Where the Art Begins Vol 1

There are still a few weeks left to summer, but I am already starting to feel the pull towards fall. Vacation days have been enjoyed and the air feels lighter and cooler, so naturally I am feeling refreshed and ready to jump back in to creating art and writing about it.

This last year I’ve taken a step back from the “business” side of creating art and have been focused on painting for my personal joy. In the process of this shift, I have also stepped back from sharing as much about my creative process, preferring the quiet of rest to the bustle of busy creativity. These last couple of weeks though, I have been feeling the call to come back to writing about my creative process and to share more about my life. So I’m back and ready to spill the beans and I have much to share. Once again this year I participated in the 100 day project, I also went on a once in a lifetime trip to Zambia and I once again painted in a few different plein air competitions. I will speak more about all of these things in upcoming posts, but today I want to talk about reconnecting to art and finding inspiration to create.

One of the things I’ve felt over the last year and one of the reasons I think I needed to step back from selling my art was that I was feeling a sense of burn out from doing too much and it was hindering my creativity. At my peak, I was working a full time job, spending weekends going to markets or preparing listings in my Etsy shop and photographing and preparing posts for social media as well as fitting in the normal requirements of owning and caring for a home. In short, it was too much and as much as I love it when someone wants to purchase and put my art in their home, this was the easiest thing to cut loose from my life in order to make more room for rest and focus on health.

I wouldn’t say that I am less busy. Instead of spending weekends at the market, I can be found in the kitchen preparing salads and healthy meals for the week ahead. A few nights a week I head to the pool or gym and recently I started adding stretching and breathing to my health regimen. In addition to feeling burnt out, I’ve also recently been diagnosed with high blood pressure, so a focus on health has been a necessity for both my mental and physical health.

As I have been making these changes, I am feeling better and my creative spark is returning. I have also started collecting photos of flowers and landscapes that may one day inspire paintings and I have been thinking more and more about the art I want to create.

This weekend I will be painting in my sketchbooks and working through some ideas I have for a new larger painting that I have been thinking about for a while.

There will be much more to come in the weeks ahead. Until next time, I hope you have a wonderful week filled with moments of joy and inspiration.

xo Laura

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What I’m Reading:

The Secret Lives of Colour by Kassia St Clair

This is a book I come back to again and again for colour inspiration. I love to read about the history behind various pigments and colours and reading the stories about how they were discovered. The amount of pigments that have come from unexpected places is surprising and fascinating. For instance the deep red of cochineal is made from crushing a small seed sized insect that lives on a prickly pear cactus and Indian yellow comes from urine of a cow that has been feed mango leaves. Imagining how people discovered these pigments is something that pushes my mind to think more about colour and inspires me to want to use it further. I highly recommend this book to both artists and art lovers alike.

What I’m Listening To:

The Bravo Docket Podcast

This podcast is hosted by Cesie and Angela, two lawyers and Bravo fans who talk about the various legal cases going on in the world of reality television. I enjoy learning more about the legal process in a context of reality television where we kind of know the players involved in the cases. If you are a fan of the Housewives, this may be a podcast that would be of interest to you too.

What I’m Watching:

Allegedly on Netflix

This is a true crime podcast on Netflix that discusses various criminal cases that occurred in the past and are on-going today. Ellison Barber is the host of the show and each week she brings on a friend from the legal community to discuss the details of each case. If you are a documentary lover, you will be familiar with many of the cases discussed and it is interesting to listen to Ellison and her guests take on how the cases have been handled and how they would have tried the cases differently.