When frustration led to good things…

…like, wild creative exploration

In my previous post, I mentioned doing ten paintings in two weeks. At the 10th painting, I got extremely frustrated. I find myself switching back and forth between different styles and inspirations. There’s some creative itch I couldn’t scratch.

In frustration and as a solution (which worked!), I reined myself in by putting constraints:

Limited colour palette; three colours.
Stick to one to two brushes.
Max 15 minutes.¹
Pick one subject, and paint five small versions.
And this is the ultimate game-changer: Scrap I must complete the painting.

So, I painted for three weeks in May, like no one was watching. I painted on cheap, 80 gsm thin notebook paper. Kinda like those MUJI notebooks but cheaper.

Through the creative process, I realised that the hardest thing about being an artist is not the skills, it’s overcoming the mental challenges:

I am afraid of ruining the painting. It’s only paper. It’s ok. Ruin it.
This looks like doo-doo. It’s ok. Every artist has doo-doo paintings that they don’t show.
You should be ashamed of yourself with this painting. Shut up.
Are you sure this brushwork will work? Do it.
Urgh! Ok.
Urgh! Ok.
Let’s paint other things. NO.

---

I documented every piece of the paintings. Here are some of the notes, aka a glimpse into my artist brain:

“Another boring-ish painting. Hmm...subject and colours play a part. Maybe it’s my mood today. But, I feel okay to not add more detail, to not finish, just explore to a certain point. ACCEPTANCE is freeing, too. I do like the cropped zoomed-in composition, still like it, can explore this further.”

“It is quite unnerving to improv. On one hand, it’s unplanned mostly, but I think to do that, one has to have good foundations of colours, shapes, values, etc. It must be like those contemporary dances where it seems like the dancers are going here and there by reacting, and one would think that would be easy, as you can ‘do anything’ But anything consists of something, and if you don’t know ‘something’ to do ‘anything’, what do you do?

“Another watery intentional chaos. This one is even more abstract, with merely a hint of shapes as the dry brush distorted the form more. Again, this colour combo of magenta+cerulean blue+lemon yellow worked so well. I love that the chaos is not moody-dark but alive with breath and light. The 80 gsm paper is buckling under the weight of the water. It is good to let go of perfection. What is perfect art anyway?”

“I was wary before even starting this. Like, how can this be done? Well. I closed my eyes for the mark-making, halfway through, opened my eyes to realise I was instinctively keeping to the centre. I went wilder after that. And improv with more marks and heavier paint. Went beyond, scribbled the words, and exaggerated the shapes. I love the feeling of the process. Chaos, chaos, chaos! Can a beautiful mess still be called a mess? Or, are they chaotic harmony? What a paradox. Chaotic harmony. I LOVE this term.”

“This is the longest I've taken. But I like the idea of the zoomed-in. It’s still a challenge for my brain to omit the rest of the building and just focus on the door. Does it tell the full picture? Of course not. The challenge is to have the guts to choose what to tell and interpret from my point of view as an artist.”

“The ones with the least drawing and ‘painting’ are the quickest, with surprising results when I let the paint, paint itself. In contrast to the flat block version, this is interesting. The flat block one is clear to the point that it’s boring to me. There’s nothing much left for imagination. Hmm. I like the sense of intrigue in a painting. It invites the viewer to be part of it, to make the story of the painting theirs. I like this idea.”

“Interesting, the marks one single brush can make. It’s good for me to explore my brush vocabulary.’

Friends, I’m excited. I feel like I’m on to something…
Scratch that creative itch, I must.

🧡
Melinda

p.s. An 8-second flip-through of the paintings. Curious? Watch it here.

1. I took close to an hour for day 1 of five mini paintings. It went down down down to 20 minutes as I get bolder and let go.