Author: Iris

Hi I'm Iris! I'm a mixed media artist, teacher & vlogger from London, UK. I make raw, quirky and emotive art. Online I inspire & encourage people to make their own unique art and express themselves.

Art & Craft Musings

Why Do I Create Art?

[image by Fré Sonneveld]

The simple (and slightly vague) answer is, because it fills my soul. I can’t not create art. I live a full life raising two kids and running a business so it often happens that I can’t create art for a few days. When that happens I just don’t feel quite right, I start getting frustrated and I just feel that pull of needing to create!

I guess that all sounds lovely and divinely inspired, but I want to level with you:

It hasn’t always been this way for me

For years I dabbled with art, stopping and starting, struggling to find a groove, not finding it to be that amazing creative holy grail that I thought it would be. I looked at other people creating their amazing art in their own unique style and it felt SO FAR REMOVED from my reality. It was pretty disheartening.

I kept coming back to it though. There was an attraction to art and to creating art that I couldn’t deny, but I had to do some work on coming to it from the right place, even though at first I didn’t even realise I was coming to it from the wrong place. That ‘place’ I am talking about is how you approach making art in your mind and in your heart.

And I’ll tell you a secret:

It has nothing to do with whether you can or can’t draw

I didn’t fully grasp until the beginning of 2014, when I picked ‘journey’ as my word of the year, that I had been approaching art in a results focussed way, rather than as a process. I wanted to create certain paintings, inspired by what I loved seeing other artists create. I thought the joy was in the completed piece, in the end result. I never thought about how I wanted the creating process to feel or whether that could be something enjoyable too.

Or I thought it was one of those elusive things reserved for other people. They know how to enjoy creating art, but I don’t. Or I attached it to skill: I will start enjoying creating art when I can draw a photo realistic portrait.

I started focussing more on the process. What did I like doing, what materials did I enjoy using, what was it I needed to let go of, what was it I needed to invite more of into my heart & mind? The biggest change that this brought was the realisation that what other people do or like or use does NOT have to be same same as me.

That realisation set me free

I admit that I still get tripped up with this sometimes. I look at the work of artists I admire and I start thinking that because I LOVE their work, somehow my art needs to be like theirs.

It doesn’t.

Asking myself what I like doing and the other questions above, has been transformational. Your answers will probably be completely different from mine: CELEBRATE THAT!

Get to know your own unique loveable fallible quirky amazing self

I realised my passion is doing faces. I don’t like ‘colouring in’ (illustration-type work). I ADORE acrylics but I don’t care as much for watersoluble media. I need(ed) to let go of perfection and the wish for my art to look like other people’s art. I needed to invite more trust in, that my work is just right, right now.

Reading back what I’ve written above makes me feel so excited and amazed that I’ve come so far! It also makes me hopeful that if you are on any stage along a similar journey that you will find reading my story helpful and it will help you be a happier person and artist!

Why do YOU create art?

Let me know in the comments below.

Tags Art & Craft, art talk, feeling blocked, inspiration, people who are better than me, Thoughts

Life

Experiencing Loss

This post is disjointed. It’s not a nicely packaged and smoothly flowing account of loss. That’s just not how it works. Even after 14 years. Nevertheless I want to share. This is not my usual type of sharing, but it’s something I really feel drawn to do right now. I feel a bit vulnerable!

I want to write ‘this is a difficult time of year for me’, but it feels like that’s what I should write knowing tomorrow is the anniversary of my mum’s death, but not what I actually feel compelled to write.

I’m starting to realise that what is in my head isn’t necessarily what is in my heart or in my body. Externally there isn’t much stress in my life right now, however these past few days I’ve felt the anxiety rising. Anxiety in my throat, buzzing in my head. I make the link that it must have something to do with 4 October, but I do that intellectually, not because that feels like natural inner knowing.

I think I’m still at this point of seeing and understanding my losses in an intellectual way, but slowly I’m working my way into the ‘feeling’ way. Which is fucking scary. But also exciting, actually. I get to explore the feelings I couldn’t when I was 15. Thinking about that makes me want to laugh and cry at the same time!

