Creative Process?

Theresa Bayer in my watercolor group posted the question: what is your creative process?

Good question! It's definitely something I rarely take the time to think about a I tend to not have the time to think about because I'm either trying to get something done for a show, competition, a commission deadline that's fast approaching ... anyway, I seem to respond to things with time constraints just to make myself insane, I suppose. OR keep me insane :)

I have about 60gb of photos I took because "I'd love to paint from them". But I have an inkling I paint more from other people's photos. I think it's because seeing other images means my idea is fresh, whereas painting from my photos means, I already "painted" it in my head while I was photographing so the fire is not as intense to go to through the actual painting process. I am still promising myself and those people whose patience I've stretched waiting for me to take enough photos of one subject.

Most of the time I get my ideas from a moment I'm having. THE RACE BEGINS before I lose my curiosity! At the earliest point I try to write myself a note about why I want to produce the piece; what inspired me. By writing a note I hope to rekindle the fire when it begins to fade, and in my case, it fades very quickly because I have short attention span. Then I dig around for photos and other visual aids to make the moment more concrete in my head. Sometimes I draw value studies and compositional studies, but I tend to do them digitally. I know, I know, it's really not good practice if I want to stay sharp.

I have pieces I've lost interest in that I've picked up, finished and sold. I've noticed when I do this that I go back to them a more mature artist and with less inhibitions

Often times I also fall into one of my dry seasons when I can't seem to get past little sparks of ideas, I think I'm having such a season while I try to let my health issues run its course because when I do try to paint something lately, they have failed to feed me (figuratively and monetarily haha!). I am so pleased that people seem to seek me for commissions, and even more ecstatic that they are always a combination of random Internet people who have stumbled into my website and way even more wonderful that some are return clients :)