How to Determine Subject Matter for Your Next Painting

“What do I paint?”

Every painting starts with that question and it can be a pesky question! Finding inspiration for your next painting is usually exciting and sometimes a bit overwhelming. Here’s a guide to help you tap into your creativity and come up with fresh ideas.

First of all, I’d say to just start with what moves you. Personal experiences and emotions are gold mines for inspiration. Reflect on recent events, travels, or meaningful conversations. These moments can spark an idea for a painting. Maybe a walk in the park inspires a landscape, or a heartfelt chat with a friend leads to a compelling portrait.

Look around you. Your surroundings are full of potential subjects. Pay attention to colors, textures, and patterns in your environment—whether at home, on the street, or in nature. Sometimes, simply observing the world around you can bring mundane objects to life in a new way.

Immerse yourself in art. Visit galleries, museums, or explore online collections. Seeing other artists’ work can ignite your creativity. Don’t just focus on famous pieces; lesser-known artists often offer fresh perspectives that can be incredibly inspiring.

Experiment with different mediums and techniques. Playing with new tools and methods can lead to unexpected results and help you find your unique voice. This playful approach is key to unlocking new creative avenues.

Keep a sketchbook. It’s a great way to capture quick ideas and experiment with compositions without pressure. Regular sketching keeps your creative muscles active and helps you develop concepts for larger works.

Tune into your emotions. Art is a reflection of your inner world. Let your feelings guide your brush. Whether you’re feeling joyful, melancholic, or contemplative, these emotions can shape the direction of your work.

There’s no single path to inspiration. Stay curious, open-minded, and let your creativity flow. The world is full of ideas waiting to be captured on canvas. So, go ahead and explore—you never know where your next masterpiece will come from.

Overcoming Artist’s Block: Practical Tips

“I look into my creative soul for an idea…ANY idea. And it’s just a dark, silent abyss. I have absolutely nothing creative going on in my head. What do I do to get that spark back?”

First of all, look…every artist faces artist’s block at some point. It can be frustrating, but it’s a natural part of the creative process, so please be kind to yourself. I don’t have a cure-all, but I do have a few ideas you might try that have helped me:

 1. Start Creating Sometimes, the best way to overcome a block is to simply start. Put something—anything—on the canvas or sketch pad. It doesn’t have to be perfect. The act of creating can help break the inertia and get your creative juices flowing. 

2. Change Your Surroundings A change of scenery can do wonders for your creativity. Travel, visit an art museum, or even just take a walk in a new neighborhood. New experiences can provide fresh inspiration and new perspectives. 

“Creative block can be frustrating, but it’s a natural part of the creative process…”

3. Try Creative Exercises Engage in different creative exercises to stimulate your mind. This could be doodling, experimenting with new materials, or trying a different art style. These exercises can help you break out of your routine and spark new ideas. 

4. Take a Break Sometimes, the best thing you can do is step away from your work. Take a break, do something you enjoy, and give yourself time to recharge. When you return to your art, you may find that you have a fresh perspective. 

5. Seek Inspiration Look for inspiration in other artists’ work, read inspirational art quotes, or watch documentaries about artists. Seeing how others overcome their challenges can motivate you to push through your own block. 

6. Set Small Goals Break your project into smaller tasks and set achievable goals. This can make the process feel less overwhelming and help you build momentum as you complete each step. 

Trust me, artist’s block is a common challenge, but it doesn’t have to halt your creativity. Every artist goes through this at some point. Like it or not, it’s just part of the journey. If you have an idea for something that’s helped you, please by all means share that idea here in the comments!

"What inspires you as an artist?"

This week, I had the privilege of spending some time with one of my clients up in Pittsburgh, PA. I really enjoy the social part of what I do. The actual creation of artwork is very much a solitary “in my headspace” kind of work, so balancing that intense introvert time with some extrovert social time is a very necessary and wonderful thing. During that time shared, my client Josh asked me a question: “What inspires you as an artist?” I gave my short answer, but I’ve been thinking about that question for the last few days and figured it would help if I wrote down my answer.

When I take the time to really think deeply about what fans creativity in me — what inspires me to create, I keep coming back to one primary thing: When I paint, I basically am attempting to play God. I am trying to create a perfect world, albeit just in my artwork. I know that’s just me. There are so many artists both now and through history who don’t look at their artwork like I do. There are artists like Goya who used their work to shock the viewer as he attempted to use his artwork to display the really horrors of war. He was amazing. But I wouldn’t want a Goya hanging on my living room wall. It would creep me out. Please hear me — I’m not devaluing art that is like that. I can see the value and really do appreciate the fact that because art can “get into the soul of the viewer”, art created to provoke or instruct or shock the viewer is an absolutely valid way to use art. That’s just not me.

