Inspiration
As an artist, I am regularly asked: How do you get inspiration, do you sit down and wait? Sometimes when you don't have it, what do you do?
Always nice those kinds of questions, just a step deeper in the process. As if inspiration is something sacred or magical that hopefully overtakes you and if possible also at the right time when you are just in front of your easel with a beautiful white canvas and a palette full of paint. Well maybe it is also a magical process ..... but it is also just concentrated, planned hard work and confidence that you will be handed the right things at the right time.
Inspiration the word literally means inhalation. And in our colloquial language it is used when we have a hunch, get an idea and we want to create something with inspiration. The dictionary indicates that it is a state of consciousness in which a person has the maximum of his creative ability. Inspiration also comes from the Latin word 'in spirare', either to inject the soul or the spirit.
In the meantime, I'm trying to clarify my own process. It often starts with something that I notice touches me, that extra vibe, a kind of goosebumps that can be felt through my body and I know that I can pay attention to it. I take the subject, image and emotion with me. Then it comes in a kind of process where it becomes more and more clear why I find the subject so touching, intriguing. As I get that clearer and clearer, the more I can also put an accent on it. And then automatically there are images, often in pieces and layers of which I scribble, sketch, make a photo to which I add my inner images until there is a total picture.
With that whole image, I go to work on the canvas or panel. This also happens in various layers where I like to work more intuitively. On these various layers, the final image grows, as it were.
Everyone has their own source of inspiration, creative ability and imagination, their own vibe that touches you and knows this belongs to me, and from where you will do with passion, strength, confidence. So pay attention to everything that animates you, because it is "Spirit" that is trying to communicate with you. That's why it's called "inspiration as "in-spirit." Listen to it, believe in it and act on it.
And if you don't feel it or know it for a moment, take a rest and breathe in, breathe out .....