Tag: abstract art

Get Messy Pattern Play Workshop

Join me this August for an pattern-based art journaling workshop with Get Messy!

My lesson, Pattern Play: Security Envelopes dives into one of the most ubiquitous art supplies around. Together, we’ll get inspiration, create our own collage materials, and create two different art journal spreads. I’ll also walk through all the art supplies I use.

Check out the pages I made as part of the workshop:

An open art journal with art supplies. The art journal page is primarily tan, white, turquoise, and orange, with a collaged background, small orange circles, and scribbles and drips in black, yellow, and orange.
An open art journal with art supplies. The art journal page is primarily light gray, pink, black, and turquoise. The background is collaged with a security envelope and handmade pink patterned collage paper, and is topped with scribbles and drips in black, turquoise, and neon pink.

The workshop is part of Get Messy membership. The Messian community gets to take part in brand new artist workshops each month and access a huge library of older courses. In total, there are over 100 classes and 1000 lessons to fuel your creativity.

Membership starts at $39/month. Learn more about the membership here* — and if you sign up before Saturday, August 3, you can join me live for this month’s opening celebration!

I’m really excited to be a featured artist with Get Messy this year and join the ranks of some seriously fantastic art journalers. Thanks to Caylee Grey and the Get Messy team for inviting me to take part. Hope to see you there!

* This is an affiliate link. If you go on to purchase membership, I’ll get a small commission. Win win!

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Messy May 2023

An open mixed media art journal. A layer of mostly neutral collage (and one large teal painted paper) is topped with energetic marks and drips in black, neon pink, white, orange, and blue. Most of the background shows through.

Over the weekend I took part in a Creative Hour conversation with Caylee Grey, Meg of Meg Journals, Claudette Hasenjager and more than 100 other art journalers. Caylee is the founder of Get Messy, and Claudette, Meg, and I are three of thirty artists leading this year’s Messy May, a free daily art journaling project.

Connecting with other creatives is something I treasure. Sharing processes, challenges, inspiration, and habits reminds me both of how deeply personal creating necessarily is, and also how universal and innately human creativity is. I am always humbled and inspired, and leave more curious about and committed to my creative practice.

Thank you to all the participants for joining, and to Claudette, Meg, and Caylee for a fantastic conversation.

PLAY in Messy May

For me, creating is a practice of tapping into childlike wonder and intuition. There is no room in my art journal for criticism or perfectionism — only curiosity, joyful exploration, and reflection. As a Messy May featured artist, I encouraged participants to let go of expectations and tap into playfulness and possibility.

Check out the video above for a time lapse of my process, and some additional creative prompts to encourage playfulness.

And below, just a few of the many, many responses to the PLAY prompt. Click on any image to be taken to the artist’s feed. (If you decide to give it a go, please tag me on Instagram! I’d love to see what you make.)

  • Open mixed media art journal page in shades of blues and reds.
  • Open mixed media art journal page. There is a face on the left with stitching and on the right reads, "Time waits for no one."
  • Mixed media journal page in shades of white, blue, and pink.
  • Mixed media art journal page. There is a pocket with art cards tucked in, and flowers.
  • Mixed media art journal page in shades of bright pink, blue, and whites.
  • An open mixed media art journal page. A layer of collage is topped with bold marks in neon orange, green, blue, black, and white.
  • Mixed media page with various cloths stitched onto paper.
  • An open mixed media art journal with elements of white, black, blue, red, pink, and orange.
  • An open art journal page. To the right are sketch-like flowers drawn in black; to the left are blues and pinks.
  • Detail of a mixed media art journal page. Collaged papers (repeating hearts and a crow are visible) are accented with pinks.
  • A mixed media art journal page featuring black, pink, and blue with white doodles.
  • An open art journal featuring brightly colored collage.
  • A page of a mixed media art journal. The primary color is deep yellow, with shades of green and pink, and black doodles. Pasted text reads, "We have been far away from the world in which reason, purpose, and standards of perfection play a part."
  • An illustrated art journal page with multi-colored flowers, a sun, and the word "Jugar" (Spanish for "play").
  • A mixed media piece with elements of collage, blue accents, and the word PLAY written in cursive in the middle.
  • A mixed media piece featuring a collaged man walking, blue background, and the word PLAY in white.
  • Open mixed media art journal. Multiple colored background with the word PLAY in pink in the middle.
  • Open mixed media art journal. A layer of collage is covered in doodles and scribbles; the primary colors are green, orange, blue, and black.
  • An open mixed media art journal with bright colors: neon pink and yellow, and teal.
  • An open mixed media art journal. Fragments of words can be seen, and paint in dark blue. At the right reads, "The scientist used his new tool to create a messy painting of a fictional world. He had fun playing with the different colors and textures, and he was pleased with the result."
  • An open mixed media art journal with greens, blues, and browns, and the text "Something new and wonderful to show you" in purple.. Several Ingrid Murray Art Journal Prompt Cards are arranged at the top.
  • An open mixed media art journal. At right is collaged lobster accented with bright pink paint and other sea-themed collage; at right is a child holding a plant. There are accents of black, yellow, and white.
  • Mixed media art journal page with energetic paint marks in neon pink, teal, orange, and black.
  • Mixed media art journal page. A pastel background is topped with rounded doodles in black.
  • An open mixed media art journal with collage, paint accents in blue, orange, and pink, and script that reads, "Trust the process."
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Why abstract art?