When I paint, I basically am attempting to play God.

I am busy trying to Eden. No big deal, right? That sounds really crazy or immensely egotistical but that really is at the heart of what I’m doing. With my artwork, I’m trying to imagine a world where there is always beauty, where this is no war, no death or sickness or sadness, where there are no power-hungry politicians or narcissistic leaders. A world where swords are not beaten into plowshares because swords never existed I the first place. That’s the world I am trying to create with my artwork: the world I’m looking for. When people have looked through my gallery and say, “I love your work. There’s just something really calming about it”, I smile to myself. “Calming about it?,” I want to say. It’s Eden. That place still calls to us. I suspect we’re all trying to create that perfect world, and stumble all over ourselves and everyone else because we’re attempting to create a place that by definition is perfect, and we are not. How do we make a world where there is no selfishness when we are selfish, or a world where there is peace and tranquility when there is war inside our own heads?

The answer to that question deserves a very long book and not a blog post. But if you look back at my artwork posted here on my website, you can see that longing, that reaching out to a world I wish was real, which (maybe???) CAN one day be real? Until it is real, my goal is to live my life as if it were real...To treat people the way I would treat them were we to be living in one of my landscapes so to speak. I’m not very good at that because I’m a very selfish person and hurt people as often as I encourage them. But no matter how old I get and no matter what my life path has led me through to date, I cannot shirk the longing for that place. That place I’ve never seen or fully experienced, but I’ve felt it so very close from time to time. And those brushes with the sublime, with the utterly holy — that is what fuels my creativity. THAT is why I paint what I paint.

An Artist in Italy (Part 1)

This is one of the photos currently becoming a painting! I took it on an amazing hike we took just east of Pacentro, Italy.

Five years ago, I visited Italy, and ever since, I’ve been trying to figure out how and when we could get back there. Italy is not for everyone, but it’s definitely for me. Upon returning from Italy in 2017, I begin learning Italian. I was serious. I began discretely passing on little news articles to Joy about Italian villages offering homes for 1 euro. Joy has become very good at rolling her eyes.

Despite the realization I would never relocate to a hilltop village in Italy, Joy and I were finally able to visit again in early September of this year. Upon arriving in Rome, we headed directly east to Abruzzo, and then south into Puglia. Oh, Italy did it’s work on me, and I’m so glad. I’ll never really be the same.

If you’re still reading this, you might have realized that this blog post has little to do directly with “art”, but my experience there had a lot to do with creativity and life in general, and that all informs the artwork I do. I feel the need to write down my thoughts. So if you’re reading this, be aware this is going to be more of a journal entry than a typical blog post.

So, here we go:

What I learned from Italy, Part 1

First of all, and probably most importantly, Italy completely confronts my tendency to feel like I’m in control of my life. In Italy, Italy controls your life. From the first moments after picking up our rental car and wondering how the heck to get out of the airport (the signage was not AT ALL clear on this), the American in me threatened to bristle and think “well why don’t they have better signage???” (i.e. “why don’t they do things like Americans?”)

Literally, countless times every day, Joy and I were confronted with the fact that life is just really approached differently in Italy than in the United States and that is exactly why I wanted to visit this place again. I can’t tell you how emotionally healthy it felt to just take a deep breathe, sigh, and say (over and over again like a mantra), “I want to do this or that, but…we’ll see.” You’d have to know me to understand that that just is not me. My kids would probably all agree I have a Type A personality (which is why I need to visit places like Italy). See, in Italy, all my plans had to be held very loosely in order to enjoy the place at all. I had every day pretty much all planned out, but Italy dictated that I hold those plans in an open palm, and to be open to practically anything changing those plans. At that point, I was confronted with a choice: I could either really dig in my heals and fight it and wish I’d gone to Germany or England instead, OR give into it and roll with it, letting Italy shape me like I was a lump of clay on a potters wheel and Italy was the potter. I chose the latter and I’m so glad I did.

Italy was absolutely exhausting and absolutely wonderful. I probably almost died there, and unrelated to that, I took home a souvenir that made me more sick than I ever remember being in my life. But I’m ready to go back. I love that place and have lots of stories and reflections I want to share.

Next time.