Whenever I write my blog posts I want to help people. I want to use my experiences and learnings to connect with others. I like to structure things. Go logically from one point to the next. Draw conclusions. But this subject, I experience it, I have experienced it, but I haven’t got the ability to sum it all up nicely and serve it up to you. So the reason for writing is in the hope that just by sharing it, in its totally imperfect way, it will help at least one of you.

If you’ve been through such a profound loss, know that I know, know that others know. Each person and each loss is unique, but know that there is also a shared experience. And an experience worthy of sharing so we can feel less alone in our pain.

Art & Craft Featured Musings Popular

Stop Calling Me Talented

Let’s stop thinking of ‘talented’ as a rigid concept that is inherent (you are born with it), and let’s start thinking about it as something more fluid. Talent can be built on and it isn’t required in order to have fun or do something really well.

When people like my art they often tell me ‘Oh you’re so talented!’. It’s a lovely compliment to receive, but it always makes me feel a bit funny. ‘Talented’ seems such a rigid concept. You can’t become talented, you either are or you aren’t. It also doesn’t take into account the hard work that came before it. It seems the most prevalent attitude is: I am talented therefore I can paint a nice picture, not: I have practiced therefore I can paint a nice picture.

I’ve touched upon this before in my article about Deserving to Do Art. There seems to be this notion that there are people who are already inherently good at something, and therefore they are allowed to pursue that thing. On the other side there are people who are not inherently good at something, and therefore they shouldn’t bother.

Yes, there are people who pick up a brush for the first time when they’re 20 (or 30 or 40) and create amazing paintings. There are child savants who create art beyond anything I will ever dream of achieving.

That’s not the norm!

If you’re reading this it’s likely you’re more like me: enthusiastic and passionate, but not ridiculously talented in any way. If you think my paintings have anything to do with talent, think again. Instead, it’s hours and hours of practice. It was picking up a brush and creating something that looked crap. It made me never want to paint again, but instead I said ‘never mind’ and kept creating. Until one day (honestly, this day came MUCH MUCH later than I would’ve wanted!) I painted something and thought ‘hey, I actually quite like that!’

The thing that makes me sad though is that often with the compliment from the first paragraph comes a feeling that is left unsaid: ‘you’re talented, but I’m not’. People lament and say they ‘can’t paint faces’. Back to that feeling of you can only do it if you’re already magically good at it; if you’re talented. Want to know a secret? I couldn’t paint faces either! I took some online courses and I practiced, and now I can!

LOOKIE!! I practised!!! I actually have a soft spot for the one on the left too, even if I can see all the flaws. It looks like she was created with a lot of freedom, even though I didn’t yet have the skill to know where to put the eyes or do the shading.

It’s so easy to get trapped in that thinking of not being able to acquire a skill (or attributing it to the magical ‘talent’, which makes it even more elusive and ‘not for us mere mortals’), especially once we leave full-time education. We’re formed, we’re done, can’t change now!

BUT WE CAN!!! We just need to want it enough!

And we need to put in the work. Don’t let that put you off though, the work can be fun. You can make it fun. Remember how kids learn? By playing! Get out your art supplies and play. Talent schmalent. Fun and fulfillment is where it’s at, and that is achieved by enjoying the process.

In the video below I embrace playfulness in art and create a journal spread based around giving myself permission to create.

Let me know in the comments what you think of the relationship between talent and doing things well!

Tags art talk, inspiration, painting, Thoughts

Art & Craft Musings

I’m Still Fighting – Dealing With Artist Block

Post author By Iris
Post date 5 July 2014
6 Comments on I’m Still Fighting – Dealing With Artist Block

Do you have feelings of self-doubt, or do you feel blocked in relation to creating? I do.

When we moved house in 2009 I finally had the space for a dedicated art desk. I was so excited!! But I ended up spending very little time there. I went through quite a few years of feeling too scared to create. The inner negative voices were just too strong. Until one day I just felt like I couldn’t continue this life of not creating.

