Less#gmseasonoflessTaking everything we've learned in the first tutorial, we are now going to take the same colours and techniques and go large. When you open up an A3 sketchbook...


Barbara J Graham
Barbara is a full time abstract expressionist painter with a BFA(Hons) from Wimbledon College of Art. Graham draws inspiration from the philosopher Ekart Tolle who believes that life’s meaning is to be found in the joy of the present moment. Graham’s paintings are a collection of marks brought together like notes in a piece of music, each mark stands alone for an individual moment, yet they all work together in a harmonious whole to capture a moment and feeling in time.
Creating massive impact with minimal resources
Less#gmseasonoflessIn the previous lesson, we explored our colour palette and mark making. Now we'll be bringing it all together.Action Steps pull everything together in a...
Colour Mixing
Season#gmseasonoflessIn this tutorial learn how to explore the full possible range of a limited colour palette, and experiment with mark making. In the next lesson, we'll pull it...
Don’t Compromise with Barbara J Graham
Today I chatted with the incredible Barbara J Graham. She is the guest artist for Get Messy’s Season of Less. We spoke a lot about how she creates, how she puts her emotions into her paintings, and how she is able to express the intangible in something tangible. Barbara has a beautiful story about how she came to art and how art was there all along. How art kept knocking at the door no matter how many times she tried to ignore it.
I think that you’ll find that the summary is this episode’s title: don’t compromise. Don’t compromise on your art. Tell the stories of your soul, tell your life, tell your life through moments and moments with art and just show up to the page. Even if you think that it’s not your time, I mean, Barbara was 37 when she went to art school, and that is incredible. That’s an incredible story of resilience and strength and courage. Her art is beautiful and expressive and if Barbara can can do it, you can too. I hope that’s what you take from this episode.
Meet Barbara and her Painting Sketchbook
Less#gmseasonoflessMeet Barbara J Graham and take a look inside her painting sketchbook. Have you ever wanted to say more with less? How does colour and mark making convey emotion...
Don’t Compromise with Barbara J Graham
Barbara’s lessons from her own creative story. Going to art school at 37. Exploring mediums like a child, how the inner critic shouldn’t exist, resourcefulness and restraint, and never compromising.