Every single day I am blessed to wake up and look at the most breathtaking natural beauty straight out of my bedroom window and since living here mother nature has inspired many of my artistic creations. It makes me smile to myself really, how life seems to move full circle. Flowers and nature was not something that I ever really focused on when it came to my art - especially in my younger years, but moving out here a little while after my moms passing I suddenly found myself greatly drawn to it - no pun intended, lol.
My mom was always the one who painted nature - flowers, landscapes and such... that was very much her thing and she was incredibly good at it too. Losing my mom, as anyone who has lost a parent they were very close to can no doubt understand - literally turned my world upside down. I had lost my best friend and the one person I used to lean on most.
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I am not entirely sure what prompted my shift in direction and natural gravitation creatively, whether it was trying to find some way to stay connected to my mom, simple inspiration from what I am now surrounded by, the fact that I am getting old, or all three combined, lol... but nonetheless, as time moves on it does not appear to be going anywhere.
It is not to say that I don't still enjoy drawing other things like portraits or abstracts - though, admittedly - everything I draw... including portraits and nature, are all pretty abstract. I am derailing... my point is - me, drawing mother nature haha!
Anyhoooo... a little while ago, I saw a tweet by an artist on X looking for inspiration via peoples photo shares. She is a landscape artist from East Hampton so I thought I would share one of the many beautiful photos which I have of the little village I get to call home.
To be honest, I thought absolutely nothing of the share I made in response to her tweet that day - but a week or two later, she suddenly tagged me in a tweet sharing what she had painted! I could not believe that out of all the photos which people shared with her, that she had chosen mine... I mean okay, I have to give it to my surrounds - they are indeed quite spectacular - but still... I was absolutely thrilled! Below is the photo I shared with her and then the painting she did.
I was absolutely blown away! It was such an honour to see her creation and I truly wished I had been in a position to purchase it at the time. Not sure of it has sold yet, but her work doesn't appear to gather any dust. Seeing this, really got me thinking about myself and my own art. Here I am, the one who literally gets to look at scenes like this day in and day out - pretty much any direction I look too and other people are the ones painting/drawing it.
That seemed a little silly of me - a wasted opportunity really, but my confidence in the arena of landscapes has never been grand, and perhaps that is because I have not experimented with it much. So, about two months ago, I decided to sit down and try my own hand at a bit of landscape art... but staying true to my own style of artistic creation, which anybody who knows my art well, will know is mostly digital creations firstly and secondly - I work a LOT with texture and layering.
It is something I have a huge passion for... bringing living texture into my pieces, like photos of old rust or peeling paint etc. Most of my pieces become quite cumbersome file size wise because of all the layering I do... but I absolutely LOVE it. Anyhooo..... so back to my attempted landscape
So lol - as you can see, right there from layer one... there is some old rusty nuts or whatever that is haha... but I liked the texture so it got used. My stages of building are sometimes endless and they change a million times along the way too - but one of the most valuable lessons I ever learnt from attending my late moms art classes... was "layers, layers, layers - it is what separates a good painting from a great painting" she would say - often!
Now, please don't actually get excited to see the finished illustration because I have not finished it haha - but I will, soon.... hence this post! At one point I almost gave up, with my internal natter telling me that it sucked and I should just stick to what I know... but, instead of giving up - I just took a bit of a breather and went back to it about a week later and carried on...
I will not lie - it has taken an awful amount of restraint along the way not to just delete the file and forget it ever happened... but I have not done so, and now that I look back on it after a second little breather... I am glad I didn't. It is sad really, how harsh an artist is on themselves a lot of the time. So, here it is... the last screenshot and the stage at which my first ever landscape piece of art currently sits.
One afternoon, I spent endless hours working on the clouds, the fynbos bush and the mountain line. Most of that time was spent zoomed in a lot so I was not really focused on or looking at the "bigger picture", but as the end of the day came around and I needed to walk away to get dinner going I suddenly zoomed out, stood back and said to myself... I think you might just be able to do this Jayne. Yay! haha!
Needless to say, it is nowhere near completed - but it is starting to look like something (well, I think so anyway) so now I just need to find a moment to get stuck into it again. Oh, and it was the header image on this post which was my inspiration... which is down at the lagoon - about a 7 minute walk from home.
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Until next time...
Much Love from Country Bumpkinland, South Africa xxx
Jaynielea
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