dog art

Inspiration

Art + Creativity, Thoughts + Life

In theory

Watercolor painting illustration of a blue merle Australian shepherd dog. Dog portrait on a clipboard with a bright yellow background

For years, I lived by the maxim that inspiration is for amateurs. Professionals show up and do the work. I still see the truth in that, but lately I’m more interested in that amateur space, in making for the joy and the love of making, not because you need to make it work but because you can cause something to happen. Because you can create room for whatever happens to happen. When you focus on that, inspiration comes back into the picture. It can be anything that sets your thoughts and your paintbrush running, your body moving, your words flowing. It can be something outside of your control, and maybe this is an exercise in letting go of control.

For those of us accustomed to tying our value to achievements, letting go of control, taking the risk that we may not achieve, may be a step forward. Maybe, not manufacturing motivation, but opening the door to inspiration is the next right step. Maybe amateur practice is incredibly valuable because you’re not required to make some particular thing happen. You’re required to show up, but you’re not required to do what you expected to do.

Maybe amateur practice opens the door to rooms where the unexpected happens, so that professional practice can learn that that room exists.

In practice

I took a long walk last week under a heavy, stormy sky. The air was electric. As night came on, the sky dropped, and this is what fell from it:

Inspiration is seeing a toad on the road and taking it for a stone until it hops and hops again. Inspiration is Leonard Cohen in the dark. It’s walking fast in lamplight.

Inspiration is the frosted lustrous surface on opaque water under rain, covering for the night as it comes in.

Inspiration is gorging yourself on so much strange beauty it overflows out of your mouth like milk. It’s the red of an odd, gentle, tender, sturdy bush against the red of a hard, brick, encroaching building under an ash grey sky.

It’s the sign of the rain coming, and walking faster into it, harder, harder against the wind. It’s the first fat drops on your skin. It’s the face tilted up to receive, mouth open. Inspiration is the wind. Inspiration is coming. Let it come. Find the path of least resistance. Reduce friction. Let that flow through you, in and out. It will come. It will come. Escape your grind of daily motion. Move. Move.

Watercolour painting illustration of a ballet dancer silhouette in front of a parked car. Dance, night, freelance illustration.

My mother said, “Step away. Step away at the end of the day. Don’t tie yourself to work every hour of waking,” and she’s right. She’s a mother – she’s right.

Inspiration is cupping the flowers of that strange sturdy bush tenderly in your palm, noticing for the first time in months, since it first emerged from the winter, how it’s grown, how it’s come to be what you use to gauge the season as it fades. This bush will fade. This bush will come back to you, in the next winter, in the next spring, forgotten blooms lingering, brown, small, faded. Paint them. Paint them again as you painted them last year.

Lavender, coming forth where you knew not, where your hand runs, scent. Hold it. Hold it in your palm, that scent, between your fingers, to your face. Exhale. Inspiration is the inhale. Let it run through you in your blood, lungs, bloodstream, beat of your feet against the earth, this drum roll. This clink of keys between the hands, this roll. Make yourself this drum of beat. Inspiration is the breath in, reception, sweet, sweet, motion forward.

Let the rain fall down on you. You become cold but not cold, for this heat, this motion moving inside your core will hold you forward.

Run.

The artworks in this post are available as prints, apparel, accessories and home goods. Click through for more in each design.

  • Watercolor painting illustration of a blue merle Australian shepherd dog. Dog portrait on a clipboard with a bright yellow background
  • Watercolour painting illustration: cityscape of a lamp under a tree at night with silhouetted of houses. Landscape painting, freelance illustration in Montreal, Canada.
  • Watercolour painting illustration of a ballet dancer silhouette in front of a parked car. Dance, night, freelance illustration.
  • Watercolor painting illustration of a hand holding hydrangea flowers. Flowers are growing outside, on a green leafy bush.

An Art-Full Life

Thoughts + Life

What does it mean to live an art-full life? I believe that to live artfully is to live intentionally, to strike a balance between creativity and functionality. The choices we make about our environment, our practices and our personas are intimately tied to our material culture. The way we feel in our social circles, our homes and our skins is both expressed THROUGH and influenced BY dialogues between our visual objects and our psyches, an incredibly rich & nuanced conversation of symbols and aesthetics.

So the question arises: how to make those choices? The question “How to live a good life?” becomes a lifelong creative project: “How to create what is both true and functional?” How to live your life artfully?

Let’s look at four ways for creativity, expression and function to strike a resounding chord.

Skins

Our clothing choices are about much more than just trends or utility. They’re a second skin that we get to choose every morning, a chance to reinvent ourselves day by day through colour, shape, theme; what we choose to cover or reveal; what social microcosms we reference and reflect – honestly, I could write a whole other post about the language of dress.

My point is this: when we choose what to put on our backs, we’re making a choice about which version of us we’re presenting AND inhabiting that day. That’s why favourite clothes are as potent as they are: they’re a symbol of something we value, integrated with the self, worn intimately as a chosen skin.

Before getting dressed, try taking a moment to set an intention for the day, and then choose an outfit that feels aligned to it. This choice will quietly remind you of your intention and support it for the rest of the day, in a way that’s entirely yours.

Moments

It matters where your eye lands.

It matters what’s in your field of vision: greenery or asphalt, order or clutter, an empty space or a full one. It matters because our minds are constantly running thought processes that we’re barely conscious of, if we’re even aware of them at all, and those processes interact with our sensual experiences. There’s a reason so many of us get moody in the dark days of winter, and why a walk in the woods leaves us feeling refreshed.

One way to channel this tendency: arrange a few vignettes around your home or office, especially in spots where you’re likely to see them through the day. Give some attention to the overall shapes and colour combinations, and think about what the components mean to you personally. Essentially, you’re creating strategic art moments in your space.

Agency

It’s powerful to have something you can control, however small. Even more so when you don’t have control over very much.

For example: as kids return to school this autumn, they’re facing a whole new rhythm and set of demands, different from what they’re used to, with the added challenge of talking through masks and trying to stay 2m away from their friends.

Small touches like personalized locker decor go a long way to helping your kids feel at home in a new environment. And when they can’t share their hugs with their friends, they can at least share their tastes.

Marks

Humans are tellers of stories: we write, we dance, we ululate. We leave our marks on cave walls and box cars. We express outward and explore inward using creative media: early mornings with a journal, late nights with whiskey and paint. Days of posting, photographing, commenting and calling. We are creatures of expression.

Making marks and telling stories takes us to the highest peaks of our skill and down into the most primal valleys of urgent, impulsive release. We rage. We revise. We see, hear, respond to the cacophony of our senses and what others have said, enter into an ecosystem of artistic endeavour. We join the dance.

At the end of the day, the most visceral way to live a life full of art is to make art.

We are artists from the moment we are born, and we never cease to be. We may mute our voices, but those voices never disappear, not entirely. Living art-fully, living well, requires that you heed that voice, and guide it.

Make your marks.

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Dog Days Painting Series

Animals

I’m a dog-lover through and through. When we were small, my brother and I learned the names, breeds and characters traits of all the dogs in the neighbourhood, a tradition I’ve carried on to this day. Like any enthusiast, I’ve picked up all kinds of trivia about different breeds and I can tell you what I love about each one. Pick a favourite, though? Impossible.

Over the last few weeks I’ve channeled my love into paintings of some gorgeous (and ugly-cute) breeds. Read on for illustrations, stories, and prints of these lovable doggos.

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