Hidden Things

January 8, 2010 / Terrill Welch / 4 Comments

View image in full resolution here.

Have you ever been editing your photographs and found “hidden things” that you didn’t know where there when you took the photo?

In the photo West Coast Winter above, I discovered that I had unknowingly captured two bald eagles on the crest of one of the fir trees. I had heard the eagles calling when I was shooting but I hadn’t seen them. To see them you will need to go to full resolution image and click large view – and even then they are small and blurry. But they are there. Also on the left of the image about ¼ of the way down there is an eagle nest.

Because these hidden things are not the focal point of the image, I don’t usually tell people about them. I leave them to discover (or not) on their own.

Sometimes hidden things are in my writing, painting as well. These are often patterns, colour or word usage, and perspectives that others have observed. I might not even be aware of these elements. I find it useful to ask what others have noticed in my work to discover aspects of my creative process that I might be hidden things to me.

Sprout Question: When was the last time you asked someone whose opinion you value and trust what they notice in your work?

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Purchase photography at http://www.redbubble.com/people/terrillwelch

Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

Sun pressing through

January 6, 2010January 6, 2010 / Terrill Welch / 2 Comments

The sun waits for no one. My plan was to paint today. However, I awake to a frosty cool soft winter-blue sky with the sun pressing its way through the firs. We have had rain and fog for days. Change of plan. I shall be devouring a late breakfast and then out trek around with camera over my shoulder. (First figuring out why my camera won’t download today’s image, leaving me to use a photo from about the same time of year and day from last season – we have no snow today.)

View full resolution image here.

[updated 11:58 am adding this morning’s image that has now download after much tinkering]

View full resolution here.

Sprout Question: When are you most inspired to seize the moment?

Liberal usage granted with written permission. See “About” for details.

Purchase photography at http://www.redbubble.com/people/terrillwelch

Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

Butterfly mornings writing “Mona’s Work”

January 4, 2010January 13, 2010 / Terrill Welch / 8 Comments

With my toes wiggling under the same wool blanket that my mother made me for my birthday one year, I look at the photo of my painted toes from several summers ago. From present, to mid-life to childhood, I’m drawn back into my memories of my grandmother Mona. I began writing Mona’s Work in September 2007. I need to finish it. Today is a writing day.

I allow the blanket made in colours gathered from one of my gardens to drift me back to a place full of butterfly mornings…and wild flower afternoons.

I’m back where the hay is being cut in the field and I am making potato salad with my grandmother using new potatoes, radishes and green onions from her garden. I leave you here to enjoy this beautiful song by Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions off of “Bavarian Fruit Bread”, as I go off to my day of writing.

Sprout Question: What objects and memories do you keep close to spark your creativity?

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Purchase photography at http://www.redbubble.com/people/terrillwelch

Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

Unfolding Image

January 2, 2010January 13, 2010 / Terrill Welch / Leave a comment

Do you too carry a tension between placing your bum-to-seat, setting to work, and that of placing yourself in the proximity to your inspiration and allowing your work to unfold? I find there is a place for both in creativity.

View the full resolution of Arbutus Puzzle here .

Like the image Arbutus Puzzle, the beauty and strength is in the over and under of the creative tension between purpose and approach.

What pulls this working tension into creative bliss is the certainty of what is not yet know. With either approach, I must show up – fully. I must be ready to set aside other distractions, and other thought processes. Yet, the cast-aside thoughts and emotions will appear deep in the images that are captured or created. They are the under workings of my muse. In that I trust.

Today is a bum-to-seat morning. I am clearing my painting table in the studio to paint when daylight comes.

[Updated 11:23 am PST with progress from inside the studio]

Many times in the creative process it is not about getting “it right” but rather about “getting it started.”

This afternoon I shall place myself under the trees be they wet or dry and allow the images to call me forth.

Sprout Question: What is your approach to an unfolding image today?

Liberal usage granted with written permission. See “About” for details.

Purchase photography at http://www.redbubble.com/people/terrillwelch

Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

Full Blue Moon New Years Eve

December 31, 2009January 13, 2010 / Terrill Welch / 2 Comments

Today is New Years eve. This year it is a full moon and a blue moon(2nd full moon in December). May we reach into this time of annual renewal with appreciation for our creativity and our imaginations.

View full resolution at here.

Sprout Question: What is your creative wish for the New Year?

Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

Tide receding

December 29, 2009January 13, 2010 / Terrill Welch / Leave a comment

As the tide recedes over the sandstone, two o’clock in the afternoon feels like evening in the late December sky.

View Tide Receding in full resolution here http://www.redbubble.com/people/terrillwelch/art/4370691-1-receding-tide

Wandering the shoreline with seagulls crying out their finds, I am at peace on this Christmas day 2009. Now, a few days later I come back to this scene and I’m reminded of that moment.

Sprout Question: What might express specific moments of peace in your life?

Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.