Peace after War - 22.12.2012

''No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.'' 

 Oscar Wilde

...

A strange thing occurred to me today - I never get an inspiration for a new painting while I'm wearing my glasses.
I'm short sighted and my eyes are actually pretty bad; everything that's more than 50cm away from is blurry, even my reflection in the mirror.
So without my glasses everything is a blur. All I see is colours of the things in front of me, no edges, just a mixture of colours. 
And that's when I get my inspiration... 
Some blurry shape in front of me changes and turns into something completely different. A vase with roses becomes a tree, my jewellery box turns into a house, a teddy bear into a mountain... it's weird but kind of interesting... I knew my imagination was very active - I automatically see (the weird) things people say to me, like for example someone says ''I dyed my hair this morning'' and I see them doing it straight away, but I never knew my imagination was capable of changing everyday objects into a landscape...

Some time ago I decided that I preferred to walk around without my glasses, even if it gives me a headache, but I didn't really know why... I mean, who wouldn't want to see?
Well now I realised that when my eyes stop seeing, my imagination starts working properly. Some people have to close their eyes to imagine something, all I have to do is take off my glasses, and when an image starts forming, I just close my eyes and observe what's happening in my mind, I observe my imagination's work without disturbing it. I know it sounds like I've got a schizophrenia or something, but that's not the case. It's not like I actively think ''I can't disturb my imagination, she'll be angry''. I just don't try to control my thoughts.. unfortunately sometimes I do it with my words as well... like some people who had chemistry with me would know (sorry guys).. so yh, I don't try to control my thoughts because when I do, the image disappears, or becomes too regular and perfect, like a mathematical shape, not like something that would work peacefully with nature.

When the image has fully developed I ''take a screenshot'' of my mind, search for my sketchbook and then I quickly transfer it down onto the page, because if I don't do it straight away, the imagine would be gone from imagination after about 5 minutes.



Here's a result of my imagination:

Acrylic paint on a 16"x12" canvas.

NOT Winsor and Newton this time as it's an old painting :)



Lots of Love,
Marlena