Sailing away.....

Oh how nice it would be to just sail away...off into a colorful sunset.....Hmmm...not this week.

When things get busy it gets harder and harder to find inspiration..it all looks like perspiration..or maybe that's just the hot summer temps we have been having. I come home worn out from the heat as much as anything else. Last night I couldn't get to sleep. DH couldn't either. We both crept downstairs to find something soporific...a little wine, a little tea. I won't tell who had which. As we snuggled down for the second time that night, he whispered that I should think happy thoughts and he started describing his favorite dream which involved a puppy in a field running up to him ....etc.

I love my pups...don't get me wrong, but my immediate reaction to thinking of a comforting image was the ocean. I grew up on a far away shore, always seeing sailboats and zippy little sports boats along with the big fishing boats. I loved them all. They were the first things I drew when I began to get that habit: a watery horizon, a lighthouse, a boat and a few seagulls. By the time I was an adolescent, touristy types from the BIG CITY would ask me how much I would sell them for. Many owned summer houses along the shore and wanted to decorate in very nautical themes. It was then that I learned I could actually make money doing something I loved. Magic. Wonder.

It never stopped.

So this morning I promised myself an early start in the studio. No distractions. Get in there and PAINT. This can sometimes be much harder to do than one would think. So in I went and the first thing that caught my eye was a little sailboat..a toy really, crafted at a women's retreat a few years ago. That was it. That was my inspiration, my muse for the morning. I grabbed a sheet of watercolor paper primed with thickly textured gesso. Then something wonderful happened. I did NOT grab my usual earthy golden colors. I laid out the brightest, most gloriously different colors I could have possibly put together. These were colors that sang and danced just like a tiny sailboat on the sea would sail. I didn't stop...I just kept going until it was done. I love it. Flower colors gone off to sea.

Much of this glorious color celebration is inspired by Nancy Standlee and her dedication to attending workshops with folks like this.

YUMMMMMM. What inspires your color choices? Not just paintings, but in your home, in the clothes you wear. What colors make your heart SING!!!!!