Making Art Work: First Idea to Final Piece

My name is Anna King, and I'm a landscape painter.

I'm really fascinated by wastelands

and derelict buildings because of the wildness,

the way that nature's kind of taking over

and the random elements of it as well.

Strange objects there, like traffic cones and shopping trolleys

and things like that.

I like those sort of indicators that people have been there

but I never actually have any people in my paintings,

so the viewer is then the, you know, the person in the painting

and it's as if you're on your own

kind of exploring these places.

I remember going to see an exhibition of Alison Watt's paintings

of white sheets with the shape where a figure's been.

And that was the first time I'd seen big, contemporary paintings

like that in a gallery, and that was one of the exhibitions

that really made me want to be an artist.

I also really like Joan Eardley's paintings.

Really sort of expressive

and wild landscapes.

Comparing yourself to someone like that isn't always useful

because you're never going to be able to do what they did.

I love my job.

I mean, I would never swap this for anything

because I get to come to work every day and I get to do what I want,

and do something that...

..makes me feel happy.

And if you do get to do that for a job, then it's really, really good!

I find inspiration from all sorts of places -

quite often places that maybe other people would sort of walk past

and never notice.

The old joiners' sheds,

I just spotted when I was driving past one day,

and both of them have just got beautiful colours

and sort of rust, you know, running down the tin.

The building's definitely changed since I was here last,

and it's quite strange to come back because I have it pictured in my head

at this particular moment in time when I saw it,

and things have gone. There's glass that was lined up there that's gone

and the grass has changed as well.

More paint's gone. But in essence, it's still the same building.

I just love the colours in here and all the wood panelling.

You know, this paint's obviously been probably really bright blue,

and then the way it fades to that sort of subtle colour

and the contrast with the peeling and the textures of the wood and things.

I was so excited about it,

though it's a really sad thing to get excited about!

I really wanted to do some interior paintings

and I hadn't found the right place.

And then as soon as I came in here, I knew that it would be really,

a really inspiring place for me to paint.

I also really like buildings that have big windows like this,

so although it's sort of derelict

and a bit kind of grotty,

it's still got that sort of light flooding in,

and it makes it a really interesting space to paint.

I don't often paint the same place more than once.

These sheds here I've done sort of five, six, seven paintings of.

So they're quite a special place for me to come back to.

The first thing I'm going to show you is mixing colours.

It's very rarely that I would ever use colour straight out of the tube.

Especially things like black and white,

because if you look at what things actually look like in real life,

nothing's ever pure white or pure black.

I work mostly in quite subtle colours.

I don't like anything too brash and bright,

and I'll always mix them quite a lot.

Yeah, it's important to get your colours right

before you put them on the board.

And as soon as you've got something down on your blank piece, then

it's so much easier to keep going

because it's that first brushmark that's the hardest.

I mean, having said I'll talk about colours,

I'm now doing a painting that's pretty much all grey!

I work in oil paints but I'm quite unusual in the way I work

in that I paint onto paper pasted onto board.

It's not really a traditional way of doing it but it allows me to give

a sketchy finish sometimes and have the paper showing through the paint.

One technique that I've developed

that's quite unique to me, as far as I know,

is to draw into the wet oil paint with pencil.

It's quite committing once you start drawing into the paint.

You have to try and sort of relax before I make a mark,

and sort of sometimes almost not think about it

and let the pencil sort of dance a bit across the paper.

The other thing I use is this.

I think it's for smudging pencil or something,

but I use it if I want to get sort of lines without the actual

mark of the pencil.

So I guess I use the paint

to sort of mark out the form of the painting.

And then the pencil just brings the detail into it.

So something that didn't really look like anything before

now has a bit of a form to it.

I'd guess I'd say that

sort of "less is more" is quite an important aspect of my painting.

So I like to leave them not unfinished, but quite

sort of sparse-looking and with a lot of space and light in them.

I hate it when things are overworked

and the paint gets all muddled and dirty.

I think when it's finished, it's finished

and then I just won't touch it again.

And I think that's quite an important thing, actually, as well,

knowing when to stop, because if you take it too far,

you then can lose a bit of the sort of essence of something,

especially if it's a really quick piece you're doing,

sometimes better just to leave it.

So this is just a really quick painting of a street scene.

I'm not too displeased with it, so...

SHE LAUGHS

CAMERA CLICKS

So I'm taking photos for source material.

I've been working towards a big body of work for a new exhibition.

Quite a number of the paintings

will be based on trees in this surrounding area.

When you're painting, if you're just doing things out of your imagination

all the time, I think you can get quite unnatural sort of shapes.

