The importance of personal work for artists

I don’t know about you but I realised last year how much my art was influenced by social media. Being on instagram instilled in me a fear of creating art that doesn’t feel cohesive on a feed. As a result, I would end up painting and sharing my art only when I felt it would look coherent on my feed.

A sketchbook spread of me experimenting with patterns and colors

However, as an artist we need to play and experiment if we want to develop our style.

Working in seasons

I don’t know how it is for you. But for me, I usually work in seasons and am deeply inspired by the world around me.

In the winter, I love to paint winter interior scenes, cosy still-lifes inspired by a sense of home and comfort. In addition, as soon as November hit, I have an itch to illustrate. I don’t know if it comes from being more indoors, and not wanting the fumes of oils in our appartement, but I see myself gravitating more towards gouache and watercolors. Since having Emily as well, I love to illustrate christmas and winter scenes in a more naive and fun style. If you follow me on instagram you might have seen peeks of it in my stories but sadly not on my feed.

In the summer and spring, I get more attracted to poetry , still-lifes and the cottage core style. I want to paint and create scenes that bring comfort and the joys of renewal into peoples life. I am inspired by flowers, the birds and nature. I oftent tend to paint more landscapes during that phase of my life , or scenes from Paris and London, probably while listening to classical music .

Spring inspired paintings

In the summer, I tend to love painting still-life scenes and landscapes inspired by the summer time. Mostly memories from my travels to Croatia or Italy. I love the Far niente vibes of relaxation and want to share them with you. You can see some of those vibes in my Casa Mediterana Collection.

casa mediterana oil on board and summer sketches

And in the fall, I usually have a little down time. I found myself cocooning and painting mostly darker and moodier landscapes.

In retrospect, I feel quite sad about not posting more of my illustration work because those are deeply part of me. I love to illustrate and it is a part of my art practice that I would love to develop further. Yet, I feel social media forces me to not dedicate more time to it, because it doesn’t fit “the brand”.

I started moving away from social media, limiting the time I spend on it, and grabbing my sketchbooks more and more.

I have now a dedicated pocket sketchbook for all my children illustrations. It is very small so I can take everywhere, but I love it . I draw small characters inspired by my daughter, her friends or children I see in the parc.

In addition, I started painting more with watercolors again. A little series of women and poetry (le songe , mignonne ) even came out of it. I will extend it further throughout the seasons and post them in my art on sunday page for you to collect if you are interested.

women and poetry watercolor series

Creation as growth

Eventhough those pieces feel different from my oil painting style, they are a part of me , of my art body and the space I feel in during my art journey.

You cannot grow as an artist if you put your own barriers up to your creativity. You need to be free to experiment and play.

If you look back at the work of famous artists, it is amazing to see how their style evolved over the years. They probably would have never had the carreers they had if they stuck to that one unique style.

I truly believe, we are not meant to share every single part of our art with the world. We need to have part of our practice that stays private in order for us to grow from it. The vanity metrics of IG is not always healthy, because we are tempted to produce only art that get likes. But this will eventually lead us to feel detached to our art.

Likes and lovely comments are wonderful, don’t get me wrong, but they shouldn’t be our only reason to create and stick to a certain style. I loved following David Brazier evolution, he is a young artist who just turned 20 and used to paint landscapes- but now his art is getting deeper and more mature . He paints lovely interior scenes that are dark and tell a story . When I see his new collection I feel so tempted to get a piece, I can feel he is finding a new creative voice.

His progress is inspiring me to keep experimenting and progressing to see where my voice takes me.

Work in progress

Progress

Instead of thinking, ‘How can I make something others will enjoy?’ (external motivation), I’m shifting towards ‘how can I make something I will enjoy? That I would love to put on my walls’ (internal motivation). Not relying on external validation is important, because that way you can rely on yourself to gain self-worth.

Since doing that I noticed I have so much more joy in my art. I feel my paintings reflect my feelings better and have little stories to tell about the comfort beauty and joy I want to bring into peoples life.

I feel also more motivated to show up at my desk, because my art becomes a form of therapy and self-care helping process the emotions and things I experience in this world.

Here I am sharing a little sneak peek of what I have been working on .

new still-life collection releasing at the end of March

I hope you can see and feel the love I put in this collection. I hope it brings a little smile on your face and perhaps even little rays of sunshine in your homes.

This collection will release soon. So if you are interested in a piece sign up to my newsletter or contact me to reserve it.

I wish you a lovely sunny day.

Meo