If you spent a little time in the feed as I did yesterday looking at the challenges shared, you may have noticed recurrent themes that really demonstrate how not alone we all are, among them:
🖌 the challenge of not having much space, or using a room that already has a purpose
🖌 the challenge of building a cohesive body of work
🖌 the challenge of self care as an artist
🖌 the challenge of being both artist and parent
🖌 the challenge of time, especially when there are other work or family commitments
🖌 and a perennial one - the challenge of moving away from the constraints of realism to something more expressive and abstract.
So many of us struggle with this! If you haven't seen
this blog post, it offers some practical ways to start 'abstractifying' your art.
And of course Abstractify
, {which you'll find inside the
Happy Artist Studio alongside lots of other courses and our lovely private community} can definitely help you with that.
So, on to today's prompt!
There's something kind of magical about a painter's palette.
Seeing all those delicious colours smooshed together, perhaps with a painty brush lying across it, gets all of us excited to paint!
If you don't have an actual palette in play right now {like me - I use very diluted paint and ink in bottles}, you could arrange objects in your favourite colour combination as a flat lay*, or share a section of a painting that reveals your personal favourite palette.
You could also repost someone else's photo if it shows a colour combo you love - just don't forget to link to them.
Think outside the box!
*Flat lay, for those not sure what that is:
Objects arranged on a flat surface and photographed from above {see example below}. Mine tend to be a bit haphazard - it's harder than it looks! And I kind of don't care about arranging - I tend to just point and shoot at whatever's there 😉 - but the photo below gives a general idea.
Think of it in terms of making a painting - create a path for the eye, and don't forget quiet areas for it to rest too.
A white background can be a bit less chaotic for the eye and lets us focus on the work - you can use a large piece of white paper or poster board to lay your palette on. In the past I've used a new canvas or gessoed wood panel as a ready made background.
You can also crop the image after you've taken it if the composition isn't working.
