Following the Creative Flow

"Flower Portal"  Copyright Christine Upchurch. All rights reserved.

The creative urge may arise in an obvious way, such as having a desire to create something through art or crafting, or by wanting to learn to play a song on your instrument of choice with your own individual flare, or by wishing to express yourself through the written word. But that inner yearning may be more subtle, such as having an inclination to add a certain color to your home; or wanting to arrange landscape plants in a specific pattern based on texture, color, and shape; or feeling inspired to combine certain ingredients together at dinner time and present your cooking “just so.” 

Sometimes following through on that creative urge can feel like scratching an itch—you’ve just got to do it to feel at ease again. Recently I saw an image of a flowering plant for sale and thought to myself, “I should paint that.” I saved the photo and kept coming across it, each time remembering how much I wanted to paint it. But life was busy enough that I couldn’t carve sufficient time out of my schedule to adequately tackle the project.

Eventually I realized that the inner urging was less about wanting to paint THOSE flowers and more about those flowers inspiring me to express my creativity, regardless of the constraints of my schedule. So I found an hour to set aside for painting and went for it.

Given how little time I had to paint—and feeling compelled to actually PAINT by putting color to paper and allowing the process to flow—I violated some common sense rules: I didn’t think too much about composition; I didn’t do the value sketch so important in pastel painting; and I didn’t do an underpainting on the exceedingly white paper, knowing full well that the consequences would be that it would take some effort and likely many layers of pastel to cover the bright white completely. When painting, I also didn’t worry about trying to recreate what I saw in the photo, but rather relied heavily on my imagination, painting freely for the mere joy of it. Even the flowers I was creating on the pastel paper looked rather different than those in the photo—the very flowers which had originally inspired me to paint.

When the hour had passed the painting wasn’t finished, yet I felt much better than I had when I began, experiencing a combination of both relief and invigoration. Over the next several days I did manage to complete the painting by spending an hour here and there to assess, add, and make minor changes until it felt done. 

As a painting, am I happy with it? In some ways I am, but not entirely. When I evaluate it from a rational standpoint, there are plenty of things about it that I might like to add or change and some new things I would like to try next time. I also recognize that as a student of pastels who has had little experience painting flowers up close, there are some techniques that I need to understand better in order to improve. 

But am I satisfied with it? Absolutely. This painting wasn’t about creating a finished product or painting the image accurately or even about “learning.” No, it had little to do with outcome. This was about creative expression because, well, sometimes you just have to scratch that itch. And that, in and of itself, can be immensely satisfying.