Q: What inspires you to start your next painting? (Question from Nancy Nikkal)

A: For my current series, “Bolivianos,” I am using as source/reference material c-prints composed at a La Paz museum in 2017. I began the series by picking my favorite from this group of photos (“The Champ” and later, “Avenger”) before continuing with others selected for prosaic reasons such as I like some aspect of the photo, to push my technical skills by figuring out how to render some item in pastel, to challenge myself to make a pastel painting that is more exciting than the photo, etc. I like to think I have mostly succeeded.
At this time I am running low on images and have not yet imagined what comes next. Do I travel to La Paz again in 2021 to capture new photos? This series was a surprise gift so I am reluctant to deliberately chase after it knowing that ‘lightning never strikes twice.’ Will travel even be possible this year with Covid-19? These are questions I am wrestling with now.
Comments are welcome!
Posted on February 27, 2021, in Bolivianos, Creative Process, Inspiration, Source Material, Working methods and tagged ’lightning never strikes twice’, “Avenger”, ”Bolivianos”, ”The Champ”, c-prints, capture, challenge, continuing, Covid-19, current, deliberately, exciting, figuring, images, imagined, inspires, La Paz, Nancy Nikkal, paintung, pastel, possible, questions, reference, reluctant, series, Source Material, succeededRunning low, surprise, technical skills, travel, using, what comes next, wrestling. Bookmark the permalink. Comments Off on Q: What inspires you to start your next painting? (Question from Nancy Nikkal).