June 1st - The Creative Spark

Chupacabra sighting near Big Bear, Ca

Hello Ya'll.  Happy June!

This last weekend I spent some time with the family camping in the wilds of California.  It was a time for us all to relax and spend some quality family time together.  My wife asked me a couple of times if I was able to relax yet and I had to admit that wasn't until the end of the third day that I finally felt a release of tension.  All was good, then this happened -  I almost lost my life during a one-on-one confrontation with the local Chupacabra - (  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chupacabra ).  I was violently attacked but survived with only minor mental injuries, let me explain:  During this outburst of violence I got to revisit my entire life as an artist in the few seconds while the Chupacabra was gnawing on my lower leg bone. This life flash has left me more scared then the actual attach.  I haven't figured out if this is a good thing or not. As for the Chupacabra - I fed it a Snickers candy bar and it went away. (Poking fun at the TV commercials) Do you all know who the Chupacabra was?

With my new outlook on life I came up with a Grand Plan.  Maybe not really grand but it is a plan.  The plan involves me blogging everyday for the month of June, or longer, while I complete a painting.  Why you might ask?  If you didn't ask, I sure did - asked myself a few times!  Here's what I was thinking:  Many times people have asked me how long it takes to complete a larger painting.  I don't really have an answer because I do other things in life and I can't seem to sit down and paint a painting from start to end without life's little interruptions (these interruptions are mostly cause by me and my rambling mind).  So, I thought blogging about the process would help me focus, and help you find the answer to this 40 year old question (I started drawing when I was four, I think).  There are other things I hope to tackle as well - I heard great feedback from when I blogged everyday in January and I hope to do this again.  I hope to show everyone how I paint.  You get to see something come to life from initial concept to final, hang on the wall, art.  You'll get to see what inspires me, what hurts me, etc.  I'll try and bare my soul here. It should be fun.  Ultimately, I would really like to give you all a true glimpse into my artistic life.  I hope to do this as fun, as informative and as blunt as I can. (If I get too blunt let me know, I do have experience with this and may need to reign it in a bit.)

I would love to hear all of your feed back.  If there are questions I'll see about answering them on the following days blog.  Perhaps you all can be inspired by what I am doing and go out and analyze your own life and make a change, take a risk,  be inspired, or something.  (This is the "Grand" part of my idea that may not pan out to be so grand.  We'll see.)  If there is someone in your life or in your neighborhood who is a budding artist, an art lover or just seems to be the creative type, please share the link to my blog with them ( http://larryreinhart.blogspot.com/ ).  I would love to extend my audience.

So, to get started:

What to paint?

Sketch book 1

Here's a few sketches from just one page of my sketch book. (I have three sketch books right now)  These are not master drawings, they are just quick ideas I have and want to record.  This is the real deal here.  On this page I see six images that I could easily pursue if I had unlimited time in my life.  But I don't, so I need to choose - but wait there's more...

Sketch book 2

Here's the next page in my sketch book.  Here I see four ideas I would love to chase.  That's a total of ten really recent sketches that I would love to work on but I must choose to chase just one.  This is one of the parts in my life that really tears me up.  I wish I could choose them all, but I just don't have the time.  And to boot, in a couple more weeks I'll have another dozen ideas.  I truly believe this is one of the things that can drive an artist nuts.

Which image will make me grow as an artist?  Which image will add to my current work, but still allow me to grow? Which image will fill me with joy?  Which image will hold my attention for the next month?  Which image will touch the audience the most?  Questions and questions and more questions.

So back to the initial question:  Which one to choose? .......

Cheers,

Larry
http://www.larryreinhart.com/