From Hating Painting to Finding Purpose: My Journey into Sustainable Art

For a long time, I hated painting. It feels strange to admit that now, when it has become such a grounding part of who I am, but back then, painting felt hollow.

I couldn’t connect with the slickness of man-made paints. Their plastic texture, the artificial shine, the chemical smell, all of it felt disconnected from the natural world that inspired me. I was painting landscapes of emotion and place, yet using materials that worked against the very things I cared about.

The more I painted, the less I recognised myself in the work. My confidence faded. I began to wonder if I had lost the reason I ever picked up a brush in the first place.

Rediscovering Connection

That began to change when I discovered the artist Jonna Jinton. Watching her create her own pigments from earth, ash, and stone was transformative. Her process was slow, intentional, and deeply respectful; she didn’t just paint about nature; she painted with it.

It sparked something in me.

I began collecting natural materials from the places around me — crushed rocks, clay, shells, and ash; and experimenting with turning them into pigment. For the first time in a long time, painting felt honest. Each colour carried the texture of where it came from. Each mark felt connected to the earth beneath it.

What Now?

That exploration came to life in my 2024 piece ‘What Now?’, three naturally based painting mediums on canvas and wood.

Throughout my academic journey, I had largely avoided painting. My aversion to the plasticity and environmental impact of conventional paints made me hesitant. So with What Now?, I challenged myself to reimagine what painting could be.

I created my own pigments using ash, rocks, clay, and shells, searching for both a broader range of textures and a more sustainable process. As I worked, I found my focus shifting toward contemporary global issues, particularly the sorrow and loss caused by war.

One image stayed with me: a mother and child embracing amid devastation. Their shared light inspired me to create a gritty, textured surface using Polyfilla mixed with pigment, a reflection of rubble and ruin, but also of resilience and love.

What Now? became more than a question about the world; it was also a question for myself, What is the purpose of it all?

Through that piece, I began to find an answer.

A New Way of Painting

Since What Now?, my practice has grown into a dialogue between material, emotion, and sustainability. I now work with handmade pigments, reclaimed surfaces, and textural layers built from soil, wall grout, and natural binders.

Each painting carries its own physical story, traces of place, fragments of time, and the imperfections that make it human. The process itself has become my anchor: slow, mindful, and tactile.

My work continues to explore the tension between destruction and renewal, the way beauty survives even in the aftermath of loss.

I no longer hate painting. I’ve simply learned to do it differently. To make it mine. To make it honest.

With love and minerals,
Ellie Jane.