Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Blue & Yellow


Did the French invent the color combination of blue and yellow? And if they didn't, why do I always think of the south of France whenever I see that color combination? (In case you were wondering, the color yellow is not present in this photo!)

I received a comment on yesterday's post from Cindy wondering what artists do when they hit a dry spell. Although I've never been truly blocked there are times when I lack inspiration. Whenever I get that way I have a few tried and true tricks that I use. Sometimes I use down times as a chance to try out new materials or a new medium (that's how I got involved with collage). Sometimes I take a day trip to a museum or gallery or maybe a public garden somewhere to try to get the creative juices flowing. Just this past weekend it was a trip to Home Depot that did it for me!

On Saturday my husband needed to run to Home Depot to pick up a number of items on his current project list and I tagged along. I don't know what it is about Home Depot, but it seems as though whenever we're there together we always manage to lose each other and we spend twice as much time there as we intended just trying to find ourselves. (Of course it would help if he'd bring his cell phone with him!)

I have to admit that much of the time it's my fault. I'm easily distracted in that place. And this past Saturday as we were passing the magazine rack in front of the customer service counter, my feet just ground to a halt. I'm not a big magazine subscriber, preferring to just pick up a magazine as the mood strikes and it certainly struck then. I decided to peruse the home decorating magazines to see if I couldn't shake up the lull I was going through. None of the usual zines were doing it for me and then I ran across one I hadn't seen before, "Country French" and I was immediately charmed. I saw so many things in a quick flip through the pages that caught my imagination. My first impression was that of blue toile and sunflowers and suddenly I remembered that I had blue toile tissue paper! I don't know why I have blue toile tissue paper, I certainly don't remember buying blue toile tissue paper, but suddenly I knew how I was going to use it.

The magazine was pricey and I put it back in the rack when I saw my husband pass by again on his way to the check out. Half way to the check out, though, I turned around and ran back to the rack and grabbed the magazine. Sometimes you just got to pay a little for inspiration!

I have one more layer of varnish to apply before I take a photo, but tomorrow I should be posting French Sunflower.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Sounds beautiful - can't wait to see it! I am always drawn to the books/magazines in Home Depot/Lowes. I could browse through them all day. I'm wondering, along with spending twice as much time at HD, do you also find yourself spending twice as much money?