Thursday, June 19, 2008

A Familiar Motif

There are days when I have the luxury of a full hour lunch break with great weather, everything you want to have an easy sketching experience and all I have to do is find the inspiration – however for some reason it eludes me. Instead my mind is full of doubts, and nothing peaks my interest…

At these times I go back to what I am most comfortable with, something I have focused on before, something familiar. This is helpful, because once I start to focus on the familiar I am then able to be creative and put a pause on indecision. Through drawing and observing, something wonderful happens my mindset goes from focusing on the difficulties and the possible feels so much more plausible.


Slate Roof - 6" x 4" Strathmore W/C Paper

This little watercolor sketch of a slate roof was just familiar enough to get me out of a funk in May. I am pretty familiar with the typical brick rowhouse architecture that is present in a number of DC neighborhoods. For last summer I would spend my early mornings before getting to work sketching and chronicling the LeDroit Park neighborhood. (here is an interesting blog of a rowhouse renovation) Here are some of the sketches that came out of my jaunts into this area of DC. I always seem to go back to observing architecture and/or people when I am at a loss of selecting any other subject to sketch or paint. How and what do you do to get out of a creative funk?


2 comments:

Isabel said...

I love these sketches. What a great way to document the architecture around you!

eLIZabeth Floyd said...

Thanks Isabel, I find sketching something that is interesting to me helps focus my understanding "why" it captures my attention. I hope this makes sense...