Getting Inspired...

Nolde watercolor at the Georgia Museum of Art

There are many ways to get inspired.....I love to visit our local small art museum...it's on the University of Georgia campus...it's free...and if you pick your time right, parking is free...and there are no crowds ...no people to stand in front of you blocking your way to see a picture, you can take photos....there are little folding stools available so you can sit and contemplate, or just sit and be!!!  

This little painting - it's only a quarter sheet - is so evocative...I just love it...Nolde usually painted big loose lush flowers...to this (at least to me) was an unusual piece.

And it reminded me of my own version of  rain and wind and how it affects us:

Rainy Rainy Night, quilted wall hanging

Nolde focusses on the effect of wind and rain on the person ...he uses the diagonals very dramatically to create a sense of being buffeted by the elements...I was thinking more about how lovely it is to be in a cozy house at night with the rain and wind howling around outside...somehow the contrast adds to the coziness.
By the way this quilt will be hanging in the Quiet Gallery of the Athens Regional Public Library until next Monday morning when we'll be taking the show down.  9 quilts and 15 watercolors....

Sliding glass circles create multiple shifts in color - currently at the GMOA

Looking at the art work above....I started thinking about a current project I'm working on...which involves a lot of piecing...tiny little diagonals...this will be a new online class...but not till January!  I don't like to put up more than one new class a year...
We're videoing this quilt step by step so it should make for a very nice clear instructional sets of lessons....I'm getting some help with the videos which is a great boon.  When I tried doing it alone, I managed to chop off my head much of the time!!!

I'm also very much inspired by the nature I see around me...

  this lovely crepe myrtle spotted in a neighbor's yard early this morning...is so graceful...just look at the grace in those undulating trunks....they look like a slow uplifting dance....maybe a slow Latin dance with two dancers...and they end up all entwined together and produce beautiful flowers - what a metaphor for love!!!

And this field of daisies - this was a little earlier in the year...i'm still contemplating how to create an artwork based on this - I have to figure out the mood it creates in me...what fascinates me about the image and the memory of the scene

when I look at these photos also from my neighborhood, I love the sense of light..

.there is always light somewhere in our lives, always a sense of hope...and the frisson inside caused by a glimpse of a loved one....

These two images will be translated into watercolor almost certainly...but the daisies...well they might be a quilt!!

Below: this was a watercolor based on a local photo...not exactly sure where it was now...somewhere in Winterville I think...this painting is in the OCAF Members Show up now (School St, Watkinsville)...what really fascinated me here was the dappled light on the house....
don't you just love the shadows that trees make??? Especially when they are dancing lightly in a breeze...alas my little painting is not kinetic!! but i did try to convey a sense of movement...

And so, inspiration is everywhere!!!  Do write and tell me some of the places you have discovered it....personal experience is always best of course.....

And, if you have been, thanks for reading!!

Elizabeth

www.elizabethbarton.com          www.elizabethbarton.knitscode.com