Not too long ago, I displayed a Chuck Close quote where he said that work is inspiration in itself, that by simply steadfastly doing what you do will open up creative avenues to follow. I frimly believe that and have experienced it on many occasions including just this past week.
As I have been documenting, I am working on a large canvas, which is nearing completion, by the way. I showed, in a post last week, how I would cut the image into sections to weigh the strength of each area of the canvas to make sure that it had its own visual power to contribute to the painting as a whole. I showed the two section from each edge of the canvas and concluded that both pieces stood up well as strong parts of the overall painting as well as compositions in their own rights.
In fact, the section from the far right kept me coming back to it. I really liked the way it flowed upward with each piece interacting with those around it, creating a lovely harmony that really worked well, for my personal taste, at least. It gave me a great sense of peace looking at it and I soon began exploring ways to make it work in a separate piece.
I felt a real sense of immediacy in creating something based on this and, searching the studio, realized I didn’t have any prepared surfaces ready in any dimension close to what I was seeing in my head. There was a painting that was in a later state of completion, one that I had mentioned here recently. It never really sang for me and had sat in a corner of the studio for quite a long time, just waiting for me to give it the needed attention. But every time I looked at it, I was less than inspired. It just wasn’t working.
So, looking at it as a possible new surface to paint, it wasn’t a difficult decision to paint over the image that had never really taken off for me. It wasn’t a perfect choice, a bit smaller and narrower than the inspiring image, shown here to the left. The original is somewhere in the 24″ wide by 54″ range whereas this piece is only 10″ wide by 30″ high, making it a much more condensed space in which to work.
The resulting image is therefore different, which is as it should be. It is inspired by, not a copy of, the original image. For me, it flows in much the same manner and has the same sort of feel and harmony. It works for me and having said that creates its own new sense of inspiration for other work to come. Just like Chuck Close said– one thing leads to another.
Redtree Times 