I is for...Inspiration

It can come from anywhere...hit you where you least expect it.  Sometimes it is ill-timed, like when you're about to fall asleep.  Other times it comes at the perfect moment to seize you in a fervent grip of creativity.

Inspiration, that elusive magic all creatives have certainly felt from time to time, and undoubtedly chased after at other times.

As an artist, I am always looking for that "thing," that a-ha moment, that big idea that is different from anything anyone else is doing.  I keep my eyes open and try to look at things in a new way.

Not long ago a painting in the background of a television news segment caught my eye.  That's a cool painting, I thought, looking past the woman who was being interviewed.  Something seemed off, though, and I looked a little closer.  I realized it wasn't a painting at all, but a stainless steel fridge behind a countertop with two white plates on it, and a couple of pieces of toast on the plates!

But, the painting was there in my mind, and so I had to get to work, of course :)

Below is the crop from the original news segment and then my resulting paintings where I tried to replicate what I thought I saw.  I guess the moral is to keep an open mind and you may be pleasantly surprised!

The original background that I thought was a painting.

"The Barrens I"  encaustic on board 2.5" x 3.5"

"The Barrens II" encaustic on board 2.5" x 3.5"

"The Barrens III" encaustic on board 2.5" x 3.5"