Seeing inspiration in the everyday

There’s no denying that our trip to Italy and Dubai was inspiring; I will be looking at the photos for years to come. Sure exotic people and far off lands are exciting as an artist, but we can’t be forever on holiday (not with my luck at Lotto anyway!).

Much of my inspiration comes from the land around me – the buildings, paddocks, the distant view of Mt Egmont, the waves crashing into Mana Bay at Patea Beach. Places that are accessible and affordable to get to. I try to have a camera with me most of the time so I can take a photo when something grabs my attention, often because of the light. I have a semi-organised filing system on the computer for my photos and also save some to cd in case my computer ever dies.

These two  images are a digital combination of three photos; Mt Egmont, the waves crashing into the sand at Mana Bay and a cabbage tree at sunset. When I play round with the images like this I’m not necessarily wanting to achieve a particular end result. It’s more about knowing the subject, feeling comfortable with the shapes and just letting them seep into my brain. I know that I paint differently – better and looser – when my brain really knows the subject and can let go of some control.

Mt Egmont

Mt Egmont, originally uploaded by cathrs1964.

Today has been so incredibly cold (hail has been sitting on the ground all day – brrr) that it got me thinking about all the mountain paintings I have done over the years. This one, in pastel, is a favorite of my husbands. From time to time we think about getting it framed to put up at his workplace.

Loving our snow-capped Mt Egmont

Mt Egmont is such an inspiration. This morning, as I headed to work, there had been a reasonable fall of snow and, with the morning sun shining bright and clear, it looked wonderful.

Here’s my latest attempt at capturing some of that beauty.

Being "happy busy"

I’ve had a good day – I love that 🙂

I finished off a couple of paintings, managed to take decent photos of them, etc and load them onto my Etsy shop. I feel like I accomplished stuff today. Yahoo!

Here are the works I loaded up – both celebrating New Zealand and its wonderful landscape, but in two very different ways…

Egmont again

At least I am off doing the moon for a bit so I guess it is not full moon yet LOL.

This is approx 10×10″, acrylic on paper. Mainly done with a knife.

The colours have not come up totally accurate…

Finally – a space to work in

Well, shifting workrooms took a lot longer than I thought it would. Man oh man, did I own some junk. I got rid of mountains of rubbish – and now feel cleansed, organised and ready to rock ‘n roll.

So today I finally got into my paints again – what a relief. Here’s the first one to get completed. I just love our Mountain. For sale via Etsy.

Yesterday and today

I have been painting up a storm – and a sunset, and a mountain…
Nothing like getting the paints out and just going for it 🙂
Although I have done much more, I am only going to load one painting a day – so I have some spare for those days when nothing gets completed!!

What does it take

before Mt Egmont becomes unrecognisable? Not sure to be honest – it seems to be I can move a long way from how the Mountain “really” looks before it stops being Egmont.

This is small, and done in oil pastels and watercolour. Just playing round with Egmont as a symbol really.

73_365 : and it is still cold

But my snow obsession continues. I think my moon obsession last year was better – it didn’t make me feel so cold…although it could be the sudden change to winter weather doing that I guess 😉

72_365 : feeling wintery

Over the last week I have been painting snow – because snow seemed inviting when the temperatures were so high. Today the temperature dropped, the wind howled and the rain came down in sheets!
But I kept painting snow anyway…

This is Egmont as seen across Opunake Lake. For sale at Etsy. (link at right)