Studio creative sessions are important at Port and Lemon. Sometimes we get stuck in the nitty gritty of running a design business like Port and Lemon- marketing, accounts, ordering, picking and packing the stock.. blah blah blah!
It’s easy to forget sometimes what we are all about- great design and that doesn’t just happen when you need it to, you must get your creative ideas in training!
Here at Port and Lemon HQ we decided a while ago to make time for getting creative, experimenting with materials and techniques, exploring subject matter and researching inspiration.
So, one day a week (usually a Friday) we down our admin tools and pick up our creative ones. Usually someone comes up with a subject matter they fancy using- maybe a still life with fruit and veg or a few odd objects found lurking in the studio.
Then we choose a medium, sometimes the old familiar ones like gouache or ink and sometimes the less familiar, perhaps a new product someone has come across, or an old one used in a different way (how we love bleach!) or a different technique like block printing or pen and ink.
Once that’s all been decided the play begins, along with copious amounts of coffee, cake and chat, all important elements to get the creative juices flowing.
At the end of the session we have a chance to assess our works of art and perhaps decide on next weeks plan, there is no criticism just encouragement and suggestions of how to continue to develop ideas and techniques.
The brilliant thing about all this creative messing around is that we are left with sketchbooks full of stuff, be it colour, pattern, lettering, images and many happy accidents- things we’d never have tried if we had our “serious” designing head on.
So, the next time a new design project comes along the first thing we turn to is our sketch books and the pages of resource we’ve created. It may not be the beginning of the next best seller, but it’s a valuable starting point and one that kicks our brains into touch.
This way of working is proving so helpful that we want to share the experience and offer others the chance to spend a few hours at a time in our studio benefiting from the creative buzz!
A plan is afoot at Port and Lemon to start some “pop up” creative sessions for anyone interested and maybe even put a course together for those who want to make time for being more creative or getting back into being creative on a regular basis. We know this way of building an “artistic bank” of ideas in a sketchbook is not a new one, but sometimes it seems a daunting task and by instigating some time to do it we hope we can encourage people to get their paints/pencils out and release their inner Van Gogh! If you’re a parent maybe you can use this time to get ideas to inspire your kid’s art projects, or maybe you work in a field that requires some creativity which isn’t your strong point.
Let us know if you’d like to get involved? If so we’d love you to register your interest, so we can keep you informed of our plans and the cost (we will try to keep this to a minimum and include any art materials). It doesn’t matter if you work in a creative field or just like a bit of a doddle in your spare time, everyone is welcome, so long as you want to get arty (and just a little bit messy) this is for you and with a little guidance from us hopefully we can set you on the path of creativeness!
Please contact us to register your interest (Kate and Tracy) at the Port and Lemon studio info@portandlemon.com phone number 01329 842418.