Finding Magic in the Middle

When creativity feels more like maintenance than momentum.

Hey lovely souls,

How on earth has May been and gone already? I adore May. Not because it’s my birthday month (I actually don’t really enjoy birthdays, which always feels slightly controversial to admit), but because everything feels alive. Wildflowers are everywhere, the birdsong is endless, and the light... oh, the light. It catches and casts itself in the most beautiful ways.

It’s the reason I’ve been creating so many small paintings lately.

A lot of people ask where I find inspiration and whether I paint from photos. Sometimes I do, but my favourite pieces rarely come from replicating what I see. They come from trying to capture how something felt. An atmosphere. A smell. A combination of colours. The way light filters through leaves or reflects across water.

Lately, I’ve become slightly obsessed with exploring shadow and light. The moodiness of deep shadows contrasted with the softness of nature feels endlessly fascinating to me. These smaller paintings have given me space to experiment without the pressure that often comes with larger pieces. And if I’m honest, that pressure has felt particularly heavy this year.

The ideas are there. Sketchbooks full of concepts, plans and possibilities. But translating them into finished paintings feels harder than it used to. Maybe it’s where I’m at personally or maybe it’s simply one of those seasons creatives move through.

Life in HD

I’ve often joked that creatives move through the world in permanent HD. We’re constantly observing, absorbing, collecting fragments of life that eventually find their way into our work. The way someone’s voice changes when they’re excited. The colours reflected in a puddle. The shadows cast across a wall at golden hour. The tiny details that might seem insignificant to everyone else.

The beautiful thing about noticing everything is that you find magic everywhere. The difficult thing is that you notice everything. If you’ve ever filmed in HD, you’ll know the battery drains much quicker. That’s probably the closest analogy I have for how my energy has felt this year.

Which is perhaps why I’ve found myself spending so much time in what I call “the middle.”

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Consistency Over Intensity

I’ve just posted a new YouTube video about this topic. Compared to last year, creativity has felt more like maintenance than momentum, and I wanted to document that. Artists have seasons, yet we often only celebrate the finished piece, the exhibition, the launch, the final result.

What we don’t celebrate as often is the reflection, the experimentation, the frustration, and the countless small acts of consistency that eventually become something meaningful.

The middle is that season where you know you’re heading somewhere, but you can’t quite see where yet. The ideas exist, but they’re still blurry around the edges. Progress feels slower than you’d like, but you keep showing up anyway.

These little paintings became more than just market stock or social media content. They’re reminders to pay attention. To notice where shadow meets light, the way water sparkles, and the colours nature pairs together so effortlessly. They’re helping me reconnect with curiosity and the unanswered rather than the pristine and perfected.

I like to think every painting, sketch, finished project, or imperfect attempt becomes evidence that you can continue creating through different seasons of life. The goal isn’t extraordinary art. It’s proving to yourself that you’ll keep going regardless of the outcome.

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Spill the tee…

And speaking of finished projects, I have a little bit of exciting news...

Lovely souls T-shirts are now available, and I couldn’t be happier with them. The detail is crisp, the fabric is ridiculously soft, and the Pantone colour is absolutely poppin’. They’re a little ode to the lovely souls on this planet. And I blooming love pretending to be a creative director/photographer piecing it together like my own silly little campaign.

Finally, I just wanted to say thank you.

One of the reasons I adore Substack, Patreon and YouTube so much is that these spaces celebrate the process, not just the outcome. You get to see the messy middle, the experiments, allll the uncertainty and the bits before anything makes sense.

So thank you for spending those middle moments with me. If you’re also in a season where things feel slower, heavier, or a little more uncertain than you’d like, I hope this reminds you that creativity hasn’t left you…

…It might simply be asking you to find magic in the middle.

Much love always,