Minimalist Scribbles: Trying Something New

If you have been following me over on Instagram, you will have seen a couple of weeks ago that I had been posting pictures of some new work I had been doing.

This work is more minimal than what I normally do. Usually I like to use a lot of colour, a lot of paint and have a lot going on. It means I don’t have to be very precise: I can keep adding paint, painting over or adding layers if I get something wrong, until I am pleased with the outcome. I wanted to try working more stripped back, as I felt like I had gotten into a habit of working that I couldn’t get out of. I wanted to try and force myself to think and work differently.

I found the new way of working a little tricky at first, but I eventually got into a spirit of it and created a series of work that I am proud of. There’s still more to do and explore, but I thought I would show you where I am at right now.

My starting point was mark making. I used acrylic ink with a paint brush and charcoal pencils. I don’t normally work with only one colour or paint brushes that much, so this was already a departure from the norm for me. My first attempts got a little busy, so I had to start trying to scale it back. Less is more, after all!

I did some more experimenting, this time trying to minimize the amount of painting and scribbling I did, because I found the ones with less work done on them looked better.

I then decided to work in a book I had made, partially as a way of keeping my experimentation together in one place, but also because I wanted to try working on a smaller scale. I think these attempts look better. I found working with a smaller space stopped me from trying to do too much as there was less white space to fill.

 

 

 

Next I made a small one-page folded book, because I liked working on a small scale. This time I reintroduced colour into my work and used acrylic paint in primary colour, which I applied with my fingers.

I did a series of simple scribbles with acrylic paint, still just using primary colours. Once I had gotten into the rhythm of doing this style of work, it was much easier to keep doing. I found that some of the piece I did worked better that others, but I don’t want to overthink the process too much, because I think randomness and spontaneity is what works best.

My next step is to do some more of these. I have already cut out square paper on which I’ll do some more simple scribbles. Hopefully I’ll have a few I like which can be arranged together to form a final piece. I also bought a long/thin canvas to do a larger piece on, which I’ll probably do with acrylic ink and charcoal pencil. I’ll let you know how that goes!