Green Apple {a new small painting}
Green Apple with Slice
I keep an idea/visual journal, where I jot down lists of ideas, develop themes, and just muse about art. Sometimes I focus on what was learned or thought about during the previous day or sketch out painting compositions.
I have written about this before, and found this kind of journaling to be very helpful for keeping on track when I was working as an architect. I fell away from the practice once I was able to paint full time, probably because all my waking hours were free to focus on art. Now that I am a mother of a precocious infant daughter I am finding that keeping an idea journal again is helpful.
Lately, I use it to sketch out thumbnails of still life compositions, to gather thoughts and ideas for the Friday Inspiration blog posts, and just keep safe ideas for the future. The thumbnails have become particularly helpful because when I get a free moment {like when Naomi is napping} and I can paint, if I do not have an idea to start immediately, I just go to my thumbnail sketches and choose one, set it up and begin painting. This way minimal time is lost before I can start to paint.
This painting came from one of those sketches, with the idea already thought through, it made the completion of the painting so much easier.
Here is my little one…
…she is already crawling and is now pulling herself up to standing, but she falls down constantly when trying to get down and already has a few bumps and scratches on her head because of her crash landings. If only she could get down as easily as she can get up, life would be less nerve racking!