The first crumbs of a painting.

Taking a painting from idea to finished, step by step.

At long last, we’re back with the next part on the ‘Cosy Spot’ series. These blogs are following my process as I think up, design, plan, and paint a series of eight paintings. The series has been on hold for a long while, as I moved house and started a new business (!), so it’s a good feeling to get back to working on painting again.

Starting With A Rough Idea

Sometimes, I have a clear and crisp idea of a painting, and I dive straight in. But mostly, I feel out the shape of my ideas and thoughts through sketches, colour tests, and loose sketching. This stage is a bit like gathering together a breadcrumb trail or fragments of a map; I’m trying to see what lies down the track I have started upon.

In my last post, I shared my artist journals. My journal is vital in starting to shape my thoughts, and my first rough thumbnail sketches are usually in amongst my words.

The Composition

I have a pile of old index cards that I use for scribbling quick ideas and compositions on. The ideas in my journal get moved to index cards, sometimes in a few different versions. Over a year ago, I sketched a series these compositions around the idea of a ‘cosy spot’, that safe and cosy place at home, where a perfect moment is waiting. I wanted to show slices of domestic moments - in the garden, a morning in bed, pausing in the hallway to check the mirror in that moment before you step out into the world. I love paintings and photographs that bring a sense of close, familiar quietude, and I try to emulate that in my work, too.

I might try a few different compositions until I choose one, remembering to keep the focus of the painting in mind. Knowing what the most important part of the painting is helps me place it in the right place, and fill the rest of the painting out around it.

In the case of painting, it was the girl, followed by the white blooms on the dark hedge. I didn’t sketch out the less important details of the leaves, because the detail there will be indistinct.

Imagining The Colour Palette

I started with the simplest piece, or rather, the one I had the clearest vision for. A girl, standing against the hedge of her garden, holding a bouquet of freshly-picked blooms. I’m imagining a camellia hedge, with ruffled camellia flowers, and a sense of dishevelment to both the flowers, the hedge, and the girl. For this, the colours were already straight forward. Greens and whites, with accents of lilac, purple, and rose pink. I knew the greens would be a mix of yellow ochre, lemon yellow, and ultramarine, and so I didn’t do a colour study for this one, but jumped right in.

When I’m imagining the colour palette, but not doing a full colour study, I like to use coloured pencils to scribble out palettes and rough shapes/values in my journal. It’s a bit of a shortcut way to picture the final piece.

If I wasn’t so sure on a colour, I’d sketch out some simplified mini-copies of my composition, and do a rough set of colour studies until I happened on one I liked. I’ll be following this process closely in an upcoming blog with a more involved painting from the Cosy Spot series.

Next time, we’ll look at what happens when paintings finally get on the easel!