When I look at the photographs I've taken,

they often look just a bit, you know, sort of soulless,

whereas when you're doing the painting,

I can put in the sort of misty ambiguous light that I really love,

things I can never capture on camera.

That's what makes a painting special, I think,

because you get to see someone's interpretation of a place

rather than just what it actually looks like.

So the first layer is all about sort of blocking in the colours

and the shapes. But when I'm doing it, I'm also thinking quite a lot

about what the layer on top's going to be like

because once you've got to this stage, you can't really change it

without going right back to the beginning.

There's quite a lot of things to think about when I'm doing it,

but I just try and keep it really expressive at the same time as well.

Once the first layer of a painting's dry,

then I'm ready to start on the second layer, where I'll put in all the sky

and add a lot of sort of detail to the trees and the foreground,

and put pencil marks in as well.

When you're mixing colours, it's really a lot of trial and error.

You'll see me going backwards and forwards

from, like, darker to lighter!

It looks different on the palette

so you can't tell until you put your brush on the painting

whether it's going to be the colour you wanted it to be.

And quite often I would put on some paint

and then I'll rub it off with a rag to get quite a thin wash.

SHE LAUGHS

I just put a big smear over it where I didn't want there to be one!

But never mind.

Just wipe it off with some turps.

I've just done it again!

SHE SIGHS

Painting can be really annoying sometimes.

If you get frustrated, then you tend to sort of rush things,

maybe mess stuff up.

So sometimes it does take a little moment, and then...

SHE LAUGHS

..go back to it.

So you can see with this little thing

you get more sort of like a subtle line

rather than sort of dark pencil marks.

So this is the finished painting,

and I still really don't like this bit

and I don't know what to do about it.

I hate when things get messy.

That bit to me looks badly painted

or sort of untidy.

I wouldn't exactly call it a stressful job

but it is often a struggle and sometimes really frustrating

because you just want it to be right, you want it to be good straightaway,

and sometimes it takes a bit more work,

but on reflection, I think it's not too bad.

I'm Nick Gentry and I'm an artist from London.

So I use a lot of outdated technology,

old stuff that's kind of, you know,

at the end of its original kind of intended life

and is now deemed sort of useless, really.

So with floppy discs, I create a canvas with them,

and they sort of go on to form the main subject of each piece.

By doing that, I'm basically just showing as much of the discs

and the canvas as possible.

And then the painting is sort of merely an access point to that.

The subject is a mystery, and it is embedded in the canvas

and it is loaded into those floppy discs.

It's kind of locked down in there forever, really.

There's a sort of element of recycling or repurposing

within the work. Marcel Duchamp took a urinal out

and just put it into the gallery and said, "That's art."

So, from that point on, I think artists started to realise

that you didn't have to have a canvas.

You didn't have to have paint and a paintbrush,

and, you know, you're not really restricted too much by your materials,

it's all about your ideas and where you want to take it.

I get people to send me stuff,

and I use those things to kind of work in my art.

I receive all of these materials from everywhere, you know,

all over the world. They sort of have a history of their own already

and so what I'm trying to do is just show that.

Social media just allows me to kind of communicate with these people

and create sort of some kind of connection, really.

These are the most personal, really, out of all the things.

I think the floppy discs can be,

the film negatives can be,

you know, depending on what they've taken pictures of,

but nothing really gets much more personal than an X-ray.

As well as showing in galleries,

I think it's quite important for me to show my work online,

so that people can kind of get an idea of what I'm doing

and contribute to the project.

It's as much about sharing as sort of showing the work, really.

I think inspiration can be anything. It can come from anywhere.

Often it's the everyday, sort of mundane stuff that

could actually be really inspiring

because it's also surprising what you can do with it.

It's just a question of, you know, knowing what to look for.

SIRENS WAIL

I think it's vital to get out of the studio from time to time.

It just kind of creates a different mood.

It's usually quite easy to zone out from everything all around you.

So it almost doesn't matter how much noise

and things that are going on all around you.

It's all about kind of the connection between the sketchbook

and what's going on with your ideas.

Leonardo da Vinci's a real inspiration to me

because beyond his paintings and drawings, he was also a scientist.

He used to dissect, you know, animals and even people

to find out what was going on inside us.

So I take a lot of different inspiration from different artists

but I think it goes way beyond just looking at art.

I'm naturally inclined to sort of go for these angular faces,

and you end up creating these sort of android type looking things.

You look at faces all the time

and it's the way you learn about the world and the faces we have

are also a bit of a story about the lives we've lived.

It's vital, really, for me to actually have this to get my ideas

down into this book, because without this, there's nothing.

