Return to Earth: Unravelling the creative process

Every year as the trees glow amber we're invited to reflect on the narratives that we tell ourselves and check in to see whether they still serve us. I feel like this is what it truly means to be guided through life by the seasons. I like to take notes from nature in this way, because no matter how chaotic the world can get it's almost like you can always trust the trees. They hold memories and stories of everyone you’ve ever known. They carry a wisdom that you know to be true and they’ll be here long after we are gone. It was in this moment of reflection that i knew there would be an ‘emptiness’ to the artworks if i only took inspiration from the colours of the autumn leaves.

Initial sketches and marks found in the George Tindale Memorial Gardens, Sherbrooke, Victoria. Photography by Morgan Henson

I challenged myself to be uncomfortable with the line of questioning invited by the falling of the leaves instead. I had the opportunity to reflect and peel back the layers of my artistic process and really embed the symbolism of the season into the creative decisions that followed. In doing so, i’ve created an entire collection i didn't expect - the best kind.

When I got back to the studio, I started painting the collection like any other. I started with big gestural strokes of translucent layers of colour that felt like a fresh autumn morning. I started with the blues and the clear sky that's slightly chilly and the depth of the greens and yellows that would follow. Julls was there to film some of the first marks on canvas and took the time to create film that we could share with you. I started building in the ferns of the forest but something wasn't right. The composition was the same as what I've been painting for years and the artwork looked like it could have been from anywhere.

In my studio, with the 1.5 metre x 3 metre artwork that never made the collection. Photography by Annie Pepper

I went back to my photos, the sketches and the feeling. What is the season of autumn inviting us to do? Why does it feel so magical to watch a tree shed its seasons leaves for the winter? Why is the unravelling of the tree so beautiful?

I think it’s because we trust the seasons cycles. We know that after a long and cold winter of a bare bark tree, there will be spring. New buds will form and the whole tree will be covered in new leaves again. The fallen leaves will nourish the soil and feed the tree for the growth in spring. We can see the cycle of life and growth and we know that more return. The focus changes from despair and decay and becomes more about the softening that comes with surrender - the trust that there will be new growth. As my initial thoughts were coming to life, I built these thoughts into the colour palette; the decay of browns and earthy soils mixed with the vibrant hues of fresh growing stems. The balance of the natural cycles of life, within each hue.

Moodboard and the photography from the forest. You can see here how i've taken colour palettes from the fallen leaves and mixed them with raw sienna and burnt umber pigments to build the collection. Even in the unravelling, nature will always be the perfect muse. Photography by Morgan Henson

I wasn’t painting this collection from reflection/curiosity/trust, I was painting from a place of autopilot and safety. I needed to unpack the process, from start to finish. Question every layer and mark and strip it back to bare bark to inspire something new. Abstracted by the thought of autumn, encouraging us to soften. A deeper way of looking at the inspiration, but more aligned to the essence of the season. And that’s what I paint - how it made me feel - not simply how it looks. I use photography to record how it looked (unapologetically a camera on auto mode girly), but I paint how it feels because there is an abstraction.

I started to notice a pattern of what I was hiding behind. A series of 'next best steps' that I’d formed into my artistic process and style over the past 6 years painting full time. A methodical curation based on the level of my knowledge, skill, and visual style. Releasing the reef collection as a subject matter way out of my usual practice and seeing the success of that (even though it was truly terrifying to be sailing into unchartered waters) had given me the confidence to continue pushing the boundaries of my creative practice. Keep questioning, keep curious and let go of fear. They say that the last painting you created helps you make the next one, and for this collection that couldn’t be more true.

I stopped painting on the wall with light layers and building through drips, even though that is what the forest looks like. I laid the paintings flat and made shapes and marks like a fallen leaf, returning to earth. Stylistically I still love the layering and translucency representing the element of water that all life needs to grow on earth, but with the composition inspired by the seasons leaves fallen on the forest floor. It felt so much closer to the inspiration and worked perfectly as the base of the artwork which is shedding old narratives to make way for new growth. A symbolic way of painting in the transitions of life, in a gentle and delicate form.

