The Mindful Artist

What Inspires You?

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In this feature, each month artists share one thing that excites them creatively.

One key piece to support healthy, productive creativity is stimulating inputs. What kinds of things stimulate the creative centers of the brain? What kind of inputs stimulate us visually? Emotionally? Spiritually? Mentally? Physically?

I’d really like to know, what’s one thing that fills your creative cup? Share with us in the comment section below.

 

What Inspires You?
Dave Reid


I’m inspired by science (nanotechnology, for example), colour, other cultures, history (West coast native art is great), form and sky. Often one thing will lead to another; I’m working on some pictures for an upcoming show – one picture took an abrupt turn, which I followed and am now learning new aspects from this.

Dave Reid

 

What Inspires You?
Sean Glenn

Life is what inspires me: the authenticity of each emotional experience lends validity to each brush stroke. What inspires is sometimes the pain that comes with living, it’s joys, it’s sorrows, it’s triumphs and  it’s losses. What inspires me is love.

Sean Glenn

http://www.wix.com/blacincworks/blacin-art

 

 


What Inspires You?

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In this feature, each month artists share one thing that excites them creatively.

One key piece to support healthy, productive creativity is stimulating inputs. What kinds of things stimulate the creative centers of the brain? What kind of inputs stimulate us visually? Emotionally? Spiritually? Mentally? Physically?

I’d really like to know, what’s one thing that fills your creative cup? Share with us in the comment section below.

 

 

What Inspires You?

Linda Ursin

What inspires me?

Anything and everything. It’s hard for me to pick one. I can’t really say I know where it comes from. I’m multi-creative, which means I create in many different ways.

 

Linda Ursin
Website: heksebua.com/linda

 

What Inspires You?
Leo Anderson

What inspires me?

Ideas come from everywhere. God gave us a lot to work with and putting it together in a unique way intrigues us all. Make notes. Your mind is full and universal mind has all – so take notes on what comes to you. It doesn’t matter if you’re working on a thing or not. Put a date on it. Do everything you do perfect because it’s all only single steps. Nature is full, observe!

Leo

Adding Texture to Your Paintings Using Ceramic Stucco & Flexible Modeling Paste

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When I first switched over from oils to acrylics years ago – I was always trying to get away from the “plastic-y” look they had.

Then I discovered the array of gels and pastes that could take the standard paint texture from creamy to stiff to sandy to matte.

The two I show you in this video are still in my all-time favorites list.

Hope you enjoy it and let me know your thoughts! Have you used these before? What are your favorite acrylic gels? Any techniques you’d like to share?

What Inspires You?

by Leave a Comment

 

In this feature, each month artists share one thing that excites them creatively.

One key piece to support healthy, productive creativity is stimulating inputs. What kinds of things stimulate the creative centers of the brain? What kind of inputs stimulate us visually? Emotionally? Spiritually? Mentally? Physically?

I’d really like to know, what’s one thing that fills your creative cup? Share with us in the comment section below.

 

What Inspires You?
Juhli Caldwell


Being creative is not something I have to work at, it is a gift I feel I was born with fully developed. I believe everyone is a creator. Every experience in life for me turns out to have a creative component, from becoming invisible in a bad part of town to arranging flowers for the kitchen table. Artistic creativity, in my own perception, is one of allowing myself to be guided by a higher energy than my ego, of getting out of the way and letting go of forcing to a place of opening up to the creative process.
 
An example, this morning, as I was sorting through some imperfect computer photo prints,  rippping up the ones that were seconds, thinking “this is a shame that I would waste this lovely color” Just because it did not come out right. ( ink had run out and so I replaced the ink and ran it through again, which caused a blurring)- Anyways, something quietly suggested that I might try cutting up the prints and see what comes out. One image had yielded a painting previously that I am still working on and now I could see 3 new images. I developed the images with some ink further, to bring them out and made a note as to what they meant. As I looked at these little images together, they formed a kind of chronology or story.
 
   I mounted these images together in a line using contact cement on heavy white paper and wrote in pencil the meaning of each little image, then placed in a frame.
 
This I did before breakfast.
 

 

Then I photographed the image, posted to my blog and cooked up pasta and eggs Breakfast.

Juhli Caldwell

http://juhlicaldwell.blogspot.ca/

 

What Inspires You?
Avi Zamir

It makes me feel good to resolve problem of space and color. Seeing other artists work is also inspiring.

Avi Zamir

http://www.flickr.com/photos/aviart/

 

 


You can do this!

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Wherever you are right now as an artist, I am here to remind you that you can do this.

Top of the World, ink on paper ©Theberge 1992

It may not always be easy and it may not always be smooth but if you keep at it you will experience joys and rewards you could not have dreamed of from where you stand right now.

It may not always look exactly like you dreamed it would, but the life you aspire to is waiting for you.

I just wanted to make sure you remembered this.

Your work means something. There is a place for your work in this world. No matter what kind of work you make, there are people out there just WAITING for you work.

Really.

There hearts are longing for what you and ONLY you can give. Just as there is no one in the entire world who looks quite like you, there is no one in the whole entire world who can create what you do.

Your work is important.

Please remember that.

Now, go get in the studio!

Food for Thought – Hurston

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This month’s quote is from a writer. I learn so much from reading all kinds of artists – dancers, writers, actors, musicians – speak about their process. I don’t feel it’s that different in other mediums. 

“Perhaps, it is just as well to be rash and foolish for a while. If writers were too wise, perhaps no books would get written at all. It might be better to ask yourself ‘Why?’ afterward than before. Anyway, the force from somewhere in Space which commands you to write in the first place, gives you no choice. You take up the pen when you are told, and write what is commanded. There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside you.”

Zora Neale Hurston from Dust Tracks on A Road

What about you? Is there anything in Zora’s words you can relate to? We would love to hear your thoughts in the comments section below.