Life Inspired by Art?

" Up from the Valley"

36 by 30 inches

by Linda Carter Holman

I just realized that this painting was inspired by life.

(Someone we passed on a Saturday afternoon drive.)

This week we had the painting photographed.

Afterwards Dillon had been looking at the image

--scanning it into his computer for future use.

The image was on his mind, I guess.

Because the next morning I recieved this picture.

Evidently in his travels through the internet that evening

He came across the picture of this girl.

Inspired,

he put her in the desert, added the lamb, rabbit, tortoise,

snake, bird in hand, the blue vase,

there is even a little mission down by her feet,

the sun behind her head, and the ladder in her pocket.

Inspiration is an interesting subject.

I had come to the conclussion recently that it is like a circle---

.....Inspire....and be inspired....

Today I'm thinking It is more like a spiral

flowing at both ends.

2011 Red Shoe Studio

There was a time when I worked on a lot of ideas in sketch book form.

I have a stack of them next to my easel.

It was away for me to explore certain topics.

To do one after another and see if they would lead any where.

Sometimes in pencil or with markers that would bleed through the paper.

I'd have two ways of looking at the idea.

I often carried a sketch book with me if

I knew I was going to be waiting somewhere.

Sometimes one little thing will give an idea for another.

Today I have so many unused sketch books

because I've recently taken to sketching directly on the canvas.

Using oil color thined with turpenoid,

I sketch and if what happens doesn't seem to work

I just wipe it off with a cloth

and try again.

(If you would like to hear more about this, let me know.)

LCH@carterholman.com

"In all things it is better to hope than dispair."

Goethe