I’m lucky enough to be at a point now where creating is a habit (it wasn’t an automatic process though! This was hard work pushing through a lot of ‘Urgh, I suck’ thoughts). I usually like what I create even, but I find I do still experience an almost continuous feeling of blockedness.

When it comes to being an artist and sharing online, you often see the finished product. You see the stuff the artist wants to share and it gives a bit of a false impression of having it all figured out. You don’t see the struggle. You might even assume there isn’t one.

I struggle. Even accomplished artists struggle as I was surprised and relieved to find out on reading this post by Flora Bowley (she offers some helpful tips for getting unstuck too!).

So I just wanted to let you know that even though I’ve come a long way, and I’m very proud of what I’ve achieved, I am still fighting. I am fighting with the block and negative feelings. But I am also fighting against them and continually trying to push through.

My blocks and challenges change over time. I work through one, and another comes up. I come out the other side with more experience, learning and confidence.

Push against those blocks. Challenges are where we grow. This is where the magic happens.

How do you cope with feeling blocked?

Tags art talk, feeling blocked

Art & Craft Musings Paintings

What Makes You Come Alive? Go Do It!!

Post author By Iris
Post date 26 June 2014
10 Comments on What Makes You Come Alive? Go Do It!!

I’ve been having some major learning experiences lately with regards to listening to my inner voice. However, it’s funny, I tend to reach certain conclusions about things, like major lightbulb AHA! moments, and then as life goes on I completely forget them and start making the same mistakes again! So then I have to become conscious of what I’m doing again, to get more in line with my true self aaand the circle continues. Hopefully at some point something will stick, right? So, my recent learnings, let me share them with you!

One of the MAIN things I’ve learned these past months is that when it comes to anything you do creatively (painting, blogging etc) you need to do what makes YOUR heart sing. Not what you think other people want to see, what you think you should (such a dirty word!) do or what your parents want you to do. The quickest way to burnout and not feeling enthusiastic is doing stuff that isn’t true to what your inner wisdom is telling you is RIGHT for you. Do what YOU want and your passion and enthusiasm will be infectious and people will be interested because YOU’RE interested (and therefore interesting).

Last week I was in such a dark mood. I wasn’t feeling any of my paintings. I spent a lot of time doing social networking stuff and watching TV shows because something was stopping me from getting into the studio. (To be fair though, I was rewatching Dollhouse, which is very very worth every minute spent on it lol) Every time I sat down to work on my paintings I just ended up sitting and staring into space, or telling myself it wasn’t any good, or that I couldn’t come up with the right ideas.

Until I realised that I was expecting myself to create other people’s art! I was berating myself for the fact that my intuitive paintings didn’t look more like Flora Bowley’s work. I thought MY intuitive paintings should look like SOMEONE ELSE’S otherwise they wouldn’t be intuitive enough… BATSHIT INSANE RIGHT?!!! Seriously, looking back on it it’s so obvious where the flaw in my thinking is, but these thoughts really go through my head when I’ve inadvertently given myself over to my inner critical voice.

And then this happened:

Scared Inside – mixed media on 12 x 10″ canvas board

I gave myself permission to DO MY OWN THING. I’m sure you can still see other people’s influences there, but I wasn’t actively trying to make it look like anything, apart from what was already inside me. I also gave myself permission to make similar shapes to ones I’d already done in previous work. I tend to tell myself that I can’t do the same thing twice or I ‘won’t be original’. It’s not like the masters ever worked with the same themes or imagery..oh wait.. Again with the crazy inner voice!

Part of the ‘problem’ is that there is so much amazing work out there being created by so many amazing people. I love looking at the stuff my artist friends create or things on Pinterest. It’s absolutely inspiring and makes me want to get into the studio (and when I start thinking “I’ll never be as good as…” I quickly try and shoo that voice away!). Where it goes wrong though is when I think ‘Wow what they do is amazing, I must want to do that too’. That’s where there is a really fine line between being inspired by what other people do (totally awesome!) and wanting your work to look like theirs and trying to achieve that (not so fulfilling).

