From whence come novels and paints …
From whence come novels and paints …
I’m often asked from whence come the ideas for my paintings. That process is radically different from the inspiration for my novels. My…
I’m often asked from whence come the ideas for my paintings. That process is radically different from the inspiration for my novels. My novels start with dreams that set a scene from which a story flows. Music also has a profound inspiration on the stories I write, the music, again, creating a scene from which a story builds. Sometimes, my novels come from a “What if …” idea that occurs to me at an odd moment.
It’s this last source of novelic inspiration that is most similar to the germination of my paintings. But, with my paintings, it’s not a “What if …” idea but rather an image, a glimpse, a flash in my head/soul/heart. Other times, it’s a “What if …” that jumps out at me from the curve of a certain form or the play of light on a building or mountains. Still other times, I see something that’s just beautiful, and I catch it in a smart-phone photo, for later reference.
That’s how I sourced my latest painting, “Osiris & Anubis,” but I’ve not yet had an image from my heart/soul/head or from a photo I’ve taken or seen that ends up looking like the original flash/glimpse/image/photo. I’m not a hyper-realist painter — those artists are incredibly amazing talents, way beyond my ability to paint/draw as they do. But, for me, if I want hyper-realism, I can go look at the thing itself or a photo of it.
an image, a glimpse, a flash in my head/soul/heart … that jumps out at me from the curve of a certain form or the play of light on a building or mountains. Still other times, I see something that’s just beautiful, and I catch it in a smart-phone photo, for later reference.
When I paint, I want the paint and circumstances, like the characters in my novels, to take over, making the painting/writing in the moment be the thing that’s captured.
You can see it here in the comparison between the photo I took of my kitties, Frank and Possum, and the finished-product painting, “Osiris & Anubis.” When I saw them sleeping, I knew I just had to have the photo of that moment. I also knew that the photo wasn’t going to be the end product — because at the same moment that I caught the poetry of their brother-sister sleeping, I saw a night-time desert scene and enormous stars flash in my mind. It wasn’t anything as definite-sounding as that, anymore than a dream is replicable in the waking realm. But it was enough.
When I paint, I want the paint and circumstances, like the characters in my novels, to take over, making the painting/writing in the moment be the thing that’s captured
Then the paint and the blessed vicissitudes of the brushes, paint, easel, canvas, and the light in my bedroom studio took over. End result? Two ancient-Egyptian deities cuddling asleep in the midnight desert.
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