There's just a piece of imagination.

Some of the writing's so hurriedly sort of written, it's almost like

I'm panicking, you know,

writing this stuff down and getting it out as quickly

as possible because, you know, if I slow down, then the idea could go.

It's all about keeping this momentum, this flow

and that's all the way through my work,

even in the studio, I have to work with the flow of things.

But I think it's just the act of writing it, and jotting it down

embeds it in your memory.

Just getting them down into the book just solidifies the idea.

They're the seeds, really, of the work,

and you need those in order to progress.

'So, really, the first stage of the work doesn't really start with me,

'it starts with other people. People from all around the world

'actually now just send me all of their old materials.'

Boom! There you go!

From there I start assembling them.

I think in here we've probably got about 200 discs.

But, you know, I've created before a painting that took 300 discs

so it's more than the amount of discs that's in this box alone,

so, yeah, I do always need this constant supply.

I don't think I could work in this kind of way without

other people getting involved and other people's generosity, really.

That's why I have to really get my work out there on social media so

that people can see what I'm doing and then consequently get involved.

X-rays...

I would use an X-ray on a piece of glass, transparent layer

and use it for its sort of tonal range, really.

I've used, like, kind of ribcages before for, like, hair,

cos it's all about kind of like picking up each individual piece

and analysing it and seeing what sort of qualities it has

and what it could represent.

There's just so many materials that you can use

as opposed to like, the traditional canvas and paint.

It's just, you know, why not explore some of that?

They often come with a note. This one says, "Hi, Nick,

"these X-rays belong to my late father-in-law

"and were taken in Belgium.

"So he would have been so thrilled with this idea.

"I hope you find some use for them. Thank you for having them,

"and for the enjoyment of your beautiful pieces. We love them."

I think it's really amazing

that people would actually send me something like that.

It's like they would trust me to use those quite personal things.

And yeah, it's just like an inspiration for me

before I even start any project.

I like to keep this sort of circle going where, you know,

if people send things to me,

then I like to try and send something back to them,

whether it be, you know, a book of my work or a print.

They are people I've never met.

After a while it's nice to think of it as maybe a bit more than that,

you know, there's some kind of connection that's been made.

So I'm about to start working on a new piece.

At this stage I'm really just trying to work out, you know,

what elements can go where.

So I kind of just build in really rough basic structure,

it's like almost like painting with these things, like pixels.

You get sort of highlights across the brow area and the nose

and yeah, those cheekbones and things like that.

This is roughly sort of the skin tone,

but it's a little bit grey,

which adds that sort of machine-like feel to it.

But then I know that this label here

is going to add something towards the chin.

You know, it's the initial stage

of really what that whole image is going to be.

I don't really like to over-paint.

I just want to do as much as I can with the materials

and not intervene too much with that

and just let the materials be at the centre of the work, really.

So at this stage all the discs are glued down in the place

that I want them to be

and the final thing that I need to do is paint in all the features.

There's nothing too planned.

Sometimes you start to find a colour scheme going on

and you just go with that as a feeling. You try it out.

It's not like I just chose yellow and that was the end of the story,

it's a case of seeing what works within the composition.

I like to kind of get it to this finished stage where it's all

looking nice, and then throw a load of white spirit at it,

and kind of just destroy it a little bit and mess it up.

So the white spirit hits it

and starts to, you know, slightly corrode some of the paint on there

so it starts breaking up, and just adds this slight rough edge to it.

I just need to, like, break up the paint a little bit to stop it,

you know, having that sort of finished, perfect feeling to it.

So, yeah, that's the finished piece.

And usually I'd just sign it somewhere, you know,

that's not obvious.

I like to kind of blend it in rather than have it showing.

So I just pick a label and I just put it somewhere in the corner.

You get these waves of satisfaction when you finish a piece,

but then it's on to the next piece.

It's not... It's only fleeting, really.

You don't ever get to sort of wallow in it too much.

I think the people that sent me all of these discs and things,

they'd be maybe surprised and, er...

Yeah, maybe they'd be quite pleased

and happy with the result. I hope so.

I'm Yulia Brodskaya and I'm a paper artist.

I make art using paper as my main medium.

I think my signature way of working would be

as if I'm trying to draw with paper instead of on it.

I was born in Moscow.

I started in art school when I was just six years old.

So, for me, I never considered doing anything else.

When I first came to the UK,

I could feel a kind of creative buzz around me.

I wanted to become successful, to try new things.

Quilling's a paper craft technique that involves strips of paper

that are rolled, shaped and glued together

to create the creative designs.

