Inspiration

Its always good to have somewhere or something that gives you inspiration, especially when you really really don't have any.

How do you turn that dry patch, where you can't write anything, or you aren't able to even start putting paint onto a canvas or piece of paper, because to be honest you don't even know what colour paint its going to be, let alone what the thing you are going to paint is.

For me, Its an emotional thing. I have to feel something, some emotional feeling that kicks my internal tyres and I run with that.  I don't really know where its going to go, unless Im using some sort of stock picture as a basis for the painting.  

The last few paintings I have done have just been from colours in my mind.

But the other really good inspiration for me is the water, either the sea or local rivers.  Its the wildness and untamed nature of the sea I love. Respect it or don't, but you'll only survive it if you do.

Something like this from a paddle on the Deben in 2014.

which I turned into this, in acrylic paints.

Its not perfect and is around 10 years old now, so I hope Ive become a better artist, but the ethereal nature of the evening sort of comes out in the painting.

 Continuing abstraction

After a busy week last week, I thought Id try something very abstract but also fairly restricted in terms of design, and which had texture in 3D

Sounds a bit of a plan, although if I had thought too deeply at the start, it wouldn't have ended up as it finished

So, this is how it started:

just individual lines with a thin paintbrush, looking a bit like threads in embroidery.

It built up a bit, one line at a time, slowly filling the white space in. I didn't add a base layer of paint as the white starkness made the contrasts even better.

The final initial layering ended up like this:

it was a tad threadbare, so I added more and more lines, stretching the darker colours in the centre out towards the edges. As it filled in, so the white canvas disappeared until the finished version ended up as you can see at the bottom of this page.  I love the texture of the surface, in places a mm in thickness, and the colour feels like it is shooting past you as you watch it.  

I am enjoying painting in this style and am interested in what people think of it.

 Water

I quite like painting water. 

Whether its waves, the stormier the better, or water on the river reflecting the sun, or water that's hiding something dark underneath.

But I also like the still calm water you see in slow moving rivers and in ponds.

The feeling of moving through that sort of water is nothing short of uplifting to your mind. It doesn't have to be quiet even. Its just the feeling of peace.

So I started painting what I could see in my mind to describe this, yesterday and it turned out like this

It is still very much work in progress but is just made up of many many lines of blues browns and greens and a touch of white.

But a bit like the first painting I posted, the time it takes to do the small actions also helps me to focus my mind and concentration, which is often not possible in that ping pong inside my brain.

So, I shall carry on adding to this and another painting Im doing in between other things and update this as it goes...

 What is Inspiration

What gives you inspiration to draw, paint, make music ?  

Is it the light of the sun reflecting off the water ?

is it that the glistening of the light dazzles you when you are walking, or floating on the water ?  

Is it that it brings out something inside you that is already there or does it create something inside you that wasn't there in the first place ?  

I don't know the answer to be honest. All I know is that sometimes that happens and sometimes it doesn't.

For example, this photo inspired me to paint this. It wasn't the best interpretation of it but I liked how the water shone out.  Ive taken a long time trying to replicate it though.

For me, the real way I paint is emotion. If I don't feel something there is no point trying to paint or do anything creative.  It will be dull and empty (and likely some of what I have on Instagram is just that).  

The flip side is that the emotion can go anywhere and nowhere, I just have to wait to see how its going to end.

these are both based on the same photo, that I can't put my finger on, but was along the Deben near the cut.  The Pencil drawing was soon after I kayaked there and the painting was more emotionally driven as a painting.

Without sounding arty or anything, that's the sort of thing that drives my dabbling with paint.

Last night, I tried to paint, but my head and heart wasn't in it at all and it ended up a canvas and sheet of paper being wasted and ruined.

I should know not to bother by now...

 Paris in 2024  

I recently had a chance to go to Paris for a weekend, and had an amazing time wandering around the Louvre in particular. 

Ive been before, a few years back, but this time I was able to really enjoy the ambience, and the silence. Yes, silence, as not every room and passage was crowded with people this time.  

To the extent, when I eventually got to the room in which the Mona Lisa was hung, there was virtually no one in front of it. The last time I went, there was a 20 deep crowd milling and pushing in front of me.  

Not being one for crowds, that was going to be a nightmare but this time it didn't prove to be that way at all, which was lovely.  For a few minutes, I was able to just stand and enjoy the quiet.  Obviously that was broken with the next coach party arriving...

Rooms and rooms of incredible art.  I think I spent most of the day in the building, trying to negotiate between wings and floors to find what was there. I wasn't really following a planned route, but wanted to see some specific things, including 

Pieter Boel's depiction of Vervet Monkeys 

and the amazing 'Liberty Leading the People' by Eugene Delacroix

There are so many other things I enjoyed there, and Id guess the ambience made it the day it was.  

But the loveliest part of the visit was the walk to and from it, from my hotel, where I saw some amazing graffiti

Would highly recommend a weekend just wandering.  I missed lots there, and will go again when I can...
 

 

Latest work...

My painting is usually something to do with waves, storms, landscapes or animals, and I don't usually do anything really abstract, but I started this one yesterday morning and finished it by the end of the day.   No layers, just colour.  I am not sure its exactly how I wanted it but it does what I wanted it to - draw the eye into the middle, but feel the colours moving out as well

Ive called it “Sunburst“. Its Acrylic paint on an A4 Canvas framed board.  

Beginnings

Putting things down onto paper, for me, is always a really good way for me to collect my thoughts, be they confused to anyone else, to make sense of something - life, death, grief, loss, pain, joy...everything, and to help find the way through the seemingly unfathomable mess to get to the other side.

It has never ended up where I think its going to end up. 

A bit like my painting. 

I get an idea in my head, that's about it. Just the kernel of it. Call it a seed, the neurons in my head sparking in a way that they hadn't before.

Colour, or motion or expression of an emotion - and there always has to be emotion to be able to turn paint and water into something meaningful - whatever it starts as just develops. 

Thats why I say so on the social reels, just saying how its started and taking myself on a journey.  More often than not (and I have a pile of paintings and drawings to show this) they end up as a mess of dark colour, of blind alleys or failures, and I leave them ‘to come back to it later‘ -  but in reality I have no idea where its going to end, or what its going to look like in the end.

So, I thought Id start a blog, becoming another of those arty types who think what they say is important (its not) and that way they create is the next best masterpiece (its not - although I do hope it could be, obviously)

In case you read this far, my paintings are currently on Instagram ( @ian_hammond_artist ) but I am building a website so they will be there after that 

So, here goes ....

These were some of my earliest artworks (that I still have or have photos of)