Push through a creative dry spell

Hello spring

Welcome and thank you for being here.

FIrstly, an apology for not being more present here on Substack, as you might tell from the title, this post is a little like spring.

We’ve recently moved the clocks forward to British Summertime and my body clock was definitely ready for that. It appears the garden, plants and flowers are ready too. I’ve said before about loving the 3 warmer seasons here in the UK and this year is no different.

What’s going on?

My creative cup runs a little dry through winter - does yours? It doesn’t worry me too much as there is usually something that sparks my interest. Recently, this has been the garden. I changed my job in January and this has left me with less time, my 2 -wheeled BMW delight has been playing me up too and there have been family matters to attend to. All this ‘distraction’ is not really giving my head space to create.

The garden played its part in this cycle as I looked out on a mossy, patchy lawn, covered in tree shoots from the falling debris that runs long the west side of my property and made the decision to change my perspective on that too. For seven years I’ve battled to try and keep it ‘lush’, having looked at it this morning it dawned on me this has been a futile cause, nature has seen to that!

So we sprung into decisive action, - herbacious perennials were acquired from a lovely ‘zany’ plant lady along with a ton of friendly jollly advice.
( the best was reinforcing my decision to ignore the lawn and cut it back to allow plants to take over- she hated on her lawn which happened to be the domain of her husband, regularly stealing chunks of it, as she made her planting areas larger at his expense 😂)

The once new turf, now 7 years in, can do what it likes, if it doesn’t behave for me its for the chop. I’m working with what I’ve got - clay, some sun, mainly shade , moderate temperatures , small plot etc.

Anyway, what’s this got to do with art I hear you ask. Well like the plants and the bulbs that force their way out every year along the roadside, I regularly have moments of creativity, the spring livens and awakens nature and it does something to us humans in its magical way. With a world full of idiots, greed and despair spring and nature can show us the way forward.

On a recent chat session I commented how getting out & about in the beautiful county of Cornwall often inspires something in my art but I do have to ‘get out’ in it for this to happen. This may be the same for you?
Trust in whatever you find to inspire & overcome that dry spell. Let me know what gets you inspired in the comments.

I’ve been playing a little bit with plants and flowers in the garden and so decided to have a play with the brush and pen among other things

Nothing monumental but something nonetheless.

Here’s a recent take on the humble daffodil from our recent sketch and chat session. Thankyou to those who joined in and thankyou to Jane Bradbury for checking in and giving me a little nudge to get away from some of my other distractions!

If you are feeling a little stuck, fear not, it happens to me regularly, I think they also call it life!
I’m working my way through it.
Spring, nature and the county of Cornwall will get me through it again.

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Until next time.

Carl