I’ve realised that “What I like” and “What I like doing” don’t have to be the same thing!

What makes you come alive? Let me know and then GO DO IT!!

Tags Art & Craft, art talk, feeling blocked, insecurity, mixed media, original painting, painting, pictures, Thoughts

Art & Craft Ideas, Sketches & WIP Musings

Sit With The Quiet

You guys, I just had a bit of an epiphany!

I’ve been diving into intuitive painting this past week. As a perfectionist control-freak this is HARD and super scary. But I’m doing it, because I feel ready and I want to push myself out of my comfort zone.

I noticed whenever I did art I’d find it difficult to deal with that feeling of ‘not knowing what to do next’. This would lead to a lot of negative feelings, so I devised a way of working where I would plan my paintings in advance with a sketch and a colour palette. With the initial background stage I’m quite free & loose, but once that is done I will sketch something and from there on I pretty much follow a plan. It works quite well for me, I feel comfortable and the process is enjoyable. This is how I usually work.

BUT BUT BUT as you know, I’ve been falling in love with beautiful abstract-y intuitive paintings. I wanted to try that! Talk about an arena where you NEVER know what comes next, because there is no planned outcome at all.

I’m working on 4 paintings at the same time at the moment, and I noticed I was coming up against a lot of this ‘not knowing what to do next’. And I was feeling crappy about it. And I was feeling negative. And I was feeling that maybe this intuitive painting is not for me, maybe I’m just not one for tapping into my intuition, maybe it just doesn’t really ‘flow’ for me the way it does for others.

That’s when I had my moment of clarity… It’s OK not to know what to do next. I am so afraid of the quiet, so afraid of sitting without doing something… actually so afraid of truly connecting with the current moment, especially if that current moment consists of quiet… But the quiet can be listened to, I can be with it, and it will last a little while or a long time AND THAT IS OK.

It’s kind of like when you’re with someone you don’t know very well, and silence feels SO uncomfortable that you feel you need to fill every little gap, and that’s how I’d been approaching my painting. WHOA, major realisation time! Now all of a sudden it’s like I’ve given myself permission to sit with the quiet. So I sat with the quiet… and I felt a new sense of allowance, of peace and of trust.

I urge you, next time you create and you feel uncomfortable or lost, sit with the quiet. (And then come and tell me about it afterwards!)

Tags Art & Craft, art talk, art101 challenge, in progress, pictures

Life

Practising Self Care

I want it all and I want it now! For years I was an extremely demotivated individual. Then I had a kid (and then another one) and I had some therapy and those things seemed to light something up in me. All of a sudden I wanted to DO stuff. And I have been doing stuff. Piling it on. I love having a busy life, being accomplished in all the things I decide to pursue, feeling alive and energetic!

I was getting away with this whole lifestyle for a few years. However, for about 2 years I think my body (and sometimes my mind) has been dropping some hints. I’ve been getting every minor illness under the sun (colds, stomach bugs, eye infections). First I blamed pregnancy while having a toddler at nursery, then I blamed lack of quality sleep with a newborn, then I blamed winter. Then I ran out of excuses and had to take a look at my life and think about the whole picture.

So I’m having a stern talk with myself and telling myself that it’s time to practise self-care! “Self-care?? What the hell do you need that for, just GO GO GO, you’re not allowed any rest or care! You need to do it all!” my inner voice goes. Through having this little ‘intervention’ with myself I’ve actually realised how hard I am on myself. How much I heap onto my plate and punish myself mentally when I can’t do it all, or can’t enjoy it all or when my body simply says STOP!

So I’m drawing back on all the peripherals. This has included a difficult decision to stop my violin lessons and to stop some volunteering I was doing. I’m really hoping to add these things back into my life when it is the right time. I’m going to be focussing on the three main areas of my life that are most important:

my kids/family (because LOVE!)
my art (because SANITY/FULFILLMENT!)
my business (because MONEY!)

