Thinking Summery Thoughts

I am so excited to be able to offer this new line of Mini Dahlia Notebooks. They were created in response to a customer who requested my original regular-sized Dahlia notebook (the pink one) in different colors and smaller. I had not thought to experiment with the colors or the size until she contacted me, but I am so happy with the results. I love when someone tosses me an idea out of the blue and I am able to run with it. Sometimes we artists find ourselves in creative "ruts", which is where I must admit I was at the time my customer contacted me. Any "jumpstarts" are always appreciated, so don't be afraid to ask an artist to do something for you. They will probably be delighted!

Orange Love

And now, the culmination of my 21-sketches brainstorming session on oranges (see 2 posts ago). I really do love everything Orange: the color, the fruit, the taste, the smell. So, appropriately titled, I think. This one has actually sparked an idea for a whole new kitchen re-design . . . someday.

How Many Oranges Does it Take to Turn on a Light Bulb?

Apparently a lot, in this case. I counted 21 individual oranges or slices sketched (not including the 2 page thumbs at the bottom) before I tore the page out of my sketchbook to scan in. Why am I doing this, you ask? Well, I have this inkling of an idea, a vague sort of blurry vision bouncing around in my brain for a digital design depicting fruit - specifically oranges - and this is how I am trying to "spark" that idea into igniting. If that makes absolutely no sense, I'm sorry, but all I can say is that artists are weird like that and we all seek inspiration in different ways. In my case, I already know what I want to do with this piece - I just don't know how.

I want to create something that is both pleasing to look at and represents a certain level of artistic skill, but that hasn't been done before. I researched "modern fruit art" the other day and I honestly didn't find much that was illustrated in the same "style" I'm going for, but I also didn't get many good sources either.

A source is not to be confused with copying. A source is something that sparks you brain into "art-mode" and you end up creating a piece of art influenced in part by it, yet totally different. Still, as I said, I am finding a shortage of sources for this piece I want to create, so it's up to me to sketch my heart out until I find a design that I want to run with. I would do this anyway, even if I did have lots of sources; but in this case it simply means that the creative process is a little bit harder because I have to try to draw pictures in my head based on past memories and other stored information. It's not impossible and not unpleasant, but it does take a little longer, which in cases like this, often leaves us artists staring at a blank page for quite some time before a sketchable idea takes form.

The first night I attempted to brainstorm, I only sketched about 5 different orange styles before I ran out of ideas. But overnight, my brain, once primed, started conjuring up new images and by the second night I had all of the different styles, shown above, down on paper. As I was sitting there trying to decide which one would work best, I suddenly realized that the entire sketchbook page had kind of an interesting look to it. Like some sort of funky wallpaper (minus the written notes). I still don't know exactly how I'm going to proceed with this design, but I hope you enjoyed this cutaway of the inner workings of my brain. Now it's back to work for me!