Whims vs inspiration vs staying focused
When to follow the whims of new inspiration vs finishing what you started?
That old frenemy, the whim of inspiration, is rearing its head again. I love the fact that I almost never run out of ideas of what I want to paint but sometimes having a millions things that inspire and interest you can be a challenge. In the past I’ve just followed every whim and ended up with, what I feel, is nothing to show for it. A one off landscape here, and few portraits of online pics there but nothing gets built off of. These whims do not become a body of work. And the moment I start to get somewhat good at something, I’m bored with it and drop it. So I never really become great. I don’t know why I do this but I’m trying to fix it.
So I’ve done quite well, for me, on this series of Natural Selection inspired paintings. When I last posted I finally decided what substrate I was going to use, paper mounted to cradled panel, and I’ve been diligently preparing panels with gloss medium and glueing down my paper painting starts.
I call the initial phase of my paintings “starts’ because at the beginning they are almost a completely random application of ink and water. I do some direction but the best bits are happenstance. Then I pick the best of these starts and mount them to board to paint over into a finished painting. How much I paint over and how much of the original I keep is the ongoing question!
I’ve got four paintings that are in the finishing stage, applying GAC 500 and then varnishing. I’ve decided to use high gloss varnish on these, an idea that kind of came out of nowhere, because the gloss finish highlights the feeling of looking down through the layers that I wanted for the paintings. Surprisingly, I don’t feel like the high gloss is that glossy, I mean it is but it doesn’t necessarily create shiny paint like regular gloss. It looks more like a sheet of glass or poured resin on top of the painting. It highlights the colors nicely and looks good over paper. Not sure if I will use it on canvas.
Well I’m being good and making progress on this series but at the same time I am feeling those little pulls in other directions. One pull of inspiration that I have followed because it doesn’t feel too off course is working on a larger panel completely covered in collage. I had a dream that I made two large panels covered in collage, including wrapping the sides, and painted an abstract forest on them. I have been wanting to start adding thicker acrylic on top of and with the very thin ink I usually use and mix some more subtle colors, so that’s what I am exploring with this piece. I already love the light in the middle of the painting and can see the influence of some of the beautiful complex skies I saw in paintings while in London.
Another little tug is happening in a completely different direction and I’m not sure if I should resist. Well actually it’s two different tugs but both are figure work which I haven’t done in a long time. One is a painting I shared in the last post where the ink has left a very abstract torso with a fascinating womb pattern. This was part of my Natural Selection series but I feel it is it’s own collection. It really interests me but I’m not sure if it is re-creatable.
The second figure work I have been thinking about are these very loose portraits I did with ink on rice paper. I made these ages ago so the painting is not great but I love the way the paint looks on the paper and I wish I had pursued it more. This is really quite off course though so I feel I should resist the urge to start playing with portraits again. On the other hand, what could it hurt if I spent a few days noodling around with portraits. Famous last words haha.
So that old questions remains...when to follow the whim of inspiration and when to set little gems aside so you can concentrate on the work at hand? Is it possible to do both, a little whim with your work, as a treat?