Garden of Dreams - A little bit of the past and the present.

jaynie (75)Memberin WORLD OF XPILAR • 4 days ago

When I first started floral illustration, my work was very abstract and extremely vivid and colourful. When I say colourful, I mean like dayglow colourful haha! It was just what I was drawn to at the time. Crazy, weird flowers and psychedelic palettes.

Some people are of the opinion that an artist should find their style and then stick to it - which is a concept that I not only cannot implement purely because of my personality... but I find it absolutely ridiculous. I could not think of anything more boring and monotonous. We are supposed to evolve... change and grow.

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So yes, although that still appeals to me on a deep level, my tastes have begun to change somewhat over the last year or so and with that I have noticed that I have been gravitating to colour palettes which are slightly more muted.

As I said I am of the opinion that, as an artist and designer it is good to explore things which are outside of our “usual”. When I first started sharing art which was a little more toned down, it was actually rather amusing because I went from people saying that I was one of the most recognisable artists in the space, to people suddenly going “oh Jaynie I did not realise this was you”. I was not really sure if that made me feel good about the shift or crappy… haha! But it was what it was. I just wasn’t “feeling” the neon-like combinations anymore.

From time to time, I get older collectors of my work who comment on my shares and say things like “I love your old work” or “I miss your old work”... and whilst I absolutely respect and appreciate their honesty, I cannot lie and say that it does not make me question whether my personal preference for slightly different styles now has affected my audience negatively or not.

Though truth be told, there is not really much I can do about it even if the majority prefers my older work… because I simply cannot create unless I feel - it is as simple as that! So my end results in terms of design and creation are very much instinctual.

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Nonetheless, I was in the mood to do something a little more in line with my older art, whilst making an attempt to combine some of the newer elements which I have been experimenting with such as the collage.

In all honesty, as I began this piece, I actually felt a little out of my comfort zone because I have not done something like it for quite some time… and I almost threw in the towel, but didn’t after reminding myself that nine times out of ten when I am creating, I hate the beginning stages of the creation… so I shut up my internal dialogue and continued.

I am really glad I did, because whilst it is not exactly as “dayglow” as some of my older content… it is a lot more parallel - and I quite liked the way the addition of the collage details fused with my old crazy style. Below is the final piece, which I decided to call Garden of Dreams :) Let me know what you think!