I made quilling mine by using it in a new way to create letter forms,

and this made it more modern,

and so I think I gave it a new life with my work.

For the past five years, I've worked on more than 100 projects

ranging from advertising

to tutorials, books.

Never gets boring.

'For inspiration I usually go out to local park

'and I like to sit there

'and sketching.

'I like to look at the flowers when I need inspiration for colours,

'because the colours are wonderful.'

Their combinations are already there, I just need to be observant.

I believe nature is the best place to decide what colours go together.

There are not just flowers, there are butterfly or other insects,

there are tropical fish.

You just need to...to look around

and you don't need to invent things. They are already there.

My advice would be, keep experimenting

but make sure you know that the goal is to find your own style

and not to imitate the...

..the artist that you like.

When I got inspired with Gustav Klimt, I used his work too literally.

I used lots of gold paint

and I copied some of his motifs

and shapes that he uses in his work.

Lately I've started to use this inspiration in a more abstract way.

I do love the intricate details that he incorporates in his work

but I also want to make sure

the overall image is striking and eye-catching.

I was in France. In one of the parks I saw an old man

sitting on the bench and feeding pigeons.

I decided to incorporate the dynamic mass of these pigeons

coming towards him.

I used, like, an old man's face

because the theme of old people and age is one of the main ones

in my personal work.

To try to make a person's face,

I think that's one of the most challenging themes in general

in art, not just for paper.

And that's how I wanted to bring my paper art to a new level.

I tried to show the crinkles,

the way the wrinkles look when people squint.

I tried to arrange the paper strips in a similar way.

It took me quite long.

Probably the longest out of all of my artworks.

I'm making a...like, a very simple heart shape.

I usually start with darker colours for the outline of the heart

and then I'll be using lighter tints over the middle of the heart,

like a gradient.

I think it gives this paper craft technique more visual depth.

It's just visually more interesting.

Like, I have pinks, reds, greens and blues over there.

So just helps to be organised

and it's easier to choose the colours when I know exactly where they are.

When you have a thin piece of paper,

it's a bit more difficult to shape it

but with thick card, it's much more flexible

and it holds its shape.

I'm using a cocktail straw.

You could use a pencil or anything similar.

And I just curl it

a couple of times.

There are special tools,

for instance, you can use something like that.

But when I started my first work,

I needed something, and that's what happened to be in my house.

I use the droplet shape quite extensively.

And I do use quite a few circles.

I do use coils.

I start by coiling it in one direction.

Then I coil it in the opposite direction,

put them together, cut...

..and then I will glue the both ends together.

This is what I call a drop shape.

So this is another little shape. I call it a circle.

I start in the same way.

Then I do basically a coil, but then I roll it very, very tightly.

So you get a little roll of paper.

It's very important to try different things

because that is the only way you can move forward.

You can't use the same thing over and over again.

If you do try something new, then your technique will evolve,

your style will evolve and it...

You won't get bored!

I'd like to redesign my name, which I'm going to use to promote myself.

To me, it does look dated.

I used it quite a lot for my presentation, for business cards,

online, and I think it's time

for me to create a new version that reflects my current work better.

I print out just the outlines,

so it makes it easier for me to sketch it inside the letters.

I don't necessarily think about paper,

I'm just thinking where I want the lines to go.

It is very important to make the most of the decisions

during the sketching stage

because once I glue the piece of paper, I can't remove it.

It uses more of the shapes that I'm currently using.

And now I'll experiment with colour.

I want to keep the palette close to the initial one.

There will be reds, pinks, orange.

It is colourful enough.

Once the sketch is ready, I trace the design by using an embossing tool.

This makes sure that when I start gluing my papers

I can see the lines where the paper needs to go.

I'm going to start making the first letter.

When I start working with paper,

I still try to follow my initial sketch as closely as possible.

But I still, still question all my decisions that I have made.

That's the first letter down.

I still have four to go,

so you'd better leave me to it and I'll see you tomorrow.

Last night I filled three of the letters with the paper strips.

So now, only two letters left

and then all the elements surrounding the name.

For this particular technique, you do have to be quite patient

because this is something that can become a torture

unless it suits your personality.

This is the last piece going down.

SHE LAUGHS

Ta-da!

So let's see how they look together.

I think the new one does look more modern

and definitely more eye-catching.

You can see the letters straightaway,

whereas the previous one, you needed some time to read what it says.

I hope that it will reflect my work better.

I'm looking forward to using it on my business card

and all the other self-promotion materials.

I'm Frances Segelman. I'm a sculptor.

I've sculpted, I would say, probably about 140 busts.

