Spring Inspiration

The beautiful sunshine has inspired me to grab my camera and take a few shots - I knew what I wanted - a springtime shot by the river (I'm planning to do 4 at the same spot, representing the seasons, and already have a winter one) and another of a tree in blossom.  I'm fairly happy with these - I especially like the atmospheric mistiness of the first one, and I always love to see the light shining through trees and flowers.  I plan to use the images in some mixed media artwork, though at the moment I'm not sure when I'll find time to do it - too little time too much to do!

Thoughts about Inspiration and Influence

On my travels around the web, I come across lots of creative work which inspires and influences me, but this always worries me slightly.  While I love to look at and admire the work of others, I want my own ideas and work to be as original as possible - truly my own, and I'm always worried that if I spend too much time looking at what others are doing, my own work will be influenced more than I would like.  Now I know that this is ridiculous.  No man is an island, and nobody's work can ever be 100% completely and utterly original - it will always build upon what they see around them.  Even the greatest artists are influenced by the work of their forbears and contemporaries to greater or lesser extent, and it informs and helps develop and improve their work.  So I should be able to do the same.  But where does admiration or inspiration end, and copying begin? Sometimes it can be a fine line.  For me, influence is about perhaps taking an element of someone else's work, and using it to change and develop your own - that element will itself, simply by being placed in a different context, change, develop further and look different, especially as time goes on.  Sometimes it is just a matter of experimenting with a new technique, a technique which you may find you love and adopt wholeheartedly, or one which you may ultimately discard, but which will have led you on a new journey, learning new things along the way.  At other times it may be just a colour combination.  I suppose as long as the influence is just a starting point for creating something new it shouldn't be a problem.  Copying the art of the great masters for example has long been acknowledged as a valid way of learning about the practice of art.  Even though I know that all this is natural and good, I still feel guilty if I am inspired to try something that someone else has done first.  It even concerns me sometimes that I may start subconsciously copying someone else's work, something that I've seen and admired, but forgotten about.  Perhaps I'm a little paranoid about it, but I'm going to have to get over it because otherwise I'll never do anything!

First Post

I thought it was about time I made a start on this blog.  For a while now as I've been browsing around other people's blogs - especially creative ones, I've been feeling a little jealous - there are so many projects to take part in, so many ideas to share and experiment with, and I've felt a little left out.  My 'main' blog (Artful Adventures) was really intended to be a business blog - I think it's moved a bit beyond that, and although I do love that blog, it's dedicated to children's art, and is not the place to share my own stuff, so I wanted a my own space for that purpose.  I wanted somewhere to share and record all the wonderful inspirational things I came across, and yes, to indulge myself a little.

Not that I get the time to do a lot of my own work, more's the pity.  I spend a lot of my time being creatively frustrated, as I have lots and lots of ideas and no time to do them all.  I've not really spent a lot of time doing artwork since I left University, and I feel I need the time to experiment, to develop my own style, not just by dabbling, but spending some real quality time absorbed in the studio.  What  studio?  Well I don't really have one - we just have a room that is office, studio and part-time fitness space - you can imagine the chaos - 3 mutually incompatible activities in one not terribly big room!  It is a dream of mine to have my own special space one day.

Of course it's not just artwork - ever since I can remember I've had a wider interest in crafts in general - there's so much I want to try my hand at.  I've always been particularly interested in art, textiles, papercrafts, jewellery, and glass.  But life is just too short to try all of these properly.  Sometimes I think I should forget about trying to become any good at just one and have fun instead.

I was intrigued to see that I'd somehow managed to pick up a follower before I'd even put a single post on here - that was certainly a leap of faith!  Let's just hope I can live up to it.  I'm not sure how often I'll be able to add to this blog - I suspect that at first I'll struggle to contribute to it really frequently, just as I struggle to get the time to do my own creative work.   But setting up this blog really is a statement of intent, and I'm intending therefore over the next day or two to try and indulge myself a little - just watch this space to see if I achieve it!