New Art Gallery on the West Coast

Downtown Pleasanton, California

What a weird, unpredictable couple of weeks! I usually do not like unpredictable at all. I like planing my life as best I can. I know that’s impossible sometimes, but still…I try. But I’m so thankful that “unpredictable” isn’t always a scary thing! Let me back up and explain.

A couple weeks ago, the phone rang and I almost didn’t answer it. I totally assumed it was a robocall. Instead, it was a real live, breathing human! It turns out this guy is an artist who'd visited my studio, and in the course of our conversation, he said I should get into a gallery on the west coast; that he sells very well in a few galleries there. I explained that it’s a very difficult thing to find a gallery that fits you well when you live across the country. For example, a local gallery owner friend of mine once told me that she usually gets over a hundred artist requests for gallery representation in her email every week. She just deletes them without even reading them.

So, it turns out this complete stranger said he’d try to hook me up with a gallery he’s rep’d by in Pleasanton, California (in the Bay Area). I mean, who does that? A week later, I got a phone call from the gallery owner who had spent time looking over my website and studying my technique and…he was really interested. After he had a discussion with the gallery manager about what he thought, they sent me a contract for representation. And…I signed it. This is exciting to me for several reasons:

1) I’d love to expand my reach to the west coast.

2) I’d love a tax deductible reason to visit the west coast.

3) I was asked if I could come up with several “vineyard” themed pieces. This TOTALLY excites me. I love the way the rows of grape vines add a geometrical element to a natural landscape. A vineyard is beautiful and peaceful. This theme totally fits what I love to be painting. I can even sell the pieces in my Asheville studio (we have vineyards here too — heck, they’re kind of ubiquitous, you know?)

“…I’d love a tax deductible reason to visit the west coast.”

4) What the gallery has asked for is one large original piece and several prints. So, because of this, I’m going to venture into the world of metal prints. These are a relatively new technique of dye sublimation on a metal surface, creating awesome colors and really emphasizing contrast. I like that, because my paintings are painted on a metal surface. The reason I’ve done very, very few prints before is that compared to an original, the print on paper or canvas is just flat, dead looking. These metal prints glow. I’m excited to try them out and see how it goes. This could open up a lower price point possibility for someone that wants one of my paintings but can’t swing the price of an original.

So, I guess the moral of this story is: When the phone rings, (unless it says “United States” or “Unknown Caller”, answer the phone! You never know who’s on the other end.

What does Diversity have to do with honest artwork?

The photo above is my view as I paint. Not bad, right? So this morning, I took a moments break between art projects I was working on and stared out at these trees. And it occurred to me that there are uncountable varieties of foliage just right here in this one scene. They are all broadly the same thing (they are all plants). Most in this photo are more specifically similar in that they are trees (but several varieties). The trees do not make the shorter shrubs look ugly, and the shrubs seem quite comfortable growing alongside the trees without feeling insecure because they’re not as large. Pardon me please, I know I’m anthropomorphizing here, but it really hit me this morning: Diversity when living closely together is really beautiful. That’s at the heart of what makes nature so beautiful as opposed to a man-made garden. Beautiful, natural reality is incredibly diverse, and if what horticulturalists tell us is true, a diverse natural environment will be a healthier environment. If that is the key to real beauty as I suspect, it makes me wonder why we (why I) personally gravitate to people who are just like me. I find my tribe (of my own ethnicity, religion and culture) and then I “otherize” everyone else. Doing that seems so natural to us as human beings. But if there’s a lesson to be learned from nature; if the way nature “does it” applies to us humans too, then I suspect the more we maintain our differences but live our lives immeshed with people who do not look or talk or think like us, the closer results will look like real, natural beauty. But the more we huddle with people that are just like us, the closer we get to what is mundane, boring and even ugly.

“To the extent I mimic in my artwork what I see in front of me here as I paint, to that extent my artwork will be beautiful.”

Imagine a summer hillside panorama — mountains covered with trees. Got it? Okay, now imagine someone hands you a jumbo box of crayons to do a sketch, what color would you grab to depict the trees? Green? Really? Look again. To the left, those trees are in shadow and are almost black. Behind them, the sun is shining bright on something that looks almost yellow. Beside that is a bright green maple tree. As you look farther off in the distance, the more blue green the trees look and in the far off distance, the mountains look light blue gray (although they’re covered with the same green trees that are right in front of you). And everywhere, there are thousands and thousands of wildflowers and uncountable shrubs of various kinds. This is wilderness. And this is what actual, honest real beauty looks like: Awesome diversity of life, living closely together, maintaining their own individuality, all a part of the whole of exquisite beauty.

