It is all about focus when you want to make a series. I learned that from Carla Sonheim. And about discipline. I experienced that this week.
Focus on some parameters to work with. Working with the same parameters on every drawing or painting will glue them together. So you create a series.
Pretty simple….
But so opposite of what I did the last years.
When I started painting I made series of four or five paintings! But the last years I followed a lot of lessons and I went everywhere with my creativity. Fun to do, but I lost focus. You can see that in my posts. They are about a lot of different things. I’m not sure why I lost my focus on series. Probably because I focus on learning new things. There is not much time left for making series or a body of work.
Time to get my focus back! (That is why I signed up for this year course (Y is for Yellow by Carla Sonheim)
So I ‘invented’ the inspiration box! I ‘m sure more people invented something like this but I like to think about it as my idea.
I wrote all the materials and subjects I like on small papers, folded them and put them in a box. For example I wrote words like acrylic paint, tracing paper, thick brush and girls head.
This is how it works: I get three papers out the box. These are the parameters I use to make a lot of drawings or paintings. I allow myself to use two or three materials with the three from the paper. When you want to do this yourself, don’t forget to make a list of what you wrote down on the little papers! So you can check which words are in the box.
This four owls are the first results. I had the words owl, sandpaper and a dip pen on my small papers. And I choose to combine it with gesso and watercolor.
It is a small series and it gave me focus on what to make. (I forgot how I love the results of ink on wet paper! (the second owl)
But… I didn’t have the discipline to go on with it. I guess I would discover more fun techniques or ideas if I did and make ten ore more. I have to work on discipline!
