BREAKTHROUGH MOMENTS: Nurturing the Next Generation of Creatives

Joella Wheatley is a London-based painter and the founder of Young Creatives Online, a platform making meaningful art education accessible to children and young people everywhere. We sat down with her to talk about creativity, courage, and what happens when you stop waiting to be encouraged.

ORIGINS

What drew you to become an artist?

Watching my uncle paint when I was younger was probably the first time I remember thinking, `I want to do that. ` At the same time, school creatively felt a little difficult for me. I was not especially encouraged towards art, and I do not think I was really taught it in a way that helped me understand how to develop creatively.

When you are not encouraged and not properly taught, all you are really left with is the internal drive to keep creating and I think that became the thing I held onto. I kept coming back to drawing and painting regardless. Over time, I slowly started building the confidence to say, ‘Yes, this is something I genuinely want to do.’

“Once I began pushing for those opportunities myself, my passion for art became even stronger.”

PRACTICE

What is your creative process like?

My process usually begins with observation and collecting. I make small sketches, write notes, and gather fragments of colour, texture, atmosphere, or light that stay with me emotionally. Often it is not the obvious subject that interests me, but a feeling within a landscape – quietness, distance, stillness, uncertainty, comfort, or memory.

A lot of my work is rooted in personal experiences and emotional states. I often create quiet narratives or metaphors within the paintings, using landscape and atmosphere as a way to process feelings that can sometimes be difficult to explain directly. Themes of feeling lost, searching for contentment, mental struggle, or emotional weight tend to naturally find their way into the work. In many ways, painting feels therapeutic to me, it is where I make sense of things.

“Although the finished pieces can appear calm or minimal, there is usually a lot of experimentation underneath.”

The work develops quite slowly. I spend a lot of time simplifying, removing information, and trying to understand what the painting actually needs. I am interested in restraint and subtlety, so the process is often about reducing rather than adding. I work through layers, surface changes, colour adjustments, and compositional shifts until something begins to feel emotionally resolved.

TEACHING & PRACTICE

How does your artistic practice inform the way you teach?

The two are completely connected for me. My own practice constantly reminds me that art is not really about perfection or talent – it is about observation, patience, curiosity, and learning to trust your decisions over time. That deeply shapes the way I teach.

With Young Creatives Online, I try to help children understand how drawing and painting actually work rather than simply copying outcomes. I want them to feel confident experimenting, making mistakes, and developing their own ideas, while also learning the important foundations and techniques that genuinely help them grow creatively.

Art is often treated as though people are either naturally ‘good’ at it or they are not, but I really do not believe that is true. Like any skill, creativity needs nurturing, teaching, practice, and encouragement. Thoughtful teaching can gently undo that mindset and help children realise they are capable of far more than they first thought.

“Teaching young creatives has influenced my own work enormously. Children approach creativity with honesty and openness and being around that energy constantly reminds me to stay playful and curious.”