To the extent I mimic in my artwork what I see in front of me here as I paint, to that extent my artwork will be beautiful. So I notice the intricate differences in shades of color as it moves from left to right across the canvas, and grab different colors of paint to minutely adjust those colors. (As a side note, I never even use the same color blue in a sky — the color of the sky even on a crystal clear day, varies from left to right and top to bottom of what you see. To make my scene look “realistic”, I have to use a variety of colors even to paint something as simple as a blue sky.)

I long to live in a world that is really beautiful. And looking out at nature, I really think God left some clues how to create a society that is really beautiful: Diversity of life, living closely together, maintaining their own individuality, all a part of the whole of exquisite beauty. That sounds so awesome. I can’t make anyone go along with me but if I myself can keep this lesson in front of me for a while and be shaped by it, I think I will be a better, happier (and beautiful??) person.

Sometimes, just "having fun" is a good enough reason

“Into Mystery” (36” x 28”)

If you’ve read much of this blog (THANK YOU!), you’ve probably heard me talk about why I paint what I paint. If you are an artist and you want to do that as a full-time job, you have to sell your work. This is not rocket science, right? There definitely is a place in the world for art that shocks and disturbs, but that doesn’t sell easily to tourists visiting my studio in Asheville’s River Arts District, wanting to bring home something that reminded them of their visit to the mountains of North Carolina. So, MOST of the time, I paint either generic scenes (that could remind the viewer of ANYWHERE) or scenes that are reminiscent of this part of North Carolina.

So, if you were to visit my studio (and you’re welcome to do that!), you’d find landscape paintings that are set in various themes having to do with our area. That said, about 10% of what you’d see would not fit that criteria at all. I have some seascapes and some underwater ocean scenes. Why? Because they were fun to paint (I like the ocean too). And then this week, I just finished a piece called “Into Mystery”, which is based on photos of Arizona’s Antelope Canyon. The challenge of painting a location like Antelope Canyon is that I had to figure out some way creating the thousands of lines that have been carved into the sandstone by immeasurable years of wind and rain. My goal here was to create those sweeping lines with texture. This piece was carved, smoothed, covered with metallic leaf, colorized with oil paint and finished with a single layer of resin. Personally, I’m really happy with this one. It was a real challenge but I feel happy with the results.

This painting, if nothing else, highlights my skill

because it was really difficult.

So, how does this piece appeal to some random visitor to Asheville, looking for something to bring home as a souvenir of their time here? Well…it probably doesn’t, and that’s okay. This painting, if nothing else, highlights my skill because it was really difficult. And if putting my skill out there front and center is all this piece does, that’s fine. It’s done it’s job. And who knows…we do get Asheville visitors from out west! So hey, if you’re from Arizona, give me a call! I do free shipping!

The Best Painting Delivery Ever...

Hitting the “reset” button

A couple months ago, I was commissioned to paint a rather large painting. Because I normally pay for shipping charges for my clients (a tangible way to offer my thanks for their business), I knew this piece would be pretty expensive to send to it’s new home in Denver, CO. When I actually checked the FedEx website for pricing, I was pretty shocked at the several hundred dollars price tag for shipping, and so…I looked at Joy and asked if she was up for a road trip.

I don’t know about everyone else, but this year especially, with all the stress of a business that was closed down for three months, trying to stay clear of Covid-19, and constantly dealing with the chaos of the upcoming election…e really needed a rest. Creativity demands to be fed with peace and adventure. You cannot expend what you don’t have inside your heart and mind. Well, that was my way of justifying taking a road trip to Colorado (and adding a few extra days onto said road trip, as long as we were already there!). So we packed up the painting securely and strapped it to the top of our car, then headed three days west.

After helping my clients install the piece, Joy and I headed north a couple hours to Laramie, Wyoming, and we spent nearly a week exploring the mountains, canyons and lakes in the area. Our daily routine was to hike a few hours and then scout out a cool place to plant our camping chairs, have a picnic and spend several hours just sitting and reading. Enjoying the absolute quiet. Listening to the autumn breeze as it rattled the leaves of the golden aspen trees all around us.

It was amazing.

We talked about it afterwards and we both could actually feel ourselves soaking it it. My gosh. I felt like a dry sponge immersed in sweet, clear water.

So whether or not the need for peace and adventure was actually a “need” or a “want”, I don’t really care. I’m content to let someone else figure that one out. It felt amazing. And by the time we were headed back home to North Carolina, I could hardly wait to start painting again. I’ve never felt that way about any other job I’ve ever head, so I think the time in Colorado and Wyoming was definitely worth it.

