Write on Art
Creative Writing Category
Creative writing is about expressing and exploring ideas imaginatively.
Choose an artwork from Art UK’s website that inspires you to write a poem, letter, diary entry, short story or script. For example, you could write a letter from an artwork’s subject to the artist; an artist’s diary entry from when they were creating the artwork; or a poem that explores the details of an artwork through all of the senses.
Here are some questions to get you started:
- What story is the artwork telling you? Is this story the beginning, middle or end of an even bigger story?
- If the subject of an artwork could speak, what would they say?
- What do you think the artist was thinking and feeling when they created this artwork?
Assessment Criteria
1. Description: You will be assessed on how clearly your piece of writing is inspired by your chosen artwork. Is your writing specific enough so that it is clear you have been inspired by one artwork and not another? Have you included details in your writing that demonstrate you have been looking closely at your chosen artwork?
2. Style: You will be assessed on the artistic flair and imagination you show in your writing. Have the words you have chosen, and the way you have ordered them, conveyed an idea in the most vivid way possible? Have you made stylistic choices that spark your reader’s imagination too?
3. Engagement: You will be assessed on how enjoyable your writing is to read. Did you manage to keep your readers’ attention and make them want to read more? Did you immerse them in your chosen artwork?
Examples
Examples of famous pieces of writing inspired by artworks are Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier, The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, Mourning Picture by Adrienne Rich, and Rembrandt’s Late Self Portraits by Elizabeth Jennings. Artworks can be the starting point for a whole story, or the inspiration for capturing a moment in time or a character’s innermost thoughts and feelings.
This is an example creative writing piece by Esme Boggis responding to Study, Eggshells by Ethel Guymer.
Whole, Half, Quarter
Whole
I see the sheen first,
gleaming but mottled nude,
like glowing skin, or a pure white iris,
a shell of itself staring back.
An oblong shadow pours out from underneath,
warm light from the right is:
day light? A night light? A hot bulb under a shade?
It’s tinting, tainting, tempering the uncracked oval.
A real show off,
wholly poised, prouder than proud,
flush with fullness,
but it’s waiting, for something, anything.
Perhaps for a feathered foot to burst through,
or a wing or beak to the insides:
Break free little bird!
See the light of day!
Stillness is in the balance,
firm yet fragile,
could tip at any time
with a wobble of a wooden table leg,
or a waft of wind from an open door,
to make it
roll,
fall,
spin and sink beyond emerald edges,
until whites and yellows splat on the cold lino floor.
Half
Cracked up to be
a half, unequal, incomplete,
bits of itself hanging on,
forgotten flakes,
somewhere, not here, where?
Left to the elements,
sad air-dried cavity,
breezy emptiness,
dark patch in an ivory smudge.
A shadow again,
but not half of a shadow,
same shadow as the whole.
Milky beginnings become blurred,
a wholeness that once was,
membranes upon membranes:
useless now.
What are you green?
A murky swamp? A silky tablecloth? Neatly cut grass on a spring day?
Curdled paint strokes like
worms in a pond of algae.
A whimper between the cracks,
as if an open mouth calling for its other side,
left behind in a place unknown.
Quarter
The baby of the family,
or a broken cup,
a chalice once home to another.
Lake of blotchy blue and white,
tinges of brown as sand on a shore,
a brittle mountain range,
trying,
hoping to shield it from the storm.
A half of a half,
a quarter of a whole,
no pieces hanging off here,
clear edges clear of snags,
creamy points clearly broken
but solid,
reaching up like pincered fingers wanting more
There it is again,
a moon with no hue,
smaller,
cropped at the top, stunted by low edges,
owning up to its opening.
Fractured little thing,
light slipping through its rifts,
broken seams,
shattered nook,
but becoming something wholly new.