Today I am going share my thoughts around the question of whether it is OK for artists to have lots of different projects going on or should they actually focus on one thing?

At the end of last year I started work on a side project that’s quite different from my usual tree focused urban landscapes and seasonal noticings.  I called it my scribbly side project. It started because I had taken a prompt from the My Art Tribe membership masterclass from November 2021 that was to explore intuitive mark making.  I began by playing with making marks in my sketchbook every day and noting down how I felt that day on the same page.  After about 3 weeks of that I did the taped down exercise that I learned when I did Louise Fletcher’s Find Your Joy course in 2020.

The exercise is as follows:

1.      Gesso prime a large sheet of cartridge paper and let it dry

2.      Use low tack masking tape to tape down the paper onto a drawing board

3.      Use the tape to mark out smaller rectangle or squares on your paper

4.      Then, time yourself for up to 30 mins, and draw and paint during that time. If you want to avoid muddiness, stop the clock every time you change paint colour until the paint is dry enough that it won’t mix.

5.      After the 30 mins painting time is up, stop and let everything dry.

6.      Remove the tape and see what you’ve got.

So, what happened next was I really liked some of my squares and I happened to have some primed 12x12inch boards in my art room and I started playing. I wanted to have the same feeling as the small paper squares. Every time I went in there to paint a spend 10 minutes adding a layer to my boards. I didn’t think about what I was going to do, other than my intention of keeping the feeling from the small squares, just added a layer. I kept that going until I had some paintings I liked.

So now I have a series of small scribbly paintings that I really like. They are quite different from my seasonal tree paintings because they are entirely abstract. They are about expressing a particular feeling rather than about a visual reference. There are some commonalities between my scribbly and seasonal paintings. Firstly, they both feel like me being expressed, secondly colour is very important, thirdly they are expressive and about how I feel about something. Just they are visually quite different.

So back to my questions.  I do like doing more than one thing. As an artist I expect that what I’m interested in will be a bit all over the place.  The thing that’s common between my interests is me. So, despite advice about how to grow an audience suggesting that its good to focus on one thing, I am going to follow what I’m curious about right now. And that’s more than one thing. 

If you are an artist or curious human, how do your many interests come together? Do get in touch if you’d like to let me know.