Cure for Covid blues

As an artist in Asheville’s River Arts District, a goal of mine is to journal in my blog on a weekly basis, and I love it when the subject matter is supplied to me by a visitor to my art studio. So, thank you Ian and Jackie from Jacksonville, Florida, who commented (as best as I can remember, something like this:  “You obviously enjoy depicting scenes of tranquility and peace. But this year is anything but tranquil and peaceful. What do you do in your head to keep painting these scenes?” 

A gift of complete rest from toil.

Oh man. That was a really good question. This year (especially this year), I have to take time to rest my body, mind and soul. The ancient Hebrews had a concept of Sabbath and I really love it, though I didn’t used to. I grew up thinking that “sabbath” was all about keeping rules (i.e. you couldn’t do anything fun that day). But originally, the whole concept of absolute rest was a gift — a gift of complete rest from toil. I really like that, and especially this year, and especially as an artist, I absolutely need that body, mind, soul rest. And this past week, I had it. 

Joy and I had the privilege of renting a cabin on a lake in northern Pennsylvania with our daughter Camden, her husband Joseph and their two awesomely cute and amazing children. And because of COVID, we couldn’t do anything except sit around the cabin, go for walks, ride bikes and go fishing. For a full seven days, I was teetering right on the edge of absolute relaxation and complete boredom. It was awesomely renewing. I’m addicted to the whole concept of sabbath now. Complete rest. Body, mind, soul rest. Picture that feeling of stepping into a hot tub on a 34 F night: AHHHHHHHHH. Oh yeah, that is what I’m talking about. Rest. Peace, down to the core of your soul. What a wonderful thing. 

That “Sabbath rest” is why I can keep painting what I paint. And I’m wondering if there is a way to include a few minutes of that kind of rest into every single day I live and create. I think I need to try that out. 

Where Does it Take You?

By way of confession, (it’s good for the soul) I admit it’s been way too long since I’ve blogged. This period of time is just really irksome. I’m tired of this virus lurking around. I’m rattled at how divided we’ve become as a country. It just seems like whatever we talk about with our neighbors and/or Facebook “friends” is so often framed in an attack or defense mode. I’ve been coping with the stress by just trying to ignore it all. Writing helps. Painting is my thing though. Anything creative will capture my whole attention and I then don’t think about politics or deadly disease or racist comments from various personalities on the radio. I have found that writing, creating an oil painting or listening to music will carry me to that place of focus and brain-rest. 

One of the things I have remembered during this really weird and stressful time is something my dad taught me when I was a kid and though it had to do with music (he was a musician and piano teacher), it very much affects the way I process all the arts. When I was around twelve years old, I was listening one afternoon to a tape of a collection of classical music (yes, I was a classical music nerd) and he asked me a question that I didn’t know how to answer. “Where does that take you?” I had never thought of that before. He asked me if I knew anything about the piece of music I was listening to and when I said no, he felt it was his God-appointed duty to enlighten me. He explained that the piece was entitled “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Fawn”, by Claude Debussy. He had me rewind the tape to the beginning of the piece, and told me to close my eyes and imagine the scene Debussy was describing with the music, then he turned the tape back on again. 

“Where does it take you?”

I’d never, ever listened to music like that. I usually just listened and decided whether or not I liked the piece simply based on my personal preference. I never thought in terms of “where does it take me”. My imagination was ignited and it was so much more fun than just listening to the piece. It became almost a meditation tool. I saw a fawn by itself int the dark woods, rays of sun stretching through the dark foliage. I saw streams of water, heard the birds, felt the breeze. It was amazing.

That afternoon affected the way I listen to a lot of my favorite music now. I once painted my version of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, listening to it over and over and over again, until I imagined what it “looked” like, not just what it sounded like. Where does it take you? This question changed how I listen to music and how I view artwork. When I look at a painting now (and it could be almost any painting — landscape to abstract), I really want to take the time to just stare at it and allow it to draw me in. And I ask that question: where does it take you? 

If you know anything about the way I paint, you know I purposely design an oil painting to draw people in, to engage the viewer. I don’t want it to just look nice on someone’s wall. Especially in these stressful days, I want every painting to take the viewer somewhere, somewhere nicer than here at the moment.

So take the time. Let the art — music, poetry, painting, whatever — let it take you. Where do you go? Where does it lead? Try it, and if you have a minute, comment right here and let me know. Thanks!!