There are times when my brain goes into overdrive. Apart from the constant mulling over painting ideas, colour palettes, how to get more depth and mood into my compositions, how to incorporate direct imagery like people and buildings, whether I have overdone it with the glitter (again) or whether I should switch from canvas to board, all of which are constant recurring mental conversations I have with myself, I am often cursed/blessed with the mindstate where these mundane ponderings step up a notch and I end up scribbling away into sketchbooks or creating massive brainstorms on my studio walls that are intended to be mind maps, to simply get down on paper everything that is tumbling around in there before I forget something that could be worth remembering. (I have a tendency to do that)
The outcome of this is often a lot of wasted paper and some serious under eye bags thanks to the lateness of the hour. I'm one of those people who cannot switch off when going to bed, I lie there going round and round over ideas, churning and tumbling over the potentials. Annoyingly only about 5% of what I mull over during these periods actually comes to anything which at the moment is quite frustrating. What doesn't help is that when I'm not painting, I have other projects on hand, be it planning exhibitions, joint or solo, planning new enterprises like developing into sculpture and possibly installation, right down to making the odd bit of jewellery, or dabbling with the novel I have been trying to write for three years.... If it's not one thing, its another... It's a wonder I haven't gone a bit emo over the years with all this....
Tonight is turning into one of these nights... I've been trawling the internet all evening and fear that my sketchbook could be in for a battering until the wee hours. To make it worse, I have to be up for work at 6.30am tomorrow... I presume this is simply the creative tendency making itself known and I should be welcoming it, however, why is it never there when I'm in the studio on my day off? Staring at a blank canvas then giving up and coming home to grump about why nothing is happening is the usual course, whereas tonight, when I can do nothing about it, I have ideas coming out of my ears....