A couple of weeks ago I was having dinner with some friends of mine. We meet on a regular bases to eat, encourage, and have some accountability as family men. One of the guys, Dave, talked about how he had an outing with his girls and part of the day was spending time at the library. He loves to write and do poetry so he took some books out to give him ideas and inspiration. This took my thoughts back to when a style of art I do, which I call SCRAP, started and how it has become an important part in my painting career and business. I thought about the process I've gone through in creating the artwork and a few things came to mind.

Where do you get the inspiration
Dave searched in the library and found some readings to inspire him. For me I didn't need to go anywhere, it was right in front of me. It came from my own paintings. I was looking at my dried up useless paint on my pallet and wondered what to do with it? Not wanting to waste it, I picked, pulled, and scraped it together into small then bigger piles of chips, globs, and pieces. I found beautiful patterns and shapes emerging from what was once useless paint.

Experiment, fail, and succeed
I had to ask myself, how do I paint with dried paint? Many small messy attempts in the application came and went on paper, wood, and canvas. Some didn't last very long literally crumbling in my hands. Eventually I was able to find the path that gave me some success. I wouldn't call myself an abstract or modern artist but slowly I had small artworks come from the wasted paint. These started a new path of creativity that had less real painting but still vibrant in expression.

Relationships through the inspiration
I thought as the SCRAP art was made it would be a secondary avenue for my creativity. But the wonderful thing about this art it became greater even with my relationships. The first thing that happened was that my mom, an art teacher and painter, started saving her old dried up paint just for me. She has even mailed me these precious chunks (thanks mom for the extras).
Next I stepped it up in size while still keeping with my love of the ocean and the sea. The 5x7 inch grew to 24x36 inch. Those who saw the bigger work thought it unique and had a wow factor that my other normal paintings didn't have. The secondary is now becoming a main avenue of creating paintings.
The best for last is that I was able to work with one of my daughters, Brittany, in making a SCRAP painting this past week. To work with her was awesome. I talked her through the process and shared my insight of what I knew. In the end she said it was a fun way to express her creativity.

Where will it go

The wasteful, dried, small, secondary, globs of paint have become more central in my creative and business direction for C Irwin Design. It's fun to look back and think that it wasn't on my radar about 3 years ago. Now I can't see not doing it since the style is slowly becoming connected to my name. I'm probably not the first to use paint this way.But to be inspired to create something that is intrinsically mine and see how it has come alive is pretty cool. Like Dave and me, I hope you are able to find some inspiration that can move you to make something that is uniquely yours..

By My Own Hands

Finding Inspiration