Finally Friday #6: Inspiring Art

I love art. Painting, drawing, sculpting, crafting, sewing pretty much anyway I can get it. I believe this runs in my family as my dad is a skilled painter and my mother has a knack for holiday crafts. My creative side has always been there and always will be there but along my path in life there have been certain pieces of artwork that I have found inspiring along with most everybody else in the world.

I will be honest this was probably the hardest top three post I have done yet. Not to come up with choices but to prune them down to three. There are numerous pieces of amazing skill and choosing favorites feels as unfair as picking a favorite child.

1. Water Lilies by Claude Monet 1916-1919

This gorgeous piece of impressionist artwork has always caught my eye ever since I was a young child. Out of all the art movements this one was my absolutely favorite. I love the contrast of the warm and cool colors that create a feeling of relaxation. From the weeping willows hanging in the forefront to the bright green lily pads in the distance, I can't help but feel like sitting on a cool breezy river bank under a tree in the middle of the middle of a hot summer's day. This piece of artwork inspired a few of my own projects years ago as I attempted to replicate the softness of the pink water lilies with tissue paper pop art.

2. The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh 1889

I still remember the first time I saw this painting as if it was yesterday. I had stayed after school to work on a painting of a horse for my 7th grade art class. At the time I was what one could call "obsessed" with horses and was flipping through a book of famous artwork that my teacher had given me to browse, pretty sure to possibly curb my horse fever. I feel like now is a good time to mention that ever since 1st grade my teacher Mrs.Lacrosse and I were convinced I would attend a Fine Arts School  after High School and so I invested many additional hours in the sanctuary of the art room developing my skills further.  As I sat flipping through page after page of remarkable pieces of art history, this one piece stopped me. I fell in love with the "perfect starry night" where this little quaint town sat at the base of these gentle rolling hills. The brush strokes swirl you around the painting softly and slowly stopping briefly at each star as if you are actually gazing at the night's sky. This will always be a favorite of mine and is easy to find at many poster fairs! 

3. Carcass of Beef by Chaim Soutine 1924

This painting is the inspiration around the most recent of my own series of paintings. The contrast of the complementary red and greens as well as the blue and oranges makes this a vibrant and raw piece. As always a diagonal composition makes it an interesting painting to admire but technical attributes aside, I love this piece. The exposed feeling evoked by this painting is the emotion that inspired my own. This painting's vivid and varying colors help make it one of my favorite three!

*The Following links from Wikipaintings.org are where I found the images above:

Water Lilies-http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/claude-monet/water-lilies-1919-1
The Starry Night-http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/vincent-van-gogh/the-starry-night-1889
Carcass of Beef- http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/chaim-soutine/carcass-of-beef#close