I bought a little book titled “300 drawing prompts”. Inside each page is cut in half and has ideas for what to draw. I thought when I bought it that it was only going to be good for stress relief, but as I’m going through it I realized that I’m actually getting some ideas for paintings from these prompts.
Here is one prompt I really liked. It gave me “your reflection”. And I thought to myself, “Well mirrors are boring so I’m going to do water. My mind of course goes to the lily pond like most of my work. And then I thought a little bit of a mixture of Mulan and The Lion King. Both reflection scenes are of the character searching for “who they are”. I look at other artists and I see many of them struggling with identity crisis and confusion. They are always trying to “discover” who they are. But I always thought of myself as developing who I am rather than discovering. I know who I am now. But when I look back 10 years ago I realize I am a different person than I was. So I know I will be different as I grow. And just as I believe I am a better person now that I was 10 years ago, I want to continue to develop into a better person as I grow older. I have never been unhappy with who I am because if there was ever something about myself I didn’t like I just changed it. So I evolved. In this sketch I can see myself. The ripples from my finger going into the water are the changes that happen over time. I never want to be stagnant in developing my character. I want to always better myself from the inside out.
Eventually I will paint this as a self portrait. Every artist needs one of those. But I have always hated self portraits. I even hate Van Gogh’s portraits. But this prompt gave me an idea for a self portrait that actually speaks to me. I know you probably can’t tell from the sketch since most of it is still in my head. But the sketch is at night with the moon reflecting in the water at the top and the stars around it. The color scheme will be blues and purples to reflect the peaceful night-time. The night-time is symbolic too because it represents solitude. Most of my time of reflecting comes at night. Its at this time that I pray for myself, my family, and my friends. In the time of solitude, prayer, and reflection is when change happens.
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