There was two that stand out -

the Duke of Edinburgh is just simple, and yet it's got

something special about the movement and the way he was as a person.

But I think the ultimate one is the Queen,

because of this figurehead of who she is, how nervous I was,

how I overcame that, and it was my dream, that was my goal, you know,

to be able to do the Queen one day was fantastic.

I also do two sculptures a year for a charity,

where I'm sculpting a person

'with hundreds of people watching, and I finish that in two hours.

'It's so miraculous to get a look of somebody.

'It's so difficult sometimes to get that look, and it may not happen.'

I'm influenced greatly by all the early artists,

by the Greek, the Roman art.

Leonardo da Vinci, Bernini - their work is so incredible,

these early sculptors.

But Michelangelo is my absolute, you know, number one.

Wonderful, wonderful sculptor, artist, painter - everything.

He got the person out of the stone.

Michelangelo - I think for his period,

he put movement in something that's static.

And that's the magic, isn't it, with sculpture, really?

So to create movement, it's mostly the anatomy,

the way you're positioning the body.

You know, the legs have got to be moving, and the arms,

and the hands and the face. Nothing too static.

I realised to get this movement in the sculpture,

I looked at the early pieces of art

and I could see how this...

It wasn't just that a piece of material was sticking out, you know,

or a dress was coming out,

but it was the way it wrapped round the body.

I made a large piece, nine foot high.

And then I had to work out how these legs were going to look.

And I got completely lost,

and totally obsessed with the muscles in that front leg.

I mean, the way they wrap around and change shape

and, you know, how it makes a leg more powerful.

You can accentuate those muscles coming wrapped round the knee,

and the way the sculptors used to make this happen

was this sort of barley sugar effect, you know,

going round and round and round,

and if you continue this down the body with clothing,

it gives this wonderful effect of movement.

Their work is so incredible, these early sculptors.

It's just sensational, you know, to study that.

Right, we're going to go into my studio now.

All my techniques have been learnt through my career

because I'm self-taught, but I study all the time.

I still study all the time.

Well, there's two different types of callipers that I use -

the metal one, which I use for life-sized figures.

It's very easy to use, and I use it on the face, everywhere.

And the other type are the ones that convert to the larger sizes.

It's the type of thing that's been around for centuries,

you know, for sculptors.

I start with this side here.

This is the life-size.

And this converts to life-and-a-quarter, life-and-a-half,

or whatever I want it to be.

And then I would go to the sculpture

and you've got to make sure you keep it steady and it stays in place,

because if it's a fraction out, it doesn't work properly.

The whole face just doesn't look right.

Every little bit is vital, and is moving,

so each time, every ten minutes you're re-measuring again and again,

because it changes all the time. It's very important.

The eyes are the windows of the soul.

They make the face into a real person.

If they had pale eyes,

I would leave a lot of the clay in because it would catch the light.

If they had very dark eyes, I would take this out, and it would be dark.

Everybody's eyes have got... they catch the light,

and this to me makes it much more lifelike when it's finished.

So, I have to have this tiny piece of clay...

You have to mess around with it, but when it's cast,

basically that will catch the light with the bronze.

When somebody's looking up, their eye changes shape completely.

You know, the eye's looking up, but the whole lid is much more

interesting than staring straight on.

So that makes a more interesting feature.

Tonight is one of my live sculpting events

where I actually sculpt somebody's bust in two hours.

'And I'm going to be sculpting Sir Derek Jacobi,

'a great, great actor.'

It's just a headache. It's just noise inside my head, Doctor.

-Constant noise inside my head.

-What sort of noise?

It's the sound of drums.

And after two hours, you will see the finished piece.

Well, I think it's almost unique.

I've never been to something like this, ever. You know, it's wonderful.

'The process is this pressurised sculpture,

'so you need the person there. It's very, very important.

'You cannot do a sculpture without the life sitter.

'Every single photograph,'

he looks so different, so I haven't got a clue how his structure is.

Basically it would take me months from a photograph,

whereas doing it from life is something you can see more clearly

and you can turn it round and see it from the side. It's vital.

So I'm going to be doing this so much it will drive you insane but...

Don't worry.

I don't know what's going to happen, I mean, but it's two hours,

which is very, very fast for a sculpture.

Are we off?

'I get the first part of his head on, and then I'll turn him sideways

'and I'll start doing the profile, and I'll be thrilled with it.

'Then I'll turn it to the front and think, "Oh, my God, no, it's not right."

'And this is happening all the time, all the time you're moving round

'and each time you do one part you're changing another part

'and each time you change another part it makes something else wrong.

