Abstracting the Landscape with Lewis Noble [114]

Apple podcast

This week, Louise is joined by special guest Lewis Noble. Lewis is a UK-based contemporary landscape painter with a unique style and a well-established reputation. He exhibits widely and has been teaching workshops for over 15 years.  In this episode, we discuss his approach to abstracting from reality, a unique process that involves a combination of plein air painting and studio work.

Our discussion covers issues such as getting away from the horizon line, the role of collage, and how to know when a painting is done. Lewis also shares his experience of turning in-person teaching into an online learning experience and the discoveries he has made along the way.

Mentioned:

Lewis’s website: https://www.lewisnoble.co.uk/

Lewis’s online workshop: https://www.lewisnoble.co.uk/online-workshops

Lewis on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2ojuGFqdy4DO8Tf7tsVBfA

If you have a question you’d like us to discuss, click here to send it to us

If you are enjoying the podcast this is an easy and inexpensive way to help support it and ensure it continues. The demands of making it each week can be challenging. Your support is allowing us to hire some editing help. If you’d like to help out with a one-time or a monthly donation, you can “buy us a coffee” us at Ko-fi.com

Contribute to the podcast here:

Follow Alice on Instagram @alicesheridanstudio
or Louise @louisefletcher_art

Credits
“Monkeys Spinning Monkeys” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

Why does starting again feel so hard?

Painting should be an enjoyable process. It IS an enjoyable process – overall! But every stage also bring its doubts.

Beginning a new series is full of potential; new ideas waiting to be discovered. I find colour often leads the way, endlessly surprising combinations are one of the joys and key reasons I paint and I feel these will contain brighter flashes so using unexpected colours is often what this stage is about… something to jolt me out of the boredom of the familiar. I don’t pre-mix colour so the variations layer and grow and bring a complexity to the finished paintings.

Every time I want to further develop the way I use paint. It’s like a living thing which needs nurturing and also encouraging and I love that I still need to learn how to mould it to do what I want. Each series is a bit like setting out on a new journey without a map. You may have a compass; something to give direction, but you’re not yet sure where you are heading.

Of course, usually this stage comes after you’ve completed a group of work. One of my criteria for feeling a painting is finished is that it has something magical about it and has reached a point so that even I don’t fully know how it was created. So I suppose it’s inevitable that starting fresh reminds me that I’m always just exploring.

These paintings will continue to explore feelings of freedom and space, hopefully with a freshness that spring brings and you can see more of the starting stages in the video below.

At the other end of the scale, I’m busy finishing framing and photographing the recently completed “Wild Swimming” series which I began during the summer mid-lockdowns. These paintings will be coming first to my mailing list in April and include large and small paintings. Last time the small ones all sold within 24 hours so do add your name if you’d like to be included.

Finding Time for Art & Dealing with Overwhelm [113]

Apple podcast

This week, we’re discussing the challenges of finding time to make our art when we all have so much else going on. Many of us balance family, work and art-making and then somewhere in there, we also need to find time to market the work and manage the admin side of things. This means posting on social media, managing a website, keeping inventory, dealing with galleries, communicating with buyers, packing and shipping, doing our accounts …. the list goes on and, truthfully, it can be a challenge.

Neither of us claim to have this all worked out, but we have found some ways to make things a little easier on ourselves. These solutions include creating good systems, asking for help, making clear choices, and being careful not to bite off more than you can reasonably chew (something we both find easier to say than to do!)

Mentioned:

Laura Horne Art podcast https://www.laurahornart.com/thepodcast

Unforgotten  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mLwTNqJLRw

Prints shown in the programme still available at a choice of sizes: Inverse, (shown below) and So Glad we Came

abstract landscape green framed print on wall

If you have a question you’d like us to discuss, click here to send it to us

If you are enjoying the podcast this is an easy and inexpensive way to help support it and ensure it continues. The demands of making it each week can be challenging. Your support is allowing us to hire some editing help. If you’d like to help out with a one-time or a monthly donation, you can “buy us a coffee” us at Ko-fi.com

Contribute to the podcast here:

Follow Alice on Instagram @alicesheridanstudio
or Louise @louisefletcher_art

Credits
“Monkeys Spinning Monkeys” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

Artists on Instagram: Tips and Strategies for Success [112]

Apple podcast

Guides, posts, algorithms… this week, we’re diving into the world of Instagram.

This is perhaps the most popular social media platform for artists, but it can feel overwhelming, confusing or just downright frustrating. What are the right hashtags? Why do some posts do better than others? How can you increase your following? Do your clothes have to match your paintings? And what on earth is a reel?