I also revisited the reasoning behind the composition of my artworks. I wondered weather for this collection, I could build in the intricacies of pattern through organic and unfussy shapes. Representative of how movement, ritual and the seasons natural cycle. There’s a rhythm to the seasons and it flows seamlessly and effortlessly. They are not linear and there is no hard edge. So the paintings began to look that way with an infinite rhythm and flow.

Painting in the fallen leaves on the artwork that is now, Return to Earth. Photography by Morgan Henson (left) and Annie Pepper (right)

I reached for my final trusted signature tool, that has adorned every artwork I’d ever made, and stopped. To truly question every part of my process, my obsession with the thin white line was up for debate. It was harder to let go of than I thought, signalling I needed to dig deeper into why. I felt as though my work was only really mine if it had that element of my signature style and my thin white line. So I had to think about why I used it.

I remember my very first painting. It was terrible.
See, originally I've always drawn, and not even flowers I've always drawn architecture and houses. I've drawn trees and landscapes but not so much detailed flora. I've used a bit of watercolour with an outline of a black pen to really make the loose layers underneath become something. You would have seen it. A washed out and fluid shape of colour on watercolour paper with all of the detail and significant marks sitting on top in black pen.

How did we get to the thin white line?
When I wanted to paint an artwork for my home, I wanted it to be big, and i wanted there to be layers of colour that the paper wouldn’t hold. I needed to use canvas and canvas is for paint. I used acrylic because it could be watered down like watercolour (and i'm too impatient for them to dry) and when i got to the drawing part i was stumped. I actually used a tube of white out for my first artwork. It was the only colour you could guarantee seeing no matter what was underneath and it created a visual cohesion and harmony and connective tissue across the artworks like nothing else could.

Vulnerable share, but this was my first ever painting in 2020. Photography by me on my little iphone. This version of Steph had absolutely no idea where we would be today and while this artwork sucks, its the reason i've made a hundred more.

Obviously using a white out pen was terrible and it cracked and it was stupid - but hey, it was my first painting and the only person who had to look at it was me so i tried it out. Failing the experiment, I looked for a tool that i could draw with white paint. I tried the posca but didn’t love it; the tips would split over thicker portions of paint and they weren’t the consistency or width or real paint tangibility that i wanted. The canvas texture made them a bit messy to use and they’d get caught up on the texture of the tiny ridges and create inconsistencies that weren't intentional. I could have gesso’d another layer and sanded it back to stop this but i’m not that type of artist- like i mentioned, i’m barely patient enough to wait for the paint to dry. I ended up inventing my own tool. My own mix of diluted white paint in a quilling glue applicator bottle. Niche, i know.

When i figured out the recipe of how to draw with paint i was thrilled and over the years i’d honestly only ever evolved to putting other colours in the quilling glue bottles when i didn’t want to reach for white. This process has allowed me to create some beautiful artworks over the years that I’m really proud of and look so unique to anything else around. They look unique because I’m inventing ways that demonstrate my visual style and experience and taste, that match my experience in creating art - which is not painting at all - but drawing. This visual language became my unique signature creative style and the fear of letting that go prevented me from ever questioning it.

But, I had accepted a challenge and I wasn’t going to turn back, and live with the regret of painting from fear and not seeing the season of new growth on the other side. I needed to surrender the narratives i’d told myself and let it fall. Stop hiding behind the thin white line and just let my artworks be raw. Let them be drawings with paint. I didn't take the white line away completely. There are still traces of a thin white line in these works, and that's deliberate. The fallen leaves are still part of the story of the tree... they're just not up the top anymore, they're rooted in the ground, feeding what comes next. It's the idea that you needed to be who you were, to become who you are.

This collection has been an unexpected unravelling of my inner thoughts and processes. I took an invitation from the autumn trees and had the courage to let go of old narratives to make way for new growth. I painted these artworks over the autumn & winter, stripping my process back to bare. Spring is nearly here and I can already see a new visual direction emerging in the growth. When i look at these artworks, they feel like the essence of autumn to me. What it means to let go of something you’ve been holding too tightly, in order to become who you are meant to be.

If you've had a significant year of growth or transformation this year, you can probably relate to my story. If you haven't, I’d like to extend the seasonal invitation to you - consider yourself to be my plus one to the party. The invitation reads:

"Imagine all the leaves on an autumn tree, are stories you keep reading to yourself; What are you letting go of, to become who you’re meant to be?"

With Love,
Steph x