INERTIA

Since coming home, I've been in the studio everyday trying to get something started. I've taken 100s of photos in the last few months, mostly as possible paintings and for the past few days have been going through them, cropping and stitching and drawing little thumb nails trying to find the perfect composition and one that inspires me here and now. There's that distance from being outside painting or using my camera, immersed in my surroundings, to now being in the studio with just an image to copy. I'm missing that exhilarating feeling of being outside painting..... the weather is now making that just too difficult for wimps like me. It has always seemed more honest to paint from life, and I've always felt a little guilty using photos..... so here I go again, agonizing on what to paint and hearing myself making all kind of excuses not to start something.

This is usually the time of year I set up a large still life or finish one that I had started in the summer with a vase of flowers... not a flower in the house and very little fruit, though I've been looking hard at my houseplants. Last year when I hit this wall, I did some of the DSFDF painting challenges.... there was something about another persons photo that made me approach the painting differently; maybe just the challenge and novelty got me going. Well, its really just comes down to putting some paint on the big white paper, and I will...... from past experience, once I get started, I'll be on a roll.



I have done a few little studies from the photos. This is one of them and most likely the one that I will go farther with....this is just part of a panoramic view.