I seem to have ‘expo-ditions’ on the brain and thought it would be fun to start doing them as a regular thing to inspire me. Of course we already walk through beautiful countryside daily whilst walking Ellie and I sometimes glimpse something that will make me stop and catch my breath and then race back to the studio to paint it.
Lately, that hasn’t been happening so much and I feel like I am going through a huge transition with my art. I have this strong yearning you see to paint more from life and I can’t seem to shift it. I always thought that painting in this way was boring, I couldn’t sit still long enough to really look and draw what I saw. In many ways I am still like that and have a lot of growing to do as an artist (which feels quite exciting and yet quite scary at the same time).
I love Impressionism and the whimsical paintings I have been doing to date and so somewhere in there is ‘me’ waiting to emerge. I don’t think I’ll ever be a realistic painter.
Anyway, back to the point, my adventure started on Monday when I declared it day 1 of my new experiment and expo-dition, didn’t have a clue what or where I was going but headed out with sketchbook, pens and pencils in my Hubby’s side bag and felt like a student again which was great! :D
I wandered down to the local High Street and parked myself in the Cafe Bar garden in the corner, out the way and ordered myself an americana which I hardly ever have (adventure remember?) I sat by the trickling water in the fish pond and surrounded by very old buildings (1800’s or earlier) I sat and pondered the view.
I never sit in front of what I’m going to paint or draw, I’ve always done it by memory or imagination. So this is pretty new for me. I felt intimidated at first but thought what the heck and just started drawing parts of what was around me in pencil and actually enjoyed it – yes I really did!
I started on the next page and drew more in pencil then I got fidgety. So out came my new Zig pen bought on holiday and I started going over my pencil lines – Oh yes now I’m having fun, I thought to myself. I scribbled away and then out came the pencils, I had limited colours with me so decided to just pick parts out to colour. There is something about squiggly lines I just love!
Doing this really did something for me, I felt free and learnt something new about what I enjoy artistically, I wrote words that came to mind to help me remember.
After about an hour doing all this and long finished my coffee I thought I had better move on…
I walked through the country side, taking my time and really looking, out came my camera…
I ended up taking quite a few photos, above is most of them. I’m thinking they will make great studies when I need something to sketch, if nothing else they were fun to take.
I still don’t quite know where all this is going and I’m searching for a new theme for my next paintings. Hopefully inspiration will come soon and I’ll be back painting.
In the meantime I plan to keep going with these expo-ditions and also sketching daily to keep things moving.
Yesterday wasn’t such a great sketching day, not a lot came from it but I did finally make my Teesha Moore journal, which came out really cool. Not sure what I’ll use this journal for but I am so glad I made it.
What inspires you for your art/paintings and do you go out on adventures to inspire you? Where do you go?
xxx
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