abstract art Archives - Ingrid Murray

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.)

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.

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.

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.

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.

Recent Work

Ingrid Murray mixed media art journal page with collage, charcoal scribbles, and neon pink drips.

Ingrid Murray mixed media art journal page with green scribbles, collage, and neon pink and black splotches.

I’ve been working near-daily in my art journal — adding collage, oil pastel, tempera paint, drips of acrylic ink, and pencil and paint marker scribbles. Here is some of my recent work.