In this wide-ranging discussion, we share our own strategies for success on Instagram and explain how we have built up a following over time. Our tips include taking things slowly, considering your grid, having conversations, and only using extra features such as stories, reels and IGTV if they really appeal to you.

We also discuss the dreaded algorithm and explain the simple secret to making it work for you. This might not be the definitive guide to Instagram – we’d need more time for that! – but we hope it sparks some ideas, eliminates some fears, or inspires you to get more active on the platform. Instagram really can be fun!

Mentioned:

Heavyweight podcast: https://gimletmedia.com/shows/heavyweight

Bibby G: www.bibbyart.com

Word Hippo https://www.wordhippo.com/


If you have a question you’d like us to discuss, click here to send it to us

If you are enjoying the podcast this is an easy and inexpensive way to help support it and ensure it continues. The demands of making it each week can be challenging. Your support is allowing us to hire some editing help. If you’d like to help out with a one-time or a monthly donation, you can “buy us a coffee” us at Ko-fi.com

Contribute to the podcast here:

Follow Alice on Instagram @alicesheridanstudio
or Louise @louisefletcher_art

Credits
“Monkeys Spinning Monkeys” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

How to Use Sketchbooks to Develop Ideas [111]

Apple podcast

How do you feel about your sketchbooks? Inspired – or perhaps slightly guilty?

We recorded this episode in response to a listener question about the ways in which we both use sketchbooks. Louise uses many of her sketchbooks as judgement-free playgrounds, places in which to relax and explore while Alice does this kind of work on loose sheets of paper and keeps her sketchbook for a more thoughtful development of ideas, often amongst multiple books.

We both also have a practice of journalling about our art, although again in slightly different ways.

During the conversation, we:
• share how we’ve worked in the past
• debate our favourite sketchbooks and how much impact choosing the right format can have
• discuss the different ways that our sketchbook work feeds into our finished paintings

While sketchbooks are intensely personal – there is no right or wrong – we hope our ideas help to make sense of your own feelings about your sketchbooks (or lack thereof!)

Mentioned:

Seawhite sketchbooks (regular): https://www.amazon.co.uk/SEAWHITE-Hardback-Artists-Sketchbook-195X195/dp/B0067JPQR0

Seawhite concertina: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Seawhite-A5-Concertina-Sketchbook-Case/dp/B00BUPIPMO

Moleskine sketchbooks: https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=moleskin+art+sketchbook&adgrpid=54075308395

Stillman & Birn books: https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=Stillman+%26+Birn&ref=bl_dp_s_web_3818381031

Hannemuehle sketchbooks: https://www.hahnemuehle.com/en/artist-papers/sketch-drawing/sketch-books.html

Handbook sketchbooks: https://www.jacksonsart.com/brands/hand-book-journal-company

Robert Motherwell Storming the Citadel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9V1ccTOBoQ

Artholes Podcast: https://artholespodcast.com/


If you have a question you’d like us to discuss, click here to send it to us

If you are enjoying the podcast this is an easy and inexpensive way to help support it and ensure it continues. The demands of making it each week can be challenging. Your support is allowing us to hire some editing help. If you’d like to help out with a one-time or a monthly donation, you can “buy us a coffee” us at Ko-fi.com

Contribute to the podcast here:

Follow Alice on Instagram @alicesheridanstudio
or Louise @louisefletcher_art

Credits
“Monkeys Spinning Monkeys” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

Nasty or Nice? How our Attitudes Shape our Reality [110]

Apple podcast

How does what you put “out” affect your experience of the world?

Our conversation this week was inspired by some recent events within online art communities. These included an anonymous letter intended to hurt and intimidate one artist, an ill-informed discussion of Cy Twombley’s work, and an angry email that turned out to be the result of a mistake.

We discuss how our attitudes shape our experience of the world. It is true that our assumptions often determine not only the outcome of any situation, but how we feel on a day-to-day basis. Neither of us is perfect (no really!!) but we share how we look at challenging situations and some of the ways we turn things around in our minds. 

We also answer a listener question about the amount of work we produce – do we just have lots of ideas or is it something about our process that allows us to produce so many paintings in a year?

Mentioned:

Elaine Tobin on Instagram
Jon Clayton (look under books)
Joan Mitchell book


If you have a question you’d like us to discuss, click here to send it to us

If you are enjoying the podcast this is an easy and inexpensive way to help support it and ensure it continues. The demands of making it each week can be challenging. Your support is allowing us to hire some editing help. If you’d like to help out with a one-time or a monthly donation, you can “buy us a coffee” us at Ko-fi.com

Contribute to the podcast here:

Follow Alice on Instagram @alicesheridanstudio
or Louise @louisefletcher_art

Credits
“Monkeys Spinning Monkeys” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License