Often people ask me where I find my inspiration from. This is always a difficult question to answer as it comes from many different places: a day out sketching or photographing; works I have previously made; poems and other inspirational writings etc. In fact inspiration is all around us if only we allow ourselves time to see it. This weeks inspiration came from reading a blog by another artist that I admire (Ruth Armitage) and she had given some prompts to her readers having read a book called “Expressive Drawing” by Steve Aimore. As an owner of this very book I was immediately excited by the prompts, and went off to the studio with them in hand. Now as Ruth’s prompts were for acrylic users and I love watercolour, I slightly changed what I did. It’s a bit like artistic Chinese whispers where each artists brings to the table their own experiences and loves. Why did I feel so compelled to follow the prompts? Well, as it was about using lines, and I have been exploring making lines in different ways recently, it seemed like a natural follow on. I somewhat followed the prompts, and went where the art took me. I used drawing materials plus black and white watercolour. oh, and a bit of Sanguine snuck in!
The two above are unfinished and now need a watercolour layer.
This was tremendously fun and I really learned a lot about which marks I like. I loved: dripping lines with watercolour, acrylic ink or water; drawing with pencils, graphite sticks and neoart or neocolour and finally printing lines with flat edges of card. I look forward to trying to finish the first two examples and had great fun with the third one. I hope that you too feel inspired to have a go at making lines and finding what works for you.