Finding Inspiration

What inspires you?  Whether you paint, craft, pot, garden

or read you are constantly in front of things that have

the ability to inspire new ideas and thoughts.

If we are intentional we can often trace a "sudden" flash of inspiration

back to its original seed.....

Such as...

This photo I took in a hillside town in Umbria, Italy as the sun was going down:

I was in the courtyard of an old castle cooling my heels while waiting on friends.  I loved watching the light come through these trees and get softer and more golden by the minute.  As I noted how the limbs had grown together and gotten intertwined I began to imagine that the roots were likewise tangled up below the surface.  In reality, I thought, these trees have become one in that they support each other visually and invisibly.  The swing made me wonder about the lucky child that was playing beneath the protection of such strong support.  I took a few more photos, watched the light go nearly out and rejoined my friends.

Time passed but every now and then I would re-imagine those limbs reaching out to each other as they grew.  Much like my friends reached out to support me as I grew.

And one day I was cartooning around with pen and ink and watercolor and transformed my thoughts into a more literal drawing of what those trees meant to me.

Yes, I am certain that with more time and thought I could more proficiently depict this...but sometimes whimsy can carry its own message.  I've sold a lot of note cards with this image on it.  People always ask about it.  But the painting remains.  I'm thinking that it is waiting for the right time in the coming year to share yet another message.  Who knows?

So, the next time you are hit on the head with a "great idea" think about where it may have started...it can be a fascinating journey.

Best wishes for your journey into 2017,

Cindy

Umbria

In Steal Like an Artist, Austin Kleon reminds us

that the world is full of ideas just waiting to be

remade (stolen) in another form.  

My summer play dates have given me permission to

do just that.

Remember when I wrote about the marvelous clay technique of Patti Conner-Greene and her dreamscapes?  Click here for a reminder.  Abandoning her pottery wheel briefly, she started playing with layers of design and texture, building a scene without regard to a realistic perspective.  They are beautiful pieces of art.  So, I have become a thief...herewith my confession:

My visits to Italy always result in a ton of photos featuring the beautiful patchworked countryside of olive trees, vineyards and other produce.  The rolling hills, the colors from striped plantings, the mountainous background....such classic views of Italy.  (sigh) Painting that perspective however continued to throw me a curve ball.  One day I decided to just enjoy the effort and paint as if I were in Patti's sandbox rolling out clay and stamping it with crazy texture.

Umbria, detail

I laid down texture, I played with color, I mixed up patterns and I threw caution to the wind where realistic perspective was concerned.  I wanted to capture that feeling I always had gotten of seeing the countryside as a beautiful, freeform quilt of flowing pattern.

detail 2

Of course it had to have the classic Italian cypress in the foreground.  And a low hanging sky.

Umbria, oil, 36 x 24, framed

available, Crossnore Gallery of Fine Art

Done!  Thank you Austin Kleon for permission to be a klepto and to Patti Conner-Greene, of Linville River Pottery for the inspiration.  Oh, and grazie to artist Kelly Medford whom I was traveling with when we stopped to paint at Arte Umbria for an entire week! Much inspiration came from all these folks....my gratitude is endless.

Shameless,

Cindy

Arte Umbria: appetizer for art making

Rubbing my eyes as the sun came gently into my room, I thought for a minute I had woken up in a movie....star or bit part? Didn't matter, I snuggled deeper into the covers and looked around: old stone walls, a ceramic chandelier, tile floors, sloping beamed ceilings and, oh my, a canopy bed.  Birds were calling, I heard a rooster, and as I got up to open the shutters on my windows I looked out onto miles and miles of the gently rolling, ancient hills of Umbria.  Below I could see a stone terrace and everywhere  flowers: huge, hand-sized roses of all colors, pots and pots of geraniums, daisy pockets, waist high herbs, yellow broom with fragrance and so many others that have no name to me yet.  If this is a movie, I feel like the star!  If this is a novel then surely I must speak Italian.  If this is really a dream, well, don't wake me up.

Dinner was the best of an out-of-body experience: drinks on the terrace, conversation in small pockets inside when the winds got chilly and then a move to the dining room where, at a table for 12, a four course dinner was leisurely served as the wine and conversation flowed.  Where am I?  I had to strain to understand the language....and it was all English!  (No it was not the wine.) Those Brits sure know how to fancy up a sentence. And add to the fact that we had three from down under (which speaks in its own version of "English,"), plus 2 brave gals from Swedan with a totally different slant on the language, Kelly now speaks American-ese with an Italian accent and then me, the lone American, the only one whose language was fully comprehensible and at times that was even questionable.  We have a Catholic priest, a doctor, and international tech man, a retired college professor, a school teacher, a farmer, a shrink....it was a lively and fascinating conversation ... if one could keep up with it!

And, and......(be still my heart) we get to paint today.  Please don't wake me up.  

Ciao,

Cindy

P.s. Did I mention the on-site chef? 3 meals a day?