'So it's like a jigsaw puzzle.'

Only towards the end it all starts coming together.

I've been doing it for an hour,

and I'm not completely happy with it yet.

'I haven't had time to go back and have a look.'

So I need to step back and I've been so intense I haven't done it,

'because then I'll know where my mistakes are.'

Tremendous pressure at this stage.

-How do you feel?

-Yeah, fine.

-Are you sure?

-Mm-hmm.

I can see myself. I really can.

The eyes are gentle, and I like that. I like that.

It makes me look so distinguished.

And if she can do that in less than two hours...

It's extraordinary.

I'm Stuart Semple, and I'm a painter.

When I was growing up, I didn't have access to art.

Not visual art. So the first stuff I saw was album covers.

So music's been there through my whole life,

like the soundtrack of what I've been through.

And it's now like a fuel for my work.

When I think about making an exhibition,

I do think of it a bit like a musical album,

and each painting in the show is a track on the album.

Overall you're trying to make it all go together

to sort of tell a story in a way.

I'm always collecting imagery, things that I like, sampling things,

a bit like a DJ, you know how they sample tracks and stuff,

and then I start to collage some of those elements

that I've sampled or collected.

Then I'll get in the studio

and quite often I'll just put the initial song on quite loud.

And when you paint to music

and you let yourself go, it does its own thing,

and you kind of get out the way and you just let it express itself.

There's something really organic about it.

Once you've found your own way of expressing yourself,

sort of your own language, then it's always there for you.

And then you can work out, "What do I want to say with this now?"

And that's the exciting bit.

I think one of the first artists I saw in real life was Van Gogh.

And I saw Van Gogh's Sunflowers when I was seven or eight

and it was at the end of this room,

and it was just... I don't know, I mean, I can still remember it.

It's burnt in there,

and it was just amazing.

Initially, yes, someone like Van Gogh got me interested in the idea of art.

But I've looked at so many artists and musicians and film directors,

and it all kind of blurs into one kind of melting pot.

I think it's really important to find somewhere to capture your ideas

as early on as you can, because ideas are so fleeting, they come and go.

And if you don't grab them, it's gone, and any one of them

could be the start of something really interesting.

This is my sort of inspiration board.

I always have music on in the studio

and every now and then I'll hear a phrase or a lyric

and I'll think, "Wow!" There's a load of imagery in there or whatever,

and I'll get it down on here.

Sometimes the words are very visual,

like in this one from The Doors - Riders On The Storm.

It's so apocalyptic and it's a visual thing anyway.

I mean, you think of a million pictures just when you hear it.

MUSIC: "Heaven" by Talking Heads

Happy is a painting that came from a track by Talking Heads called Heaven,

which is a place where nothing ever happens.

# Nothing ever happens... #

I started to realise loads of things that I loved growing up

were disappearing.

It's a scene which is a homage to them

and all these things that I love that are now gone.

Moon River. That came from a Kid Koala remix of Moon River.

The lyrics in that song are so visual.

# Two drifters

# Off to see the world... #

Normally my paintings go on a million and one tangents

before they get to the end.

But the Moon River one is just like the lyrics.

Each element in that painting is actually straight from a lyric.

It's probably the most literal I've done it.

In this one, the rainbow's end

is actually a sort of rundown amusement arcade from the '80s.

You know, they talk about these two sort of huckleberry friends

going across the river to see the world together.

It's like this great romance. It's just really beautiful.

# My huckleberry friend... #

Two of my favourite materials to use are paint and charcoal,

which I absolutely love.

Unlike a pencil, which only does one thing,

you can make really thick lines, you can make really tiny thin lines,

and it's got an in infinite amount of possibility in terms of tone

because you can get massive big pieces like this,

which means you can very quickly

do very big, graphic, solid marks,

and you can fade it all the way out into almost nothing.

I basically discovered putting it over the top of paint

actually changed the tone of the paint,

so I didn't have to mix every tone of that purple.

Say I want a dark version of that purple,

I can just rub charcoal over it to make it a bit darker,

rather than having to mix it as a paint colour,

which saves me loads of time.

To be honest, I can't remember how I stumbled across it.

I think one day I probably had to finish a painting quickly for something

and was like, "Hang on, I wonder if I go over it with charcoal

"whether that'll do the job."

And when I'm using the charcoal,

I'm really thinking about light and dark. I'm thinking about tone.

I'm not thinking about colour.

And er, these lips are a lovely example of that variety.

I think you should experiment with everything.

I think my early pictures, they were made of all sorts of stuff.

I was gluing lentils on there

and melting candles down to see what it did.

And I think in the end, you find stuff that excites you.

