Structure and flow: How allying discipline and inspiration helped me create my first painting series

Discipline and creativity are actually two friends. I got to discover it by challenging myself and here I am going to explain to you how it helped my complete my first series of 10 paintings. For a long time I have been reluctant to marry discipline and art. I always separated both in my mind, one was part of the "Academic- good student me" and the other ones was "The arty flowy, flexible inspired me" and those were never to meet each other because I felt like they would hinder each other's potential.

At the end of 2021 I started what I did not know would be "The inner lives series". I had bought a big canvas prior not knowing what I would paint on it but bought it "just in case, one day inspiration hits". One night before going to sleep, in a meditation, I clearly saw this image. And I knew who it was inspired by and I knew I would have to paint it.

(Note: this never happened to me before. When I read this kind of thing written by other people I get annoyed because I am like "Oh I am not that kind of artist/ people, I don't get downloads, and sparks of inspiration like that". Well trust me, before this I did not.)

The weird thing was that it felt like I HAD to paint it, I could not just think oh that was a cool image and just get on with my life, I had to paint it. I could not explain it. So I started painting it on this massive canvas, the biggest I've ever painted on. It felt right.

What inspired it exactly?

I don't think I was actively looking for ideas to paint and I think that is what made this "channelling" possible. I can recall that prior to that I have been to a few exhibitions that I really loved, but not one second I thought about them as inspiration for new paintings or anything. And then life as well, relationships, challenges, emotions, not being able to put words on my feelings etc. inspired the process. I think all of those fed into that image that appeared before my eyes that night.

Some of the paintings from the series

And after that I decided to keep going and to paint other people, but only when inspired. I wanted to have that feeling again of : I HAVE TO paint that person. I had to let it build up in my veins to then have the juices to put in those brushes. I told myself I will do 12 in total, 1 per month, that was my structure. I could not just let inspiration lead me because knowing myself it would have dragged and I would have questioned myself, my skills, the results too much instead of just doing it (and I would've probably have ended up with 3 paintings done in 12 months haha).

So the inspiration did come first, but then it was my job to add some structure to it to invite it more.

Was painting the other ones as channelled as the first one? I would say yes, they all felt different to paint but they did feel like it was coming from the same energy. I can't really explain why and how... What I needed to spark who I would paint was an interaction, a trigger, positive as well as negative, something that would get me from my relationship with the person I painted. Or a big change in their life, or something that would really stand out, that would help me see their inner world a little bit more than usual.

I did stick to 1 per month, even in times where it was challenging to find pockets of time. Sometimes I would have no idea what I would add to the painting when I would sit in front of it but I would just say "okay, no idea what I am doing but I am just going to paint for an hour". And I would just let myself be led by what colour was attracting me that day and I would play and explore and not let myself be caged by wanting it to look perfect and amazing.

I observed that often it was by doing that the next step would be revealed to me, I would paint something I was not too sure of and the next second I knew what I could add to make it work. This series really helped me to let the academic discipline meet the inspired messy artist. There was no real end goal to this series, it was just an inspired challenge that I set for myself and I am glad I did as it taught me much more about being an artist than thinking about it. So my aim was to do 12, but once I completed the 10th one it really felt done. Doing two more would have been a push and not an inspired one so I let it go.

What about you? Do you find it easy to make discipline and creativity collaborate? Or do you have a complete different process? Let me know in the comments!