The Life of a Painting: Inspiration

Most of my ideas start with a quick sketch of the subject. If it looks promising, I’ll develop it futher with more specific drawings.

This is were that colour study helps a lot. This gives me an idea of how much of what colour I’ll need where.

Sargeant Bay

Speaking of milestones, I did this painting of Sargeant Bay twenty years ago! Obviously, the viewpoint is different but the little fir tree that features in the new piece, can be seen to the far right of this older one. It will be interesting to see the difference between the two when I’m done.

As promised this next series of blogs will document the creation of a painting from beginning to end. I’ve always been curious how other artists work; whether they go through the same ups and downs I seem to experience on every painting I do. I’m fascinated by the creative process and hope this experiment will give a little insight into mine.

There is always some spark of an idea that germinates and grows in my mind until I have a pretty clear idea of what I want to do. That spark can be something I’ve seen, or dreamed, or remembered, and often the work of another artist will inspire me as well. In the case of this particular piece, it came at the suggestion of a friend to revisit a place I have painted at before. In fact 20 years before! The thought of reinterpreting this location as a much different artist seemed a cool idea.

By the way, if anything I’m describing needs clarification or if you have any questions at all, feel free to leave a comment, and I will do my best to help.