Visual art and storytelling have always been closely connected in my creative life. Sometimes an image comes first: a strange landscape, an unfamiliar face, a fragment of architecture or an impossible world catches my attention and refuses to let go. I begin to wonder who lives there, what happened moments before the image appeared, what might happen next, and why the scene feels important. Those questions become stories.
At other times, the process runs in the opposite direction: a story, character or idea already exists in my imagination, and visual art becomes a way of exploring it more deeply. Colour, atmosphere, landscape and form allow me to see the world of the story before I have found all the words for it. For me, these are not separate creative activities. They are different ways of listening to the same imaginative impulse.
From Visions to Words
My Visions to Words collection grew directly from this process. Many of the stories began with original digital artworks. I did not create those images to illustrate stories that already existed. Instead, I allowed the images to ask questions like:
- Who is this person?
- Where are they?
- What kind of world exists beyond the edge of the picture?
- What has happened here?
- What does this image make me feel — and why?
In a sense, the artwork became a doorway. The story was what I discovered after stepping through it.
When Stories Create Images
The exchange also works in reverse. Once a fictional world begins to take shape, I often find myself returning to visual art to explore its atmosphere. A character may suggest a palette. A landscape may emerge from a paragraph. A recurring symbol may become an image before I fully understand why it matters.
Creating artwork in this way can reveal things that prose alone does not. An image can expose the mood of a world. It can suggest scale, texture, light, distance or strangeness. It can show me what my imagination has been trying to say before my conscious mind has caught up. This is one reason visual storytelling has become such an important part of my fiction-writing process.
Art From an Inspired Mindset
Not every image needs to become a story. Sometimes the value of making art lies simply in entering an imaginative state. Creating without knowing exactly what the finished piece is supposed to become can loosen habitual thinking. Unexpected combinations appear. Colours suggest emotions. Shapes trigger memories. Strange worlds arrive without explanation. That kind of visual play can be useful far beyond traditional art-making:
- Writers can use images to discover characters and settings.
- Journal makers can use them as starting points for reflection.
- Designers and creators can build mood boards around them.
- Artists can use them to explore themes, palettes and new directions.
And sometimes an image can simply exist because it brings pleasure, curiosity or a moment of wonder. This idea sits closely beside my nonfiction work on creativity: the belief that inspiration is not something we have to force. Often, we simply need to create the conditions in which it can appear.
A Creative Conversation
The relationship between art and story is rarely linear.
- An artwork may become a story.
- A story may generate new artworks.
- Those images may suggest another story.
- A character may inspire a visual collection.
- A visual collection may uncover a theme I had not consciously noticed before.
That ongoing conversation is one of the things I enjoy most about creating. It is also why my work moves naturally between fiction, visual art and books about creativity. Each strand feeds the others.
Explore More
If you enjoy atmospheric, surreal and imaginative visual art, you can browse my downloadable collections at Worlds in Bloom.
If you are seeking ideas on how to use artwork in your own creative process, download my free guide, 10 Ways to Use Atmospheric Digital Art, from my Gumroad shop. You might like some of the other freebies there, too.
If you would like to bag some special editions that include strange stories and the artworks that inspired them, buy my Story & Art Bundles on Gumroad.
And if you are a writer, artist or creative person interested in developing your own imaginative practice, you can explore my books: Inspiration & Creativity and Inspiration for Authors.
To go deeper into your creative mind, dive into my audiovisual course, Creative Spirit.