Everything else is going to take a backseat for a while. I’m also going to try and add a lot more vegetables to our diets (when I’m feeling run down making home cooked healthy food is the first thing that suffers, which is obviously the opposite of what my body needs!) and add a daily walk to my routine. I’m also going to try more mental exercises to help my mind relax and be less GOGOGO all the time (that’s gonna be a toughie! I’ll report back on that one *wink*).

PS Interesting thing happened. I wrote this post a few hours ago and I’d been feeling quite down both physically and emotionally for over a week (ever since I got my latest illness, which was a triple whammy of tonsillitis, eye infection and cold) and ever since writing it I’ve felt SO much more positive! Wow!!

Tags happiness, health, Life, self care, Thoughts

Art & Craft Featured Tutorials, Guides & Advice

How To Photograph/Scan Your Art And Prepare It For High Quality Art Prints

Post author By Iris
Post date 19 May 2014
32 Comments on How To Photograph/Scan Your Art And Prepare It For High Quality Art Prints

How To Photograph/Scan Your Art And Prepare It For High Quality Art Prints. © www.iris-impressions.com @rrreow #artprints #scanningart #photographingart #photoshop

I wanted to share some tips with you all about how I create scans/pictures of my art and edit them in Photoshop. Below I walk you through the entire process I use to prepare my images to make high quality prints. Don’t forget to Share, Tweet or Pin this article if you find it helpful!

Photographing Your Art

Most of my art is too big or awkward for my A4 scanner, so I photograph it with my Nikon Coolpix P7800. Pretty much any digital camera will do as long as you make sure to set it to the highest quality & resolution. This amazing video by Tyler Stalman & Jason Eng created for Saatchi Online explains perfectly how to take good pictures of your art.

Using a tripod (or some other way to stabilise your camera) is essential. I attach my artwork to the wall with Blu Tack or picture hanging strips. I use a spirit level to ensure it is completely straight. I also make sure my tripod is leveled and the camera is straight. The more accurate you can be about this, the less you will have to ‘fix’ in Photoshop in terms of distorting the picture to make it fit.

I have a window on the left side of the wall which throws light, so I use a simple soft box light pointing at the painting from the right. You are trying to achieve equal soft lighting on the whole painting, no direct harsh light or shadows.

Using manual focus if your camera allows it is helpful. Nothing is more annoying than loading the pictures onto your computer only to find that they are not in focus or not everything is in equal focus.

Scanning Your Art

If your art is relatively flat and fits on your scanner it is preferable to use this method. You won’t be at the mercy of varying lighting conditions and a scanner will get great detail and every bit will be in focus.

Before scanning ensure the resolution is set to 300ppi. Depending on your scanner you may need to adjust the brightness and contrast. From the point of view of being able to adjust later in Photoshop, I prefer a scan that is slightly on the dark side over one that is too light. Adjust the brightness & contrast sliders and keep previewing until the preview matches the colours, detail & contrast of the original artwork. If you can, save these settings as a new profile so you can quickly access them next time.

On the left the default scanner settings, on the right with brightness & contrast adjusted. The adjusted scan is much more true to the original artwork. The default loses a lot of detail by being too bright and the colours are washed out.

Adjusting Your Art In Photoshop

I use Photoshop CS2, but any programme that allows you to adjust these settings will do. Editing in Photoshop is especially good for when you’ve photographed your art.

First I want to straighten up my art piece and make sure it fills up the whole canvas. I use the Rectangular Marquee tool to select as close around the artwork as I can, without cutting any of it off. Then I crop the image (Image > Crop). This may mean that on some sides the background still shows. To fix that, I use the Transform tool (Ctrl+T), and right click on the image and select Skew. I then drag the corners out where necessary. If you need to rotate your canvas with the transform tool (you shouldn’t have to if you followed the steps for straightening the artwork on the wall and leveling your tripod – it’s really worth doing!) do that before skewing.