Open mixed media art journal. A layer of collage (graph paper, security envelope) is topped with energetic abstract marks in teal and turquoise, green, neon pink, and dark blue. Much of the background shows through.

I admire photorealism: it takes a huge amount of patience and technical skill to represents external reality well.

What I love about abstract art, though, is the conveying of emotion, experience, thought, and existence through form, color, movement, texture, and composition. It represents internal reality.

When I create my work, I tap into a sense of childlike wonder, letting intuition and joy lead the creative process. I choose colors that feel right in that moment. I scribble and splatter. I react to what’s on the page; nothing is preplanned.

Last year, I went to see a Joan Mitchell exhibition at the Baltimore Museum of Art. Joan’s paintings are huge and inspired by “remembered landscapes that I carry with me — and remembered feelings of them, which of course become transformed. … I could certainly never mirror nature. I … like more to paint what it leaves me with.”

The point of abstract art is expression and curiosity, not perfection.

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Greens & Neons

Ingrid Murray mixed media art journal. A neutral background of vintage book and atlas papers, and abstract white green, purple, orange, dark blue, and yellow marks made with tempera paint, oil pastel, colored pencil, and acrylic ink.
Ingrid Murray mixed media art journal. A neutral background of vintage book, atlas, grid pattern, and cactus tissue papers, and abstract white, neon pink, light blue, yellow, and black marks made with acrylic paint, oil pastel, paint marker, and acrylic ink.
Ingrid Murray mixed media art journal. A neutral background of vintage book, grid, and atlas page with minimal accents of blue, teal, yellow, black, and neon pink made with acrylic ink and paint, colored pencil, and tempera paint. There is an Instax photo that has a dark abstract shape on it paperclipped to the right page.
Ingrid Murray mixed media art journal. A neutral background of vintage book and tissue paper pages with abstract green, lime green, dark blue, white, black, and neon pink accents made with oil pastel, tempera paint, acrylic paint, and graphite.

Recent mixed media art journal pages featuring a variety of papers, acrylic paints and inks, tempera paint, oil pastel, paint marker, graphite, and colored pencil.

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Rust & Olive Branches

Ingrid Murray digital collage with textural and plant elements, black scribbles, and yellow, pink, and peacock drips.

I created this digital collage the same day as this one. Here, I pulled together images from last year’s trip to Tunisia (the olive branches at the bottom of the collage), a rusty sheet of metal, images of my own mixed media art, and part of an old family photo. I added some digital marks on top.

I’m still exploring the basics of digital media: what is possible? What process do I enjoy? What compositions feel right? I’m also wrestling with my preference to have digital pieces look analog, and the reality that it’s a different process (and outcome) altogether. More play is required, I suppose.

While I used Photoshop for this piece, I have loved using Pixlr as a quick substitute — it’s free, requires no sign-in, and has many of the same features. It’s also a great tool for editing photos more generally on the fly.

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