Inspiration to get painting

I took a trip today into Nashville because I wanted to hit up Plaza Art Supplies for some new canvas (they were having a sale) as well as other painting items. I picked up some great colors that I am excited to add to my palette as well as a few linen pre made canvases. I'm really excited to see what I will do with the linen as it has a really special dark color. I think I will do something a little out of the box for me but I have a bit of a vision at the moment. I was really inspired by the work I saw in Nashville of artist Lela Altman she is doing really great abstract pieces that really utilize the color of the linen with her painting technique. I really liked this one which is grey bleed. Check out her site to see what other techniques she is doing.

 I promise I will have some actual painting progress to show you soon. For now I'll share some images I took to work from for my Nashville paintings. I enjoyed a trip to the Frist Center to view their current shows. I was really inspired by the collection from the Royal Victoria and Albert Museum of the work of John Constable (1776-1837). I was really inspired by the comprehensive collection spanning the career of John Constable. There were amazing drawings and watercolor studies, large full size oil sketches, and many paintings that illustrated his knowledge of clouds and experience in painting them. It was just what I needed to see to get a jump start to my own work. Getting into the process of painting can sometimes be slow but mostly for me it is about aligning everything up just right. It is like prepping for any big activity, I'm basically stretching, warming up, suiting up, watching play by plays as it were, except I'm not playing a sport or running a marathon. It's funny how much work goes into doing something I find so meditative. Here's an image from the Frist Center of John Constable's work. I really think that work needs to be seen in person, it has such a better impact than staring at a lightbulb.

I'm not used to painting architecture or urban scenes after so much time painting Alaskan landscapes. I think that it will be an interesting exercise for me and broaden my skills. I still want to apply color the same way that I do when I work on mountainscapes I just will have to focus on what colors are there. I also was fortunate to have interesting clouds in the sky and because the is an important feature of most of my works to date I wanted to make sure that I captured them. I think that will help the direction I take my work capturing Nashville. With that... until next time.