And then you keep going with it.

And you get to know your materials more.

I mean, the more you use something, the more familiar it is.

I think the lentil piece is...

HE LAUGHS

..not something I want anyone to ever see!

I'm about to start a brand-new piece of work.

The other day I saw this extraordinary boy in London

on a motorbike.

He had this sort of white vest and he was covered in dirt and grease

and he was trying to start the bike.

He looked like a time traveller or something, like he was from the '50s,

and he was just amazing. So I've got the image of him stuck in my head.

I think there's a lot in it that could make quite a good painting.

I'm trying not to think too specifically about anything

other than that initial image. So...

Bike...

Grease...

Oh, Grease, Travolta...

Music, serenade.

I'm just putting down anything that comes into my head, and it can be

as random as you like cos none of it has to end up in the finished thing.

Chest...chest hair.

Chest wig!

So you can see quite quickly, we've got this roadside serenade,

which would be an awesome title for a painting,

a boy on a bike that's like John Travolta in Grease,

and a girl...the girl Charlie with fluffy yellow hands.

And it's set in the sunshine.

And that's it. I think it's quite obvious what would be strong images.

Like, fluff and yellow. I can see it.

It starts to become visual now.

Now that I've got the basic idea in my sketchbook, it's time

to use the computer and start to collage some of the images together.

At this stage, a lot of things might not even make it into the thing.

You can't really go wrong.

It's about seeing what things look like together.

It can take sometimes months to do them.

I've got collages saved on here that I've never been able to finish.

There's just something missing in them that I just haven't found yet.

Because the tiniest little tweak

can change the whole painting later on.

Yeah, you see, that's starting to look like something.

Yeah, I'd say I'm happy with that.

So what I'll do now is print it out and take it downstairs,

get it on the projector and start to paint it.

The last bit's probably the bit

where I really kind of pull it all together,

and I don't really know, it's quite a risky bit

cos, I mean, anything could happen.

As I finish it off, I'm trying sort of NOT to think,

I just try and interpret the music, and really sort of feel something.

MUSIC: "Motorcycle Emptiness" by Manic Street Preachers

'Yeah, I think there is a real reason for the pink and yellow.

'It does give it a sense of movement. I was thinking'

if he's on his motorbike, and moving through something,

these kind of diagonal gestures that I'm making are almost like rain or

'the road going past, so I'm trying to get that in it, that pace in it.'

So I've finally finished it. Most of it seems to have worked out,

there are bits I like, there are some bits I don't like.

The... I think the guy's head came out a bit too tight.

I feel like I've put a bit too much attention in that particular area

and I've got almost a bit obsessed with getting it perfect.

It doesn't have that looseness

and emotion that some of the other bits of painting have.

Well, I hope when you see Serenade finished,

you'll sort of feel like you're on that road with that biker boy

and maybe he's going past you, and you're in that kind of environment.

I'm Maryam Hashemi, and I'm an artist.

I generally work with watercolours and pencils, or with acrylics.

I like to have element of magic,

and imagination and bring the subconscious and conscious together.

Most of these are my works.

I like to collect place mats and put aliens on them!

I was born here, but I was raised in Iran.

Being brought up in an Islamic country during the war,

it all influenced me so much.

I still see the traces of my experiences as a child in my work.

I have these Islamic-looking ladies,

they got the Hijab on, and they're very cute.

They're just everywhere exploring

and they're very curious!

I like to make people smile or laugh

and say, you know, "This is funny!"

You have to do what makes you feel good,

and if it makes you happy, it's fine. If you're getting lost

in that work, whatever it is, it's the right thing.

And it doesn't matter if people like it or not.

If you're enjoying it, that's the first thing.

And you always find people that will like it.

Come aboard, let me show you my source of inspiration!

It's the coolest boat on the canal!

I met my Ian, my boyfriend, on the canal.

I love you!

'And I spent a lot of time on his boat.

'I did a whole new series of paintings,

'and he just brought a whole new wave of inspiration to my life.'

It had its own pace, the timing's different. Everything is slower.

There's no rush on the canal.

You have this contrast of the canal life and the city life,

all these different dimensions, all side by side.

People that are running, and the cyclists,

and the people that are just walking, you know,

they all have their own little world and they all kind of...meet.

You know, the canal brings them all together.

It's very strange. And it's lovely.

This is one of my favourite works.

I usually work with just putting lots of lines on the...

on the surface that I'm working on,

and then find images in there,

knowing that, "OK, I want something which is related to the canal,"

so obviously I want boats, I want bridges, I want canal.

But I let the lines indicate where those things are going to be.

Then later you try to interpret it, "What does that mean?"

And you know, it can have all kinds of reasons,

but it's never clear, because it's done from subconscious,

and it's just a sudden burst of idea, like,

"Oh, yeah, I'll do that,"

and I just usually go along with it.

Inspiration can come from everywhere.

I've been influenced by everybody - all the classical,

renaissance and religious paintings.

At the moment I really like the pre-Raphaelite paintings.

They seem to really attract my attention,

and I can stare at them for a long while.

Looking at paintings and studying them

can really help in understanding how artists work.

I can find traces of inspiration

connected to all kinds of masterpieces in my work.

It's...it's quite challenging starting a piece of work

because I get distracted so easily,

so trying to be focused on one thing, getting to the point

that I could only be focused on one thing is quite challenging.

So I need to build up to that.

Get my tea...

That's important.

I guess it's a form of, like a ritual in a way,

like I need to be in the right mindset.

It's much easier once you've got everything round you.

I know that, "OK, you're good to go,"

and nothing's going to stop the flow.

This should be there, this should be there.

I haven't worked on this table before,

I'm trying to get to know it.

I usually set a timer,

for like, 10, 15 minutes to remind myself to get up and stretch.

And now, I'm going to begin,

and I might not be able to speak for a bit. We'll see how it goes.

It's very scary to start with plain paper, or plain canvas.

'You don't know where to begin. So I do lots of random lines'

and try to look at the images there.

'Even if I have a theme, I limit it to those lines.'

Once you have something on there, it's much easier to create an image.

'I like to see forms in...in lines, in patterns and, you know,'

or in stains, I always see something.

I see fishes everywhere.

Always!

PHONE ALARM RINGS

Stretch!

So I always see fishes, they always appear.

And I see a car, it looks like a van,

and there's a girl looking at it like this.

And there is a mermaid in a kind of...

..decanter, having a lovely time.

From my experience, what works better for me

is to add the colours gradually rather than really, really strong.

And it depends on the material you're using.

With the watercolour and pencil, it works really well

if you're layering it, and not really applying strong colours.

With paint, it's easier to correct it, because you can take it off

while it's still not dry and you can paint on top of it.

But on paper, you can't really go back.

You tend to be more careful

if you're working with watercolour and pencil and things like that.

When you make a mistake, so what? You made a mistake, do another one.

It's just really not the end of the world. It's OK.

Nobody's going to come and find you,

and punish you for it!

I've always worked on canvas and paper,

now this is the first time I'm doing something completely different,

new to me and it's very exciting.

I'm going to be working with these, on a van.

I'm tired of working on a 2D surface,

working on canvas and paper. It's just a bit boring.

I'm just giving it a quick wipe.

'And for this van I decided to use markers, compared to paint.'

And it gives me a lot of freedom

and I can create the lines that I want to.

Now, there's no going back from this.

It's the beginning and it's very scary.

SHE ROARS

Well, it definitely marks.

I've got... See the fishes, they just seem to be the most dominant.

Got a lady here which seems like a kind of bride.

That's a spaceship clam.

All those things you have to worry about if you're working outside.

I've got a little bit of a problem. I can't squeeze between this,

I have to ask him to move it.

'How long can you work in the cold, how long is it going to take,

'what if it rains?'

Clouds look a little scary.

I might get an hour.

I don't think it will rain.

Got a little bit of rain.

Waiting for it to stop.

My first thought was like, "I'm just going to finish it,

"just treat it like a canvas."

But then I realised, if there is a flow, and if there are gaps,

actually it would work better in terms of composition.

It could just follow a certain path.

I think I'm going to leave that bit because I'm very short.

This fear of making mistakes, and this fear that, you know,

something you do may not be good enough, it's not good

because if you have that fear, you're not going to do anything.

You'll just be repeating yourself over and over again.

This is what I did last night.

So, yeah, I'll be finishing this,

and, yeah, we've got this whole side that needs doing.

I'm running out of time.

So...get cracking.

The dust and rain is definitely a problem,

because you have to constantly wipe it, make sure your surface is dry.

This section here is really filthy.

And it can't be oily. So I sprayed it with window cleaner.

Bad idea! Bad idea!

I'm just doing some last finishing touches.

It's taken me about probably three weeks to do.

And it's just so nice to finish this last patch of red.

I'm going to leave it there.

I can always add more details with a fine pen here and there,

but no. I'm going to leave it.

And it makes me so happy seeing it finished.

I like to make people smile. I like them to look at it and smile

'or laugh, and say, you know, "This is funny!"'

I don't know, I like making people smile.