Nature as Inspiration.

Where does inspiration come from? This is a question often asked and one I find rather difficult to answer if I'm honest. Simply because, inspiration for me comes in so many different ways and from so many different things and changes from time to time. Depending on your circumstances, your environement, your thoughts and feelings, even something as simple as a split second of imagery in a film you watched the night before . To say that I find my inspiration from one particular source as a constant thing would be a lie. As people, we change throughout life and nothing internally or externally remains the same for a lifetime so how can one rely on one source of inspiration if everything is always changing. Thankfuly one thing does always remain constant, and that IS inspiration in itself. Being alive, being human, means to experience your own reality and as a creative being, to respond to it. So the answer to that question has to be that quite simply it depends on the experiences I'm having at any given time that that question is asked! This could remain the same for afew days, months, weeks or years. It just depends! Ideas come like a flash. Usually triggered from something perceived visually that had an impact for whatever reason. Sometimes from an emotionl, internal experience. It just depends! So in this post I want to show how, at this period in my life, I find nature a regular source of inspiration. Living deep in the French countryside, surrounded only by nature, I'm like a sponge, absorbing it all day long.

I have two beautiful cats who are a constant source of delight and wonder. Green trees, birds, fields, hills and woods are taken as internal snapshots, re-emerging, translated, when I put paint to canvas.

Enourmous skies and sunsets with uninterupted views imprint themselves within me and I respond with my own interpretation.

I often take photos as reference but never to copy directly. I don't want to make things look realistic but I do want them to be believable and that's something different. Making something look realistic is too easy and I find that a pointless excercise.