore different subject matter, or go abstract. Try out making patterns if you normally do placement pieces or editorial illustration. Have a go at drawing for the children’s market, if that’s not your usual area…
Play for fun and to grow and learn
At the very least, playing can be fun. It gives you the chance to explore without needing to keep to a brief, or narrow your focus. But often it can give a lot more back than that. Even if it’s not something that ends up directly feeding into your future work, you will have flexed some different creative muscles, you might have gleaned some nuggets of insight about colour that use to tweak something in your next client piece, you might have learnt something about composition from working on an abstract piece that then feeds into a children’s book…
Mindful art practice
I also try to fit in a fair bit of what I feel is mindful art practice. If it’s digital, this often uses the symmetry tools in Photoshop or Procreate. I especially love watching a mandala-style piece grow almost organically!
To share or not to share?
… that is the question.
I love sharing. Possibly a bit too much. I tend to share my sketchbook work and some of my creative play (not all of it, but a lot of it) on Instagram. More recently, I’ve started dabbling in using reels and stories, which are still really quite alien to me, and I never seem to get my process videos the right length to work properly as a reel and it ends up wanting to take some video of my coffee table or the cat (hmm, maybe I should let it video the cat – cats are big on social media, right?). People have advised that stories are a great place to share creative play, especially when you’re not entirely sure you like it, but you want to get it out there to satisfy that urge to share!
I do like the feedback you get from sharing to the main Instagram feed though. Especially when you get new people commenting or finding you because of something different you’re trying. But then it messes with the grid, darnit! I have wondered if it might be an idea to have a separate sketchbook and creative play insta account. (I do already have three instas, though the other two or not specific to art – one is my travel account, which I’m clearly posting to constantly at the moment; and the other is my reading account, where I post a photo and sometimes some actual thoughts on the books I read.)
What about you?
I’d love to hear what you do. Do you post everything to the same Instagram account, or do you have a separate one for sketchbooks and creative play? Or even two for different styles and markets?
And what about having a sketchbook and creative play page on your portfolio? Do art directors like to see this? I’ve certainly heard a lot of anecdotes about art directors asking to see sketchbooks before commissioning an illustrator, though not had that experience myself.
Going with the flow – floral pattern
Part of the new calmer lifestyle I’m trying to adopt, I’m throwing out all my design career goals and schedules and plans and ‘going with the flow’. That doesn’t mean I’m not going to do any work for studios – but I will only do so when I have the time and when it’s a call/assignment/trend that really calls out to me. There are opportunities at all of the studios I work with for this, but I have a tendency to try to challenge myself to new things (not always a bad thing, of course) or to do a gazillion designs for one assignment, rather than one considered one.
Mostly, though, I want it to mean getting back to enjoying creating art that I love – both creating and looking at. Enjoying the process and just really embedding myself in whatever I’m creating (this is a mindful thing in itself, I believe, from what I’ve read).
Friday night, I did some loose pen and ink doodling – flowers (so often flowers!) and Saturday night I dived into Illustrator and dug into my most preferred method – and then mixed it up a bit. I had such a lovely time (I did watch something at the same time – that’s a habit I may struggle to break – The Hundred Foot Journey, which was a lovely film to watch) doing and was really pleased with the result.
My favourite is the grey blue background. I like the faded silhouette leaves in the background, but I wonder if they might be better done to fit in much more in the gaps of the main design, rather than just as a repeat behind them.
Anyway, the point is that this is what I love to do. Create patterns from the heart – whether based on drawings, paintings or completely digital. Explore colour combinations and test out what different background colours do to a design (I love how different purely changing the background colour can make the feel of a design). Play about with fitting motifs together in a pleasing way.
I really like the effect of having the black and white collection of flowers, juxtaposed with the colourful print/cutout effect ones. This is a bit of a new thing for me.
The whole process of this was free of stress or anxiety. It was just for me, without the need to meet a brief, meet a deadline, or try to work in new methods. Proper relaxation. I hope I get to do more and more of it.