What comes and goes

I've been wanting write a blog post about this for some time, but I never actually started it. But I think now, with more than 8 weeks without painting, is a good time for it.

I've been on a painting hiatus for more than once now. They range from one to six months, but in the end I always make it back to the painting table. Since my oldest daughter was born I've had more than before, I think that's normal. Real life business tends to take the focus away from the painting, at least for me. The last couple of weeks I've spent too much time in traffic jams, I've been ill now and, and so were my kids. For me that's sometimes enough not to find the spirit to do some painting. So real life business is the first possible cause for a hiatus.

The two other factors are motivation and inspiration. I think motivation is much related to your real life situation. For example I'm currently putting quite some time in a video game I'm really enjoying (Minecraft). Of course I enjoy painting, but currently I'm having more fun playing the game. So it's very hard to motivate myself to skip a night gaming and do some painting instead. All the same: when I've spent way too much time in a traffic jam when driving home from the office this usually results in having all the household tasks done late in the evening, too late for me to motivate myself to pickup a paintbrush.

The third factor which I already mentioned is probably the most important one: inspiration. I draw a lot of inspiration from music, literature, nature, etc. And of course watching other people's work, which I did at last month's Golden Demon contest in Germany. I've also recently discovered the joys of the audio book. I've decided to start listening to Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series again. I never made it any further than book 8 with the paper version, but an audio book really allows more time for "reading". The rich fantasy world really gives me a lot of inspiration currently. I might try it out when painting, instead of music and see how it will affect my concentration.

My inspiration level is currently very high. But the motivation isn't really there yet, I'm still putting quite some time in the Minecraft game (which you should really check out if you enjoy sand-box building games) but I feel I'm nearing the point where I get tired of it. Another problem I have is that I'm still lacking a dedicated painting desk. I moved my old desk over to our new house when we moved back in August, but it's not really ready for painting: most of my stuff is still packed up and the plan is to buy a new desk and a display case. Maybe I should simply force myself to go to Ikea and buy the stuff, and the rest will probably follow.

If I bored you with this post, I'm sorry for it, but it's something I'm writing for myself in the first place. If you have some motivational/inspirational problems sometimes too, please share your story in the comments.

I still can't tell when I will return to painting, probably in two or three weeks I think. But writing on my blog again is certainly a step in the right direction. This blog, and the few hundred loyal readers I have is probably the best motivation there is.

In the meantime take care and enjoy painting!

-Gerrie aka Corvus