Color, Plants, and Inspiration!

During a recent open studio, one of my guests asked a fantastic question: What's your inspiration for your paintings?

It all begins with color for me! And my background in botany and the healing arts. I use the botanical forms in my work as a way to weave the colors together. Sometimes I create “worlds” in my paintings and then I inhabit them with creatures and characters. And plants. Always plants. 

There’s an exercise that I do in my wilderness workshops and in my online Wild Wonder course called “The Palette of Place.” The students love it! We go out and gather natural materials and then we make paint colors to match those materials. Then we use those paint colors in our paintings. I find that it makes a strong connection between the painter, the paints, the source material, and the painting. I think it also makes for a more mature color palette, which is sometimes missing from beginning painting classes and online mixed media classes. Students find this very satisfying, because they have created this palette themselves—and they discover that they have more skill in color palette creation than they knew!

Pssst: perfect moment to remind you that if you would like to try the "Palette of Place" yourself, along with a lot of other super cool art exercises, you can sign up for my online painting course, Wild Wonder. It's a self-study, instant access, online course so you can take it at your own pace!