Rebooting

Holidays are great. It's good to slow down; to take time to relax with family and friends; to read a new book and to enjoy seasonal celebration meals. All too soon however life forces one back to reality. 

I love the start of a new year. I love to make plans. I love to think of all the things that will enrich the coming months. I love planning a new body of work.

But planning is good only when the ideas flow and the ideas are plentiful. Sometimes it's hard. Sometimes the ideas just don't come and you battle to think of what you want to paint. 

Tuesday morning was such a time. I fiddled around with little success. I couldn't think of a coherent direction or theme. I started to feel down. Then I realized that just as a computer sometimes needs to be shut down and re-started, I would have to reboot my creativity.

I started to trawl through the many photographs taken during the past year.  Here and there I found a promising image, then another and another. Gradually I began to find a theme.

Whew!

I began to make a collage of three photos - screenshots of a recent video - then I knew what I wanted to do. In fact, I now had ideas for three paintings just waiting to be created. 

The paintings are in my head for now. Hopefully in the weeks to come I can make my thoughts into reality. 

This is a snippet of one of the images that got me going...

How do you get your creativity going after a break? I'd love to hear your solutions.