Tag Archives: creativity

Painting from Imagination

Since I returned from Ireland I been painting from imagination. I keep looking at photos of the trip, and they are lovely, but they are not really inspiring me to use one for a subject for a painting.

I seem to be drawn to scenes, memories, senses and sensations from the trip. I see colors in my mind and I see shapes and images. Sometimes I just see layers of images that I can’t separate.

Since the trip, although my paintings are abstract landscape paintings, my first three paintings contained scenes or some shapes that were easily recognizable like a cliff or an ocean setting. This time I wanted to do something different.

Ann Hart Marquis shows Given to Exaggerated Wonder painting from imagination

Given to Exaggerated Wonder, acrylic on canvas 24x30x1.5 inches.

I usually draw very little before I paint. I didn’t draw at all on this painting. It developed by first deciding on my palette, preparing a canvas with black gesso and then when that dried, I just started letting shapes and colors come from my imagination.

I was also using Golden Open gloss medium mixed with paint which allowed me to drag one color into another before they dried to form bands of color. In other words I was painting wet-on-wet.

I started at the bottom with darker blues and greens and then worked my way to the top letting the colors become lighter as I ascended. What a fun way to paint! I just kept a vision of Ireland in my mind. The memories and feelings both consciously and unconsciously informed what I was painting.

I was painting in a new way and it felt very creative. In my next painting that I will start on Monday, I will try it again—painting from imagination.

I like this quote that I found about creativity:
“Even those of us not in explicitly creative fields must come up with new ideas and insights in order to move ahead. How can we shake up the way we think? Creativity has been pegged to conducive environments, perfect collaborators, personality traits, serendipity, and even spiritual muses. While research psychologists are interested in increasing innovative thinking, clinical psychologists sometimes encourage patients to use artistic expression as a way to confront difficult feelings.”

The Ideal Painting Setting

Those of us who create art usually have a favorite place to work like our studio, a special room or for some, en plein air. Or we have learned to adapt to strange places, such as those found while in a workshop, on a retreat or in my situation, in my kitchen.

For the last month I have been painting in my kitchen while my studio is being remodeled and enlarged! I am using almost all available counter space so it is a little disconcerting when lunch time rolls around, but I have managed to push my palette aside. I can set up my painting area in about 3 minutes, and put it all away in about 2 minutes. Not an ideal painting setting, but it is wonderful to see my studio changing every day. It should be finished by the end of the month.

Regardless of where I am, my creative juices are continuing to flow as I work on my New Mexico series. Here is the latest painting.

Ann Hart Marquis-New Mexico Winter #2-abstract

New Mexico Winter #2, acrylic on paper, 10 x 14 inches, 2015. ©Ann Hart Marquis

Comments/critiques are always appreciated.

My First Painting

I have gone to France almost every year since 2000. Before that I went to France two times, the first time in about 1985, the second in 1992. Some of my friends and family tell me that I need to get out of my rut and go somewhere else. I usually agree and this year I am going to Italy and France, but I do love being in the rolling hills of the French countryside or exploring in a prehistoric cave, not to mention the freshness of French food. And of course who can’t love Paris, even though Parisians are the ones who have given the French the reputation of being rude. It is really only the waiters.

timothyb.anderson-Roadin southern France

Road in Southern France, 2007. ©Timothy B. Anderson, photographer

Part of my love of France is being able to finally arrive at my final destination, usually now Soréze, after about 20 hours of travel. Once I am in the place I frequently rent, I am there. There is no period of adjustment. I know the roads and the places to go for great food or wonderful scenery. I am comfortable driving and the roads are great and very picturesque. I speak French well enough to get by, and the people are very encouraging and friendly.

Another reason I love to go to the south of France is that I have always been able to rent a house with a studio. I go there to paint. I first started painting in the small village of Soréze where I attended a painting workshop that emphasized creativity not technique. That was helpful to me because I had no technique at the time. I knew nothing of perspective, color combinations or drawing. I did, however, have a simply glorious time. And I fell in love with painting.

Here is my very first painting.

Once I learned to draw, I went back to it and made the table larger so it didn’t look like the vase was going to fall off. It is interesting to me that I already had the palette colors that I use frequently today.

Here is my second painting done at the same workshop.

We were at a goat farm and were able to wander around the extensive property. I decided to paint part of his decaying three-story home built in the 1800’s. I love this painting because when I Iook at it, I am able to feel for it as I did then. Later that day I asked a French friend why someone would let this once lovely house go to ruin. The answer was a sad history lesson for me. I was told that so many men did not return from World War I and many homes were left to crumble because no one was there to repair them. There were more than 1,357,800 French men killed and most of the fight took place in France.

France has touched my heart in many ways. I cherish it and can’t wait to get there.

How about you? Is there a special place in your heart that you yearn for?