Why paint reality when we can paint our dreams ?
🖌️ Journal of an Artist: Fever Dreams and Creative Crossroads
Lately, I’ve been battling the flu. The kind that fogs the brain and makes simply being awake feel like an accomplishment. Some days, just getting Ralph out for a walk before retreating to the sofa or bed feels like enough. Other days, I surprise myself — I might manage to paint, read a little, or lose myself in a TV show.
Recently, I’ve been rewatching Portrait Artist of the Year and Landscape Artist of the Year. It’s incredible to see the sheer range of art being created — all those brushstrokes forming likenesses and views that look just like their subjects. But as I watch, I’m reminded: that has never been how my brain works.
I can paint something “good,” but it’s rarely of the thing. My art doesn’t replicate — it interprets. That doesn’t make it lesser, but it does leave me at a crossroads. Do I go back and learn how to paint a “good” portrait or landscape, one that resembles what’s in front of me? Or do I keep leaning into my own visual language — pushing further into emotion, texture, and intuition — and fully embrace it?
There’s always that pull between wanting to progress and not wanting to become stagnant. But I keep reminding myself: there are hundreds of artists who can paint a “good” portrait that looks like the person. Far fewer are willing to take risks — to paint the mood, the essence, the feeling behind the form.
Think of Edvard Munch — his portraits were green, warped, vibrating with emotion. And the so-called “realistic” portraits we revere today? Half the time, we have no idea what the sitter actually looked like. So does it really matter?
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🎨 The televised Art competition Dream - looks like a fun day out, competing for 10,000 art commission
I’ve applied to Portrait Artist of the Year a few times now (never got in but then some of the best traditional artists haven’t either). I am not applying for the possibility of a prize, though would be nice. It just looks like such a joy and fun — to talk about art, to paint among others who share that same spark. The Landscape version calls to me the most; I love the idea of being outside, letting the environment bleed into the work. Though, I must admit, the wildcards always seem to have the most fun.
If I ever get on, I’ll probably be the entertaining chaos in the corner — the one whose painting doesn’t quite look like the sitter or who’s turned a field into a storm of texture and colour. But I’d still love the experience.
My painting process is fast — I often work much quicker than the four-hour limit they give. But as soon as there’s a timer, everything changes. Pressure stiffens me. I paint best when I feel like I have all the time in the world — whether it takes one hour, fifty, or a hundred. That freedom is when the magic happens.
And yet, those countless hours of frustration — the ones where nothing seems to work — are always leading toward that one rare moment when everything flows effortlessly. That’s what keeps me creating. As well as the incessant need to self express and communicate my inner world and respond to the external.
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📚 Learning to Unlearn
I’ve been re-reading Drawing and Painting People: A Fresh Approach by Emily Ball. If I do ever get on that show, I might sneak it into my bag as a secret talisman, a corner poking out from beneath my palette perhaps. I love the idea of drips, scraping off paint, eyes not quite in the right place, proportions gone rogue, cubism revered for this of course — not because I’m trying to be wrong, but because I’m embracing the mistakes and the way my visual to brain to hand coordination works - some may say that is just a fancy way of saying need to learn; where others will go through the same as me and learn it, for me it never really filters through in the same way, and yet I’ve had others fall in love and buy my work.if I stopped with it not looking like the thing, they would never have had that art.
When I use a grid, my work becomes rigid and lifeless; but it is something I could use if required; I can draw on a grid pretty quickly ; just a challenge to bring that energy back in, and I would feel I hadn’t worked in my usual way; it’s all a tool we can use however . Unless it’s a self-portrait, it just doesn’t feel enjoyable; my own face of course I know and can find artistic stylisations that is still me . My art thrives in that tension between order and chaos — between representation and abstraction.
I may not be academic in style, even though I studied art. The technical draftsmanship never quite stuck, but tutored life drawing taught me more than anything else. My figures carry the weight of their poses, the energy of being alive — even if they’re not perfectly “accurate” as that person .
I never want to be the status quo. My figures might hint at skin tones, but mostly they live in my own palette — colours that feel true to my world. Purples for the darks, yellow for the highlights . Greens and blues for mid tones .
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✨ The Essence Over the Exact
Artists have the magic of creating worlds. So why simply copy this one as we see it? Why not respond with how it feels? Expressionism feels where I belong .
I know I’m in danger sometimes of tightening up too much — of becoming too careful, too deliberate. But art, for me, is always that dance between looseness and control, between clarity and chaos.
So for now, as I recover, as Ralph snores by my feet, and as my paints wait patiently for the next burst of energy — I sit in the in-between. Sick body, restless soul, mind buzzing with questions about colour, texture, and truth. Wishing to paint more people from life; and more surreal paintings also, the world of the mind and what I see.
Because maybe that’s where art really lives — somewhere between what we see and what we feel.
I was recommended this by a tutor, not to helpmeet loosen up or anything but to help my confidence “you do this already” Still I revisit this book often to celebrate and to not fall down a rabbit hole of tightening up when my work is so expressive and inherently me.
Ralph sitting proudly just happy to be near after a nap, he joined me on the sofa soon after taking this. Never quite know what he is asking when sat all military like. Otherwise I can feel him “speak”
It is ok to “wing it” and feel your way through. - to not follow what is in front of you or a pre planned idea is what I do best.
A work in progress. I am scared to touch the face with it being so vibrant right now, so I expect I will just play more with the background.
Art is hard! It doesn’t always come easily, in fact it rarely does and it is that challenge that is the enjoyment. Besides I don’t paint to “get” anywhere, I have an idea in mind but then I let that go and follow the paint and go on the journey. Ps this is a work in progress, I may still paint over it yet but it’s been fun to explore.
Can you guess who this is, does it matter? A sketch for practice usually hidden from the world, more rough “bad” sketches on my Patreon.
