Where do painting ideas come from? Read on and I will describe how the subject for a new painting typically evolves.
Artists will tell you the painting starts way before you touch paint to canvas. It really begins by looking and really seeing what has struck them with the inspiration to paint. An experienced artist has a well-developed eye for not just looking, but seeing and analyzing what it is they like about their subjects. I know what inspires me—light—and I collect my subjects in a variety of ways. Usually it's when I go on what I call light safaris with my camera in early morning or evening walks. When I'm delivering paintings to an out-of-town gallery, I plan ahead so I can be in my favorite locations based on the time of day and where I am likely to get good light for my photos. I LOVE getting to do this, as I experience something like spiritual ecstasy when I'm fortunate enough to be a witness to God's glorious light, beautifully revealed in nature.
Once I'm home with a camera full, I will go through the images and make notes of the ones with good elements. Some are good enough to develop into paintings as is, but most will get scrutinized over time, cropped, and added to. I like to print my own photos at this stage. Then comes a gestation period where I will look at them in combination with other photos, and often inspiration strikes as I envision combining elements of several of my photos to make a stronger subject. Typically, I will put a different sky above a body of water if it was really just empty sky or to suit the composition. One has to be careful to match the lighting though.
To illustrate this method of arriving at a subject for a new painting, here is the one I'm currently working on. The first step was knowing that a customer had bought a large painting without its frame, and the gallery now has a 48x36 empty frame I wanted to fill. The following photos show:
1. My initial inspiration for a new painting. I chose this because the shapes and lines in the water flow appeal to my sense of composition. I finally decided I didn’t really like the shape of the sky or its colors for such a large painting and wanted something with more of a balance of warm and cool colors.
2. After searching through my reference photos both printed and saved to discs, I chose this sky. This type of backlit cloud goes straight to my soul with its strong contrast, and I especially liked the sweeping shape of the patterns.
3. On Photoshop Elements, which I’ve taught myself to use over the years, though not elegantly, I cropped just the sky and removed the distracting building silhouettes.
4. I pasted the new sky into my seascape photo, tweaking and resizing/cropping to the same proportions as a 48x36 canvas. This is my working photo, though I wound up moving the horizon and changing the colors as I painted.
5. The finished painting
I hope you find this helpful and interesting. Feel free to comment!