Why I Make Art the Way I Do — Inside the Creative Process (Premium Edition)

I want to share something about my creative process that I don't often speak aloud. Every piece I make starts with an argument. It is between two parts of me. One part wants control, with clean lines and shapes. This part desires a structure I can trust. The other part wants to let go entirely. It wants to let color move freely. It seeks to let edges blur and forms dissolve. This creates something softer. That argument is the engine of my work. And I've stopped trying to resolve it. The Geometry That Started Everything I've been drawn to geometric forms for as long as I can remember. Not because they're simple — they're not — but because they carry a kind of quiet authority. A rectangle knows what it is. A triangle doesn't apologise for its angles. But what happens when you take that certainty and wash watercolour over it? That question led me to my Geometric Abstract Art Series. There, I explored architectural precision and painterly freedom. I did not have to choose between them. The shapes in my work come from the built world. Skylines. Scaffolding. Bridges. Floor plans. The repeating rhythms hidden inside everyday structures that most people walk past without noticing. I notice them constantly. I photograph them, sketch them, file them away. They become the raw material I bring into Photoshop. Inside the Creative Process — Layer by Layer My process always begins with structure. I lay down clean geometric forms — rectangles, triangles, arches — and establish the underlying architecture of the piece. At this stage it can look almost clinical. Hard edges. Clear boundaries. A kind of order that feels more like drafting than painting. Then I start building the watercolour layers. Working in Adobe Photoshop with specialist watercolour brushes, I apply washes of colour that gradually soften those hard edges. The warm oranges bleed into teal blues. The sharp rooflines begin to glow at their edges. The rigid forms start to breathe. This stage of the process is where I feel most alive – and it's also the most unpredictable. Even when working digitally, watercolor retains its true nature. It pools, it bleeds, it does things you never intended. The real skill lies in recognizing when to gently steer its course and when to simply let it lead. I'm constantly building, erasing, washing, and rebuilding. Layers are added, then later removed. If a piece feels too loose, I push the structure back. When it feels too tight, I let color flow freely. This back-and-forth guides my creative process. It is a dynamic push and pull. Precision and fluidity are balanced. Where Geometric Watercolour Digital Art Prints Find Their Voice There's something I find deeply satisfying about taking a form that feels fixed and showing that it can still move. A rectangle can glow. A roofline can dissolve into sky. A grid can feel warm. Watercolour doesn't destroy geometry's structure. Instead, it reveals something living inside it. That is what my Architectural Watercolour Series shows. The built world and painted world are not opposites. They are in conversation with each other. The geometric cityscape forms — stacked rectangles, overlapping triangles, arched doorways — are all drawn from real architectural observation. But the colour, the light, the atmosphere that surrounds them — that comes from somewhere else entirely. From the feeling of standing in a city at dusk when the light changes and everything softens. The Feeling I'm Chasing I'm not trying to paint cities. I'm trying to paint the feeling of cities. The way warm light catches on hard surfaces just before sunset. The way colour pools in the spaces between buildings. The way a skyline reflected in still water becomes something more abstract, more dreamlike, than the skyline itself. Photoshop gives me the tools to chase that feeling with precision. I can control the opacity of a wash, the softness of an edge, the exact temperature of a colour. But the feeling itself — that has to come from somewhere real. From observation. From memory. From standing in a place and letting it move you. That's why I make art the way I do. Not because the process is easy — it isn't. Not because the tension between structure and fluidity ever fully resolves — it doesn't. But because that tension produces something I can't get any other way. A kind of aliveness. A sense that the geometry is breathing. Have you ever looked at a city? Did the light change or shapes soften? The scene became more than its parts. That is the feeling I put into every print I make. I hope when you hang one on your wall, you can feel it too. — Phillip J Gordon Brushing in the city — watercolour layers coming to life in Photoshop.

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Why I Make Art the Way I Do — Inside the Creative Process (Premium Edition)

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