Observation: An essential creative skill

Recently, I’ve been thinking about observation as an essential skill to be an artist or creative. It’s where ideas are born, where we are first inspired by seeing, hearing, experiencing new things that sets into motion new ideas that we want to express.

Seeing comes before words, before language, before speaking and writing, we see. It’s part of being human and I’ve often found the skill of seeing, and paying attention to what captures our imagination declines if we are not aware of its importance. 

I host a monthly workshop, ‘Art in the Park’ and a major component is observing nature. It’s fascinating that each person will be drawn to different things, whether it’s colour, pattern, texture we all have innate interests. But often I’m asked ‘I don’t know whether this is right but …’ And then I explain what is ‘right’ is following your interest in what you see around you. Perhaps as we go through school and work life we are taught to do things in a certain logical restricted manner, so being given such a wide spectrum to draw upon can be intimidating and unknown. 

It is a challenge to get quiet, still enough to really notice what’s around us, with us being consumed by our phones, other demands that we think it’s selfish to be curious enough to go for a walk and observe things around us. 

Without taking time to really work out what makes us spark means we are depriving ourselves of finding our way back to our authentic soul. And it’s really simple exercise, you just have to notice what you notice, and you’ll soon start seeing common threads between your love of a particular film, art, and every day sights. It is also helpful to spend time journaling some of your observations and asking yourself why you love a certain thing, it could be a feeling, a colour, or curiosity in a subject. 

There are multiple ways to record your observations, a common one is a sketchbook where you can collect images, write notes and do informal sketches based around the observations. I have hundreds of images on my phone, and there’s nothing wrong with taking photos as part of your inspiration. I know some artists keep voice notes as and when inspiration strikes, or carry a little journal to keep note of these moments. And apps like Pinterest make it easy to collect images around a particular theme you want to come back to.

In the past I’ve known workshops participants to find it a challenge to actually record what they see, as our logical brain makes lots of assumptions about how something *should look. To get them out of this, and into creating mode I get them to do continuous line drawings, where they keep the pencil on the page, don’t look at the page, and focus on what you’re drawing. This means you let go of berating your drawing whilst you’re drawing, and you’re purely looking at the object you’re observing. 

I’d also recommend in your sketchbook taking art you have done and review this by thinking about and writing notes on what you’re trying to achieve. A useful exercise is to ask why multiple times to get to your intrinsic motivation, which drives your creativity. For example, I like to draw trees, why? Because nature soothes me, why? Because I am an anxious person and nature reminds me of a calm space. If you know your reason for creating it gives you a focus, a common set of values you can come back to, but a freedom you can explore different subjects and techniques within the boundaries of your niche interest that ties it all together.

There are many different aspects and ways to use perspective to create different effects in your art. Many artists play on the trick of the eye and perceptions, such as Gavin Turk’s Bin Bag that’s a bronze sculpture painted to look like the real thing, or Bridget Riley's stripes that are mesmerising, rhythmic and play on colour. 

As a creative, there are many ways we can manipulate the ‘perception’ of the artwork. Think about whether it’s important to you to zoom in or create an overview like a landscape scene. Are you more interested in abstraction? Where you take a new alternative way of interpreting a subject, that’s more based on an intuitive feeling or experience. Think about how you crop the image, do you want to have a subsection of an image, leaving some to the imagination or is it important to see the whole image clearly? The space around an object and how your composition is arranged impacts the whole artwork, and is something you have to experiment with to compose an image that is most appealing to you.

The best part of using observational skills to inform and inspire art is that you can do this as part of your life everyday. Maybe a walk to pick up kids from school, or reading a book in the evening, you just need to start noticing what you find interesting to walk back to yourself. And don’t be hard on yourself or over think it, your authentic opinions will come through when you get quiet and trust yourself.  Being a keen observer also makes your life more interesting to be curious to take a deep dive into your interests. I can guarantee you it will make your art stronger the more time you take to collect inspiration, review it in a sketchbook and explore new interests. 

I hope you enjoyed this blog. In my art membership I bring together people who want to pursue their curiosity and passion in visual arts but don’t know where or how to start.

Ruth Egon leads an online art membership, The Art Hub Community! We are an inspirational, nurturing and fun art community.

We gather creative souls who are curious about developing their interest in art, through live workshops, forums and inspiring content.

Together we build confidence, express joy and create art that’s authentic to us.

At Art Hub we create art in live group workshops, engage in lively and informative chat forums, share inspiration and grow skills through group challenges. We offer a welcoming, supportive and fun membership, so that we can become an authentic, confident, vibrant, purposeful and connected group of artists.

You don't need any experience to join us, all you need is an interest in art and a willingness to give it a go. Designed to be fun, and engaging and to build your creative confidence, these are the perfect sessions to get you started.

Sign up here: https://ruthegon.com/pages/art-hub-community