THE CREATIVE PROCESS- MINNIE SMALL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqMofZQG3lM

Minnie Small is a freelance illustrator who I have followed for years and I started to realise that I have mirrored her creative process in my own work. She has this flow and ability to create work at an optimum level.

Her aim is to be able to create art that is more conceptual as she wants to stray away from creating things so linear and precise.

Her process starts off by gathering inspiration from photobooks, online or saved images, she is very visually stimulated and will go with things that catch her eye straight away. She will also watch documentaries on nature to gain inspiration too. Once she has gathered a fair few images she will go outside and take photos of her current surroundings and do some observational drawings to gain more knowledge.

She compiles the inspiration to create moodboard and will write notes and make colour schemes to spark ideas. The inspiration doesn't have to correlate or make sense at first , she will just compile it and eventually one idea will stick with her over others and she is able to develop it into something else.

If she is struggling with an idea she will start with thumbnail ideas and that can cause her to get momentum going. She will sketch the ideas onto paper and then transfer them digitally to figure out the colour schemes and composition. If she is drawing a subject that she hasn't drawn often or at all she will spend a few hours creating studies of the subject to gain muscle memory in that area.

Minnie will then make a final sketch of her work and gather supplies such as gouache, watercolours, coloured pencils or other mediums depending on her illustration. She then mentally maps out her process of where she will start and finish. She will go in with a light wash of paint and then fills in the background with a solid colour. Afterwards she will add more tone to the main subject and finally add extra detailing if needed.

I believe her process is worth doing because it helps her to explore new ideas and takes her out of her comfort zone to keep on creating. It is a method that has helped me in the development of my own work and I wish to continue to create work with this method and even alter it depending on the work I am creating.

Reference:

Small, M. (2018) My Creative Process from Start To Finish · Creating a Painting in One Day · ad. [Online Video]. 28 July 2018. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqMofZQG3lM&t=138s. [Accessed: 15 March 2020].