Somewhere along the way, we stop playing.
As children, we built, we created, we painted, and we played simply because it was fun, until it was packed away.
We were told that being an adult is serious business. It’s about responsibilities, work, family and those people who were having fun were painted as irresponsible and childish.
But I’ve realised that play and fun are so much more important as an adult. And as an artist, it is essential.
And it’s where the best ideas often begin.
PLAYING IN THE STUDIO.
Painting without a finished product or goal reached would often feel like a waste of time.
For someone who is so list-oriented, the first lesson I had to learn was that play wasn’t a waste of time.
It was:
* Opening art supplies and seeing what happened when they were mixed. (Watercolour mixed with acrylic is not great, but acrylic on dried watercolour was.)
* Choosing colours that weren’t ‘complementary’ but that had caught my eye. (I love the teals, yellow and pinks together)
*Using different utensils as brushes – like vegetables, household items, toilet rolls, sponges, Lego pieces. Everything can make a mark.
* It was creating without a finished product in mind and saying, “I wonder what would happen if…”
WHY PLAY MATTERS
1. IT REMOVES THE PRESSURE TO BE PERFECT
I am not a perfectionist in any other area of my life except when I am painting.
And while I am much better at recognising the internal pressure I have to be perfect, there are times when it creeps up on me.
Expectations of a project can freeze creativity. Like when I was working on my latest piece, ‘If only she were braver’
Play was how that painting moved from two weeks of inactivity to being completed in a day.
By playing with a quick recreation of the painting in a journal, and with no expectations of a masterpiece required at the end of the day, I relaxed, and the ideas flowed.
When nothing has to be beautiful, everything becomes possible.
2. IT HELPS YOU FIND YOUR OWN STYLE
When you play with colours and marks, you start to find colour, you start to create your own visual language.
Painting on book pages led to incorporating ephemera from my childhood and travels into paintings.
Not caring about the proper colour choices led to surprising and vibrant colour combinations smooshed on the canvas.
Stars, moons, hearts, wings and certain animals became recurring symbols because of how they felt in journal work.
I discovered my style through play, not by copying what other artists were making.
3. PLAY BUILDS CREATIVE CONFIDENCE
Everything you make when you’re playing teaches you something.
Even if it’s a discovery of something you don’t like.
Instead of painting on a canvas that is totally covered with paper, I moved to only adding a few pieces in the background.
I learned that I don’t love an overly complicated background when I am painting my whimsy girls.
And I learned that I love painting my strong, vulnerable and whimsical girls with their big eyes, not still lifes of gin and tonic on a summer’s day.
4. YOUR SKETCHBOOK BECOMES A PLAYGROUND
Sketchbooks and artist journals are like the play park down the road, with its swings, slides and monkey bars waiting for you to create adventures around them.
Doodle, make colour swatches of watercolours and alcohol markers, experiment with writing and font, collect inspiration, glue in flowers and leaves collected from your walks, make patterns, collage and paint.
Sketchbooks and art journals are your playground, and where I alchemise my work from ideas to finished paintings to be collected.
5. PLAY LEADS TO BETTER FINISHED WORK
And ironically, the more you allow yourself to make messy art, the better your finished artwork becomes.
You learn from experimenting that the ugly phase will pass, that you’ll make unexpected breakthroughs, create new styles and allow for more creative risks.
EASY WAYS TO BRING MORE PLAY INTO YOUR CREATIVE PRACTICE.
There are so many ways to bring more play into your creative practice, or to even start a creative practice, but here are three of my favourites that only need 10 – 15 minutes of your time.
- LIMIT YOURSELF to one colour, one pattern, one pen, one brush and fill a whole page. Surprising ideas will often appear when you’re limited to one thing.
- MAKE AN UGLY PAGE with jarring colour or design choices. Deliberately making something ugly takes the pressure away, and sometimes your ugly page becomes strikingly beautiful.
- NO BRUSHES, only use things you find in or around your home – the potato masher, a tea bag, a leaf, toilet rolls, cotton buds, etc. Make marks and create patterns on your page.
And create a little collection of play ideas in a pinterest board or your photo library that you can return to whenever you feel creatively stuck
INVITING IN PLAY | CREATIVE IDEAS FOR FUN
It took me longer than it should have to realise that creativity isn’t measured by how many finished paintings hang on a wall.
It’s play, and curiosity, and experimentation.
So if creativity is something you’ve been wanting to explore, this week, permit yourself to play for ten minutes.
No paintbrush required.
From my whimsy world to yours.
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