Sometimes too much inspiration can be crippling! That may sound counter-intuitive but as I find myself thinking about a new collection I feel a little overwhelmed by ideas, which to choose, where to start, will I make the right choices, where is this idea going to take me, am I developing my practice in the right direction? These are all thoughts going through my head and sometimes they can stop me putting pen to paper or threading up that needle.
Should I create a collection driven by techniques, experimentation and materials, or explore meaning and story-telling, or can I do both (the ideal)?
So what ideas are on the table at the moment? Having done the Expressive Birds Watercolour course there is a big part of me that would like to push this further, practice my painting technique and how I use colour and explore light and shade. The idea being that I then develop these paintings into textile art, investigating colouring, layering and stitch techniques.
Of course I would still need some subject matter, I recently painted a couple of puffins just to get practicing and now I'm thinking maybe it would be nice to do another puffin series. So what's holding me back from puffins V2? Mostly it's a desire to explore a new subject and to not feel like I'm going over old ground.
So when Spring is in full flow and the natural world is your muse there is so much going on that your brain can become full of all the stories you want to capture and share. Tales of movement, migration and extraordinary journeys, explorations of sound and song or the passage of time and how it can be tracked through the arrival and departures of natures seasonal heroes.
So much to think about, so now it is time for me to choose a focus and just get started - often the hardest thing to do.
I think I might go off now and paint a few more puffins!