Now we make the magic happen. First go to Image > Adjustments > Auto Levels. If it looks good, keep it. If it looks “WHOA TOO MUCH!” you can fade the effect by going to Edit > Fade Auto Levels and select a percentage. Then go to Image > Adjustments > Auto Contrast. Fade again if needed. Finally we use Image > Adjustments > Auto Color (and Fade).

How much you use these three tools depends on how true to life the pictures/scans you took are. Sometimes I hardly need to change anything, other times it makes a huge difference.

Save your picture at a high setting. I tend to go for File > Save As and then select jpg at Quality 12. There are other file types with less compression, but I’ve found there is no visually noticeable data loss with this setting and it keeps file sizes manageable.

Voila!

Now you’ve got your hi-res digital master to make prints of forevermore, even if you sell the original!

If you follow this tutorial please let me know in the comments, I’d love to know how you got on. If you have any questions I’ll be happy to answer them!

Tags Art & Craft, hi-res art images, photographing art, photoshop, pictures, printing, scanning art, tutorial

Art & Craft Featured Musings Popular

Am I An Artist?

Am I an artist just by virtue of calling myself one? When I create art, does that automatically make me an artist? Can I even call what I create ‘art’? Why is this word ‘artist’ so important, and what power does it hold over me? These are questions that occupy my mind often and I think are important to pay some attention to in order for them not to become obstacles on my journey of creating art and being an artist.

Has anyone ever given you a compliment on your art, only for you to quickly dismiss it or downplay it? For example I often find myself saying “Oh it’s only a hobby”. As if my art is not as arty as someone else’s, simply because it’s not my day job. If I accept that compliment, truly, it becomes a scary tentacle monster with lots of expectations. It becomes a gateway for judgement, because WHOA if I call myself an artist then I must tick the boxes of what other people think an artist is or should be.

I don’t know what other people think, but I know they’re out there, ready to judge, ready to trample my fragile budding artist soul. Better to not call myself an artist at all actually and crawl back in my cocoon of safety where I never risk anything or put myself OUT THERE. Isn’t it funny though, because I have no such problems with calling myself a mother. I became a mother automatically when I gave birth to my first son. I might be concerned sometimes with being a good mother, whatever the hell that means, but a mother I am, for sure, no question. So why is art so special that I feel creating it doesn’t automatically make me an artist? Whose permission am I waiting for to call myself an artist?

Face it, in order to reach our potential and be fulfilled we need to take risks. It’s the easy option to let your fear of what other people think inhibit you being yourself. That way you never have to face your fear, you never have to own up to it, and you never have to truly admit that it is PART OF YOU. The roots of your fear may lie in other people in the past (don’t we all have those childhood scars?), but the change lies with you right here, right now. Stop externalising your fear, OWN IT!

Have you ever noticed that people tend to treat you in accordance with how you present yourself? A confident person gets treated with respect. A shy person gets ignored. If you meet someone new and you ask what they do and they say “I’m an artist”, are you going to ask for their qualifications to make sure they’re really an artist? No, you’re going to accept it just as you would have if they’d said they’re a teacher or an architect or a mother.

If it doesn’t sound too cultish (lol), then please join me in saying that: From this day forward I will call myself an artist and not apologise for it.

Tags art talk, inner critic, insecurity

Art & Craft Art Journal Musings Tutorials, Guides & Advice

It Can Be Simple

I love art supplies. I have a LOT of art supplies. The choices are endless when I’m creating something, but I often have to remind myself: it can be simple.

When you have a lot of tools available the temptation is to want to use all of them, which can be to the detriment of the art piece. I love complex pieces with many layers that make you wonder ‘how did s/he do that?’, but sometimes it’s OK to pare it right back. Minimalism can be tasteful, it draws attention to the important elements and lets the piece breathe.

I have the same thing with blog posts. I feel they have to be long and in depth. So instead, I will stop writing now and leave you with some works in which I have tried to simplify.

Tags Art & Craft, Art Journal, art talk, pictures