I’m Obsessed with Colour: Exploring the Art of Making People Feel Something
I am obsessed with colour.
Not in a casual, oh, that's a nice shade of blue kind of way. I mean the kind of obsession that makes me pull over to visit a charity shop I've never been to before, simply because I've spotted a riot of colour through the window.
Which is exactly what I'm planning to do today.
I'm currently sitting in a car park, finishing some sketchnoting work. And before you wonder why on earth I'm working in a car park, let me explain.
Sometimes, when I really need to focus, I get in my car and drive somewhere to work. I know it might sound a bit weird, but there's something about being in my car that helps me concentrate. I've found that it's often the place where I'm least likely to be distracted.
You see, my art studio can be an incredibly distracting place when I need to get some sketchnoting work done. It's as though the walls are shouting at me: Why don't you do some painting? Why don't you do some painting? WHY DON'T YOU DO SOME PAINTING?!
And honestly, it's a very persuasive argument. I'd much rather be playing with paint and colour than sitting down to make sense of complex topics and turn them into simple, beautiful sketchnotes. But that's not what I need to be doing when I've got a client deadline to meet.
Sometimes, I need to remove myself from all those tempting distractions and give my brain the space to concentrate on the task in hand. So I take my iPad or laptop, find a quiet car park and get to work.
It's become a surprisingly effective little mobile office. Weird? Maybe. Does it work for me? Absolutely.
And today, once I've finished my work, I've got a rather lovely reward waiting for me. I'm going to explore a charity shop I've just driven past. I have absolutely no idea whether the clothes will be my size or my style, but I've already decided it's worth investigating. Because the colours caught my eye, and that was enough.
There's something about charity shops that gives me an enormous hit of joy. It's the possibility of finding a bargain, of discovering something completely unique to me, of stumbling across an object that nobody else would think twice about but that somehow feels like it was waiting just for me.
And, of course, there's the colour. All those different shades, patterns and combinations, jostling for attention.
It's my idea of a good time.
Like a kid in a sweet shop
Earlier today, I spent the morning with my best friend (and fellow artist) at Watford Recycling Arts Project. It's a brilliant charity that collects materials and objects that businesses would otherwise throw away and makes them available to creative people through an annual membership scheme.
Walking around, looking at all the weird and wonderful things, I felt exactly like a kid in a sweet shop.
My brain was fizzing with possibilities. What could I make with that? What could that become? What would happen if I combined these two completely unrelated things?
I wanted to take everything home and make things. Lots of things. All the things.
That feeling is one of my favourite parts of being an artist. It's the excitement of possibility, before you've even started creating anything. It's looking at an object and seeing not just what it is, but what it could be.
I wish I could spend more of my time in that state of mind. Exploring, experimenting, playing and making things simply because I want to see what happens.
And I think that feeling tells me something important about the kind of artist I want to be.
I want to make people feel something
After our trip to Watford Recycling Arts Project, Fiona and I went for a coffee. She showed me photographs from an experience she'd recently visited with her husband, called Absurd City.
I don't know exactly how it works, but from the photographs it looked like an interactive, immersive experience, full of colour and wonderfully mad ideas.
I found myself thinking about how much I'd love to create something like that.
I've been reflecting a lot recently on where I want to take my art practice. What do I want to be known for? What do I want people to experience when they encounter my work? And what is it that I really want to achieve through the things I create?
I keep coming back to the idea of making people feel something.
When I held my solo exhibition at the Collective Gallery in 2024, I remember telling Fiona that I wanted people to feel as though they'd stepped into a sweet shop when they entered the gallery.
I wanted to create an experience that was bursting with colour. The kind of place that makes you feel an immediate rush of excitement. For some people, it might be a little too much. But for people like me? Absolute heaven.
That's what I wanted my exhibition to feel like. Not simply a collection of paintings hanging on walls, but an experience that enveloped people the moment they walked through the door.
And I want to explore that idea much further.
What if my artwork could change how people feel?
I love creating colourful paintings. I love designing murals. I love the idea that something I've made might brighten up a street, transform a wall or make someone smile on their way to work.
But what if I could go further?
What if I could create murals that people actively seek out because of how they make them feel? Spaces that invite people to stop, explore, interact and play? Environments that feel completely different from the everyday world outside?
And what about the paintings people bring into their homes and businesses?
I'd love to create artwork that people don't just buy because it matches their sofa or fills an empty space on a wall. I'd love them to choose it because of the way it makes them feel.
Because it makes them happy. Because it makes them laugh. Because it reminds them of being a child, when the world was full of possibilities and nobody had told them that they needed to be sensible. Because every time they look at it, they experience a little burst of joy.
I want to explore how colour, pattern, scale, imagery and unexpected combinations of things can create an emotional response. How art can become more than something we look at. How it can become something we experience.
I don't have all the answers yet. And that's what makes it exciting.
Reclaiming the joy of being childish
Perhaps this is all connected to something I've been thinking about for a long time: my desire to reclaim the word childish.
We're often told to grow up, to be sensible, to stop messing about and to take things seriously. We're encouraged to make practical choices, to be productive and to behave in ways that other people consider appropriate.
But what if we allowed ourselves to play a little more?
What if our homes, workplaces and public spaces gave us permission to feel joy, curiosity and wonder? What if art helped us reconnect with the parts of ourselves that we tend to leave behind as we get older?
I don't want to make art that simply looks pretty. I want to make art that sparks something in people. That makes them stop in their tracks. That makes them smile unexpectedly or feel a little rush of excitement.
I want to create work that gives people permission to embrace the things they love, even if those things are a bit silly, a bit weird or a bit too colourful for conventional taste.
Especially if they're a bit too colourful for conventional taste.
So, what's next?
I don't have a grand plan just yet. I have a lot of questions, a head full of ideas and a growing sense that there's something here I want to pursue.
What does it mean to create art that offers a genuinely immersive experience? Who else is exploring this territory? How can I experiment with creating environments that provoke a strong emotional response? And how can I bring that same feeling into individual paintings and public murals?
I want to research artists who are doing exciting things in this space. I want to visit exhibitions and immersive experiences. I want to experiment with scale, materials, colour and the relationship between artwork and the people who encounter it.
Most of all, I want to give myself permission to follow my curiosity. Which brings me back to the charity shop.
I'm still sitting in the car park, and I'm still ridiculously excited about the possibility of what I might find inside. Maybe I'll discover an amazing jacket. Maybe I'll find something completely unexpected. Maybe I'll come away empty-handed.
But that isn't really the point.
It's the anticipation. The possibility. The joy of being surrounded by colour and the feeling that something wonderful might happen. And perhaps that's exactly what I want my art to create. Not just something beautiful to look at, but a feeling. An experience. A little moment of unexpected joy in an otherwise ordinary day.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a charity shop to explore. Wish me luck.
And if you know any artists, exhibitions or immersive experiences that explore colour, joy and the emotional impact of art, I'd love to hear about them. I'm ready to do some exploring of my own.
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