Where does a painter find the inspiration for a watercolour painting?
Do you need to be in front of a stunning landscape or a perfectly styled still life?
Thankfully, not!
I think we can often find the best inspiration to pick up that brush from the littlest things in our everyday life.
Yes, even on the most ordinary of days.
Where I live, right now we’ve been in lockdown for a crazy long time so I have been doing pretty much the same walk around the block nearly every day. You’d think I’d seen everything many, many times. Of course I have, but there is a difference between seeing and noticing.
The other day, right in front of me on the verge where I walk all the time was a stunning array of colour. Layers of gorgeous texture too. Simple flowers, but then simple things are usually the best, aren’t they?
Right up front was a spiky grass. I’m not sure exactly what it was but it had no flowers and very narrow firm pointy leaves. Behind that, glorious red geraniums with their wide juicy leaves. And peeping up from behind those, some lavender bending in the breeze.
How had I not noticed this before?
To be fair, it is newly spring so it is the time of year when little flowers do seem brighter - a relief after the bleak winter. Even so it was a good reminder of how easily we can miss the tiny delights in front of us, especially when there is so much going on in the world that distracts us from everyday happiness.
That makes it an excellent time to be a painter.
The job of a painter is to really pay attention. To notice the beauty in simple things.
When you remember to do that you are not only a happier person, but you never run out of painting inspiration.
The other thing that is good for painting inspiration is actually boredom and repetition -it’s actually quite useful for creativity. You might say it was a little boring to walk the same walk every day and see the same sights. But it was only after I realized that I was getting tired of seeing the same set of streets that I noticed these wonderful colourful layers that had probably been there for quite some time.
This little scene is now in my head and I want to keep playing with it in different ways. There is much to be gained from painting the same thing over and over again. Stick with the same subject and you can’t help but find ways to spice it up.
I could paint the colourful layers as an abstract.
Actually I did. It made for the perfect warmup to start off my painting session.
Watercolour warmup - Abstract Layers
Apart from creating little abstracts, I could change the point of view - paint it from up above or paint it from right down on the grass.
I could try different greens and blues in my palette.
I could try imagining light sources coming from different directions.
I could paint it at sunset.
The more ideas you think of, the more ideas keep coming. This is the way our brains work - pretty awesome, I’d say.
I painted what I remembered, essentially painting from imagination. I didn’t have my phone with me on my walk, but I don’t really feel I need a photo since the striking image of these simple layers of flowers is kind of stuck in my head now.
Most often I do paint from a reference of some sort. Even then I never replicate a photo - where’s the fun in that? Putting your own spin on it is just too irresistible.
I do paint flowers quite often which makes it easier to paint without a reference right in front of me. The more you draw and paint, the more you expand your visual vocabulary and the easier it gets to paint from imagination.
Would you like to see?
I was struck by the colour and texture of the layers in front of me. I loved the contrast of sharp spiky grass in the foreground against those flat wide dark green geranium leaves.
And could there be a better backdrop than the soft sage green of lavender leaves?
Colour wise that lavender in the background is very appealing from a composition standpoint. Cooler colours recede (think of how blue the distant mountains always look) so the soft blue green leaves and blue purple flowers are perfect for the most distant layer of plants.
In the same vein, warm colours appear to come forward, towards the viewer, so vibrant red geraniums are ideal in front of the lavender.
I might not be able to go very far outside right now, but happy sights are just outside my front door.
May you find the delights right in front of you today too.
And paint them. 😉
If you need a little help finding not only the inspiration for what to paint, but also some step by step real time video lessons, why not visit the classroom to see the current painting classes available?
I also have a whole class on watercolour supplies - it’s free, and you can sign up here.
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