An inspiration journey

What inspires you? What do you notice in the world around you? I'm fascinated by how we all see/notice different things.

When my son was very young he would see the bright colors on a bug and enthusiastically yell, "bub!" (he couldn't say bug yet). His natural wonder made us all pause and really look at the bug and what he saw, it was amazing and yet we didn't "see" it the way he did. It's as if we all have a different internal sensor that goes off when we see something that speaks to us profoundly.

Color, pattern, texture and of course, flowers have always made my heart go pitter-patter. They actually feel delicious to me. When I start a painting, I select some images with inspiration in 6 areas: blossoms, bouquet shape, foliage, vase, background, and color. There are usually several images in each category. For example, I might like the shape of a vase in one, the pattern from another, the colors from another. I glance around and let all the images influence where I go with the painting and I often change direction mid-painting if I don't like where it's going.

I do an in-depth "show and tell" in the inspiration section of my online class. It's visual yumminess if you haven't seen it.

What kinds of colors, objects, scenes speak to you? What feels delicious to you?

These are some of the recent images I used for painting inspiration: