How it Begins - A Creative Process Blog

Clouds Illusions

A friend was visiting my studio yesterday and asked me what I was working on currently. The trouble with an open studio is you are not always in the midst of a fantastic painting. Sometimes you are at the beginning. Or even before the beginning. Which raises the subject of where does a painting begin.

At this moment in time I am at the beginning of a new horse painting so I led him to the table where there was a rudimentary sketch of three horses walking across white space. It laid upon two sets of stretcher bars. I was trying to decide which size to stretch for the horses I had drawn. It really would not be a horse painting but a cloud  painting with horses. The painting would have to be bigger to allow more room for the clouds. Next question is should the horses be smaller.  

I am inspired by the photograph below with cattle on a rise before a huge bank of clouds. I didn't take that photograph yesterday, but it has stuck in my mind as if I did. There are photographs you cannot upload from you mind and clear the memory card.

Cloud photograph with cattle

When I was researching horses in the beginning of my of my period of horse paintings I took a lot of photographs of them. None of them were running. Especially the horses on a rise with the sky behind them and the horses in just twos or threes working their way across a field of tall grass and flowers.

Most were eating. And through all the paintings of stampeding horses I have done and sold those of horses just standing in fields have stuck in my memory card as it were.

So what has been bouncing around in my mind is three horses on a rise with grasses and wild flowers at their feet and a huge sky full of clouds behind them.

 

I take a lot of photographs of clouds.so I have a lot to choose from. I have included a few in this blog which echo in my mind. They are just inspirational starting points. Always wise to remember I break away from the traditional representation of physical objects, even the horses, and express my independence from visual references. My photography is the only realistic depiction of my world and that not necessarily so.

I will try to keep you informed of the progress of this budding painting. This blog was to try and determine just where and how it began. If you have any insights please leave a comment.