Category: inspiration

Where Inspiration Comes From

All this web based business stuff is giving me a big headache. It’s hard enough to keep pushing away resistance, and now I’ve made life tougher by trying to decide on my next cyber move: Paid web hosting vs free hosting. I played around with the free site thing and have concluded I might as well use the more professional looking paid site because free is just as much work. I’m websited out.

Can’t I get a break and just paint?  I did start another painting though, and even had a second session. Working the next watercolor work on large paper, with a large brush, is having a calming effect.
And if you want to have a good laugh, guess where my inspiration to get down to work came from? It didn’t come from the obvious source: reading The War of Art. 
A two year old’s work and my sketch of her while she paints
To be perfectly honest, it came from watching my 2 year old granddaughter paint. That kid is funny. She demands the “colors” and I have to oblige. I’ve shown her how to dip her brush in water, then on the watercolor cake I had from years ago, then to the paper. She’s a pro now, and paints with such abandon, it’s infectious. I love it! 
Next painting

Session 2

This was such a productive day. Two different sessions of working and I was trying some new ideas in applying the paint. While the work was drying I was on such a roll that I made two bracelets at  my work table. Thanks to my grandbaby, the real artist.

When the motivation is there, and the brain works it’s a good thing, as long as it doesn’t blow up, like computers.

Resistance is a Killer

Resistance is a funny thing. Funny as in, not so funny. Funny as in, a killer. A killer of motivation, inspiration, the feeling of wanting to do something and the non-energy to move. 
Yeah. Resistance is all that. Back to the proverbial drawing board, as they say.
The point is in the process. Paint something! Good, bad, whatever. Just do it. Sit down, get something on paper, never mind what we think about the ‘something’. The point is to work. 
Yes, I know all that. So why is it so hard to actually DO it? Don’t ask me. I decided to go back to reading The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. Strangely enough, after I had re-read the first chapter, I felt empowered enough to paint. Even if it meant what I painted was dumb. Even if the outcome was sub-par, I did it.
I put down the book, gathered my stuff and headed outside to the front garden. The summer blooms have faded. All that’s left are the seed heads of the pink daisies and other perennials, although the asters are just starting their fall show of periwinkle blue.

Mixing colors to try for periwinkle wasn’t working so I did my best, adding color where I felt it needed to go, then I stopped. Remember, it could go to trash quickly if I don’t stop myself.

Finding time this weekend, I went back and added some detail. Whatever I think about this work I will keep to myself. Do the seed heads really need to look like the real thing? Not really. I just wanted to paint with color for a breezy feeling, hoping the process would take me there.

Seed Heads ©2012 Dora Sislian Themelis
14×20 Watercolor, Arches cold press paper

The paper was dry and it was easy to add strokes of paint to areas I thought needed it.  Am I happy with it? Eh, let’s just say I’m glad I got something on paper.

Did it. Done.

Photos for Friday-Veggie Haul

Take a look at my haul from the farm share this week. Plenty of stuff that I don’t know what to do with and that I don’t even know what they are. That’s going to be fun. Ok, I’m not that dense, some things I know, but I think Google will be busy as I hunt for recipes. What do you do with kohlrabi? Oh, that’s the weird alien looking thing with the beautiful sunflowers in this last photo.

Vegetables aside, the inspiration I got from photographing these things was invaluable. I took photo after photo in hopes of future paintings coming out of it. Yes, from photographs. I am in it to win it. Wish me luck!

Keeping On

I’m still working on painting those 100 paintings. Thank goodness I joined the challenge otherwise I would find excuses not to paint. So, the idea to be accountable to someone or something else works.

It’s like when you are in school and expected to come to class prepared. The possibility of failure is up close and personal. Not so when you’re working on your own. Who’s going to grade me? No one, but myself. And I could give myself a pass instead of a fail.

Independent study might not be my forte. In my last year in college I had a painting class at which the professor did not hold regular hours. You had to paint on your own and attend one class a month. You can just imagine how that went. I was wasting time until I received the notice when class would meet and then Bam! I had to get on it.

I pulled out my 5ft roll of canvas, kicked it out on my basement floor and where it stopped I cut it and painted. At the time I was working in oils doing color studies using a limited palette of three colors. Abstract work, mixing the amounts of colors to see how many I could get from those three in a cloudy-like design.

Working all day and into the late night, I painted until I filled eight feet of canvas. Needless to say, my professor was impressed. After all, he told me to paint bigger! I knew I could do that, I just needed the time frame.

Pebble and Bits (c)2011 Dora Sislian Themelis
9×12 Watercolor on Arches paper

All these years later I’m still the same person I was back then. I need to be accountable and have a time frame. I guess that’s why twenty minutes does the trick along with this challenge.

Thought for Thursday

“I don’t believe in total freedom for the artist. Left on his own, free to do anything he likes, the artist ends up doing nothing at all. If there’s one thing that’s dangerous for an artist, it’s precisely this question of total freedom, waiting for inspiration and all the rest of it.”  ~Federico Fellini, Italian movie director (1920 – 1993)