Category Archives: Inspiration

Exploring my creations responding to a jungle theme

 Developing on a initial inspiration and developing a theme

I am often asked about how I create my work so I thought that I would share some of my creative  processes. The inspiration for this series started life with a photograph of the undergrowth in my garden.

photograph of my jungle dreams painting created in acrylics using predominatly greens yellows reds blues and whote

Jungle dreams acrylics on canvas

For the  initial image I drew inspiration from the shapes and colors wishing to develop and enhance these to create a work that  inspired a imaginary magical world revealing  hidden characters within.

photograph of painting leaves designs imaginary landscape - penwork multicoloured

Leaves design colored line work

For this second piece I was inspired to create a work inspiration. I started the process by placing a transparent paper on the top of the painting I then drew around the shapes that appealed to me, I then replicated the section as a mirror image joining the sections together to create a new starting point for my next design.

photograph of my wilderness painting painted in coloured sections created in acrylic paint in white canvas

Wilderness imagined

For the final piece I was then inspired to use color to  place  further emphasis on different sections thus creating my leaves design.

 

Networking meeting up with other creatives/ keeping motivated

It is often easy to become isolated during the creative process and if your not careful this can lead to the old creative block.This is very much the case when much of your income is derived from your creative work.

Well I don’t know about you but I have definitely gone this one at different times… so how to overcome this….. always a difficult one as we all create in different ways …. I am someone who always has a different project on the go be it creating my own work or facilitating creativity in others . It is so easy to spend so much energy on projects that you just simply exhaust your self self preservation kicks in and well.

Ive tried many different ways to get the creative brain cells working again from starting a creative diary to taking a rest then spending some time as a arts tourist , visiting gallerys , reading a good book going to see some live bands etc …. do something totally different from paint balling to rock climbing and testing your comfort threshold …….

On the upside once this has happened and you have come out the other side you realise that the best thing to do is to factor in some relaxation time when your head is next immersed in a project and allow yourself to do something totally different every now and again.

My solution is not to fight it just except that we all need down times the other thought is that you are totally reliant in your artistic endeavor to earn a wage

Creative blocks and thoughts on overcoming them

Being creative by nature I have always been involved in lots of creative projects, so when the old creative block kicks it is often easy to put of dealing with this by immersing yourself in other creative activities instead.

Now I am not saying that this is always a bad thing that is of course unless you need to earn  a living totally from your art work, however one of the hardest things is to to get going again. So with that in mind I have decided to share some of the things that I have been doing to help me to get going again in the hope that it might help others who are facing the same problem .

Future posts Creating textural based art work

Abstract freestyle experimentation

For other blog entries linked to keeping diaries etc view

Freeing up your creativity diary s and on line courses

Freeing up your Creativity experimenting with abstract freestyle

Kickstarting the creative flow

As with all creative processes it is very easy to become fixed in a particular style of working, what with deadlines and limited time around other creatives this is always a potential problem.It is interesting how by spending lots of time helping others to be creative can effect your own ability to let loose and explore your own creativity.

I wanted to explore this topic by taking part in activity’s that would allow me the time to free up my own creative nature and  fortunately have been able to  enroll on  a free 3 week online course ,recently designed and created by a lovely fellow creative Jani Frank who has  been through the same thought process herself and wanted to share this with others.http://janijellybean.blogspot.co.uk/

One of the questions that Jani posed on her blog is how you go about getting around creative  blocks and creating anyway… one of the ways I find is to set myself a limited time period, I usually set aside  a minimum time of 2- 3 hours, then  try not to think about what I am going to do  and just get on with it,  the starting is often the hardest bit , don’t always expect to get going straight away just doing helps and before you know it will happen.

I have often started with a inspiration , a photograph that I have taken etc which has always been a good place for me and in the past I was often  able to draw inspiration from my imagination.

With time constraints I have found that the  my ability to create ideas from my imagination has been overtaken by this method of working and although useful I find myself  considering how to free up the more exploratory side of my nature, hence my reason for joining Jani s course.

I have decided to share this journey with you and will be setting up a page to share my explorations

Update re my art exhibition at Greyladies Art Centre

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If you are reading this post because you  have attended this exhibition I just wanted to say thank you for all of your support and kind comments.

Now into our 4th day I am glad to say that I have have had much interest and have sold my sunset seascape mentioned recently, to a lovely gentleman who had actually been to the place in Montenegro that the painting was based on.

We have all been having a great time and received some great feedback , it is always great speaking to other people especially when as in my case my work can often be interpreted   in different ways.

Creating my second commissioned sea landscape

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My Final version of the painting now hanging in the clients surgery

 

a photograph of my first version of my painting of

 

Bantham beach version 1

My second  commission was an interesting challenge for me as I had never created this kind of work before and I rarely work in a limited range of colors and usually would include colorful sky which he didn’t want. The client  wanted me to capture the flavor of the place linked to specific memories of his childhood.

a second version of my painting now including thurlesdon rock

This painting started life as a compilation of different images of an area called Bantham in Devon. An interesting challenge for me as I had never created this kind of work before and I rarely work in a limited range of colors and usually would include colorful sky which he didn’t want.

 

a abstract painting of Thurlestone Rock

Thurlestone rock side view

 

Linework leaves based theme experimenting with the image

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painting leaves design linework

Leaves design colored line work

I often enjoy starting with a previous design and then pushing the design that bit further ,examples if this can be seen the following images.

Using the  jungle play painting as a starting point I created a section of the image tracing over the image, I then used pencil and pen to  mirror the sectioned area and then let my imagination fill in the gaps.

My second piece develops this idea  further  creating a new image that takes the work in a new direction . Both paintings can be viewed on my paintings page

 

 

 

Creating my jungle dreams

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I love the idea of using a conventional image using my imagination to add a little something more , starting with a photograph that I took on a sunny day in my back garden. In this case I found myself including a mysterious character in the background. This can be seen further in my follow on line work design

Jungle dreams