Heart, Brain to Body Activation

"Blue Morning Glories"  24"x30" oil on canvas

by Cindy Mott McGarry
Two originals Sold
Giclee prints available on My Website!

"The body achieves what the mind believes."

- Jim Evans

So many times I see a painting in my mind, get excited to begin painting, but yet the actual execution lingers ... What I have learned over the years is that it helps to be very inspired before committing to beginning and finishing a painting. Once I feel something pretty powerful it is easier to begin creating.

What gets me inspired are color combinations and how light plays on subjects. A quality photograph with clear value differentiation of an interesting composition can trigger the needed level of inspiration. Once I get my mind focusing on what is exciting about a vision, then the intensity of producing that vision gets stronger. It helps greatly to have the studio space ready for painting, otherwise I can get distracted and the clarity of shapes and colors might run right out of my mind! When using oil paints I loosely lay the dark colors down first ... then quickly lay the focal point in with the darkest dark and the lightest light!

I try to simplify the next phase of the process by sticking with similar values of different colors (medium to dark colors) in shadow areas and similar values of different colors (basically pastel colors) in brightly lit areas. Sometimes I also like to create disappearing lines with gentle blending and use stippling of light and dark in opposite areas to unify the painting.

Heart (Inspiration) + Brain (Imagination) = Body Activation (Hands Making Art)!

Have fun!