I'm up in Tahoe with some friends - we took a few days off and are spending them at the cabin, creating art. I'm here with a musician, a mad scientist (I kid you not, he is in the basement creating lightning - resulting pics here), and a beautiful red-haired model, Melissa.

I was planning on doing a snowy tree body painting and shooting photos outside by the lake, but.. it's been raining lately and the snow is wet, heavy, and messy.. and Melissa has bright red hair and gorgeous curves.. not quite right for a winter tree. Besides, I was trying to plan out the artwork and the ideas just weren't flowing. I couldn't quite "see" the finished project in my head and so I wasn't feeling really inspired.

This morning, watching our resident mad scientist scampering around, running high voltage wires throughout the house and hearing him cackle, my thoughts took another turn. The ozone in the air combined with Melissa's flaming red hair made me want to paint her like lighting, like smoke, like fire.. so that is what came out of my brush this morning.

There are so many factors to creativity. Sometimes, mistakes turn out to be the best part of a design. Sometimes lack of inspiration makes me push harder to create and sometimes it causes me to back off, or take another path. I think lately, the key is learning to relax and just let my brush paint what it wants to paint rather than over-planning or over-controlling each project.

And.. I love what resulted.. here are my two favorite pics. More up at Picasa!


     


2 comments:

sarahstyles said...

lovely...fiery, you should get some shots of her in front of a fire...can you say bearskin rug???

Erin St Blaine said...

Actually, right before the shoot we were tearing the place apart looking for something bearskin-like.. I do wish we'd had that, it would have been fabulous! But the blue sets off the orange really nicely. A dark blue faux-fur rug might have been ideal. :)