New Work and the Creative Process

I look outside and the days are overcast and dreary. The colors on these overcast days are drab and uninspiring until the sun breaks thru like in the photo of my horse pasture. Suddenly new light shines on the scene and everything changes.

I thought how the creative process mirrors the change of seasons with these same kind of breakthroughs of inspiration. I am reminded of my farming days and how I had to allow things to happen in their time. Like the seeds that are planted in the garden, ideas need cultivating, incubation, and a time to germinate, sprout, grow and bloom also.

The more I go thru the creative process with my art the more I see the value in allowing all the needed stages to take place and to trust in the process.

I very much feel things are in the germination stage right now with alot of my work. I appreciate the rainy days because its bringing me inward-- not just physically but reflectively as I work thru the creative process.

I have several projects in the beginning stages and am looking forward to their blossoming but time is not right for some. I have the The Glory of Horses Mural Project http://www.gloryofhorses.com/ incubating since this can not begin until until after January sometime. So I am letting this sit in the back of my mind while I wait my turn to begin.

In the germinating stage is a new series of paintings titled Amish Farm Life that I am excited about since that is often what catches my eye as I am out and about in Kidron, Ohio. Living among the Amish is fascinating to me so I am thankful to be living in an area so rich in inspiration. What I plan on doing is a series of paintings on every day farm life on an Amish Farm. I have collected quite a large amount of reference material from my photos to construct the various activities and seasons on the farm along with farm animals, gardens, fields, barns etc. I guess you could say that is when I was cultivating. Now is the time to create and produce so I see this as germinating what was already cultivated and planted. Maybe I'll need to do some weeding too of what will work with my vision. Every farmer and gardener knows about weeding! I have begun putting my vision on canvas and paper so I hope you check back soon because the first one is not far from being done!

I also have been branching out with using different art mediums. I seem to be one of those artist who needs to work in lots of different mediums. I had thought last year I had settled on watercolor as my favorite. Then the murals came and I got my feel back for acrylics and pushed myself to do it on a large scale. Then I played around with pastels and got the feel for them as I did some animal art and pet portraits. Pastels are great for fur! And now I am doing some new work in oils and I can see how I am just going to love the vibrant colors that are coming thru in the oils! But while I wait for the oils to dry I picked up colored pencils again and likely my first new piece in the Amish Farm Life series will be colored pencils! I have a horse and buggy almost completed.

I also am working on a big Advent project that you can see take shape on http://www.kidronarts.blogspot.com/ This multi-step painting is a good example of how the creative process is sometimes mysterious and elusive but you just have to keep pursuing. This has taken many twists and turns and to be honest I am not even sure where its going to go from here but it has been fun to just let it happen!

To see more of my work you can go to http://www.amish-art.com/ or http://www.suesteiner.com/

thanks for stopping by!