On spoons and inspiration

A spoon, with a mirrored image of, among other things, a lamp. The inspiration for the "Looking up" series of images I've been doing lately.

It's really interesting how some of these images have come to be, and while most of them have started with just some random doodles which I've then turned into something slightly more meaningful the "Looking up" series of images were a bit different. It started with me doing something very normal and ordinary, eating breakfast, but ended up being the inspiration for a bunch of images. When I was sitting there eating I looked at my spoon and saw an interesting reflection and immediately thought "I gotta paint that" and that's what I did.

What I want to say with this is that there are interesting patterns everywhere, if you just look close enough even something you see every day can bring you inspiration. And while I'm no Art teacher I think that everyone can paint/draw, it might be easier for some people than other, but with enough practice I'm sure everyone can draw fairly good. I think the most important thing is not whether or not you can do the actual moving around of the pencil/other tool, but whether or not you can see. And I'm not talking about seeing in the usual sense, but seeing as in seeing the art in the ordinary. Looking at a bunch of lines and seeing some meaning with them. Looking at a spoon and see a painting ;) I'd say that there's three things that help

1. Practice, practice, practice (and repeat forever =)
2. Education, be it more formal art education or "How to draw" books or online tutorials. While all aren't good most will give you something, at the very least another reason to practice painting and seeing things. (Not "seeing things" as in hallucinating though ;)
3. Be open to seeing art in places you haven't expected. That does of course require practice in a way, but also an awareness that things can be art. And that is what I hope this example with the spoon can do for you, open your eyes a bit.

Phew, that was a lot of words, but don't worry I'll start with today's image in a few moments, so you'll soon have something better to look at than a lot of text ;) Though text can be art too of course, but that's a topic for another day...