Hey all

I have been thinking today !!!!(yes it is dangerous)

do you all have to be in a certain mood to pick up your pencils or brushes ??

or do you get into a mood happy sad angry and think oooooo i wonder how i will portray something through art in this mood ?

or have you got really drunk and thought it will be funny to try ,and find there is a diffrent perspective to how you picture something

look forward to hearing

I love it when I am in the mood to draw or paint. But for money I have forced myself into the mood a few times. I airbrushed a motorcycle tank awhile back, and there was not one fiber of me that was in a mood to do it, but it was a trade project that I really needed to do. It came out good but felt so much like work. I didn't enjoy it.
If I'm not pulled into it somehow like that, I may not draw or paint anything for months or longer. But sooner or later I'll see something and say to myself I want to draw that and then I'm at it again.

Funny you should pose this question. In my recent experience I have had several things affect my artistic efforts. I have been going through artist's block as I have mentioned this before in some of the forums (for those of you who don't know about this....my husband died in March of this year). Recently I had been having symptoms of PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) from an incident that happened to me many years ago. This manifested itself as a continual playing of the incident in my head, and quite frankly, was driving me mad. One day, I was so fed up with how this "thing" had taken over my life, I got out my most expensive piece of watercolor paper, I think I paid $12 for it. I got out all of my best, artist quality watercolors and threw all of my emotions, feelings, rages, energy into making a painting full of rawness. It wasn't even recognizable as anything...it was fierce, ugly, bold, brilliant, dark, moody, emotional. After I spent all I could on this piece I very calmly looked at it, tore it into pieces and brought it out to the bar b que grill and burned it! It was so liberating! I was free! I had exorcised my demon!
I don't know if this answers your question.

pmowen49 that was good, really good, bravo


usually I just need good weather or good light and time to draw, - of course, and a good motive

I have to be in the mood to draw, when I force it it really doesn't come out right.

I just have to be rested.

I am able to draw only when I am in a certain mood, otherwise I am not able to draw/paint. Sometimes it takes me a long time to get back to my work [I do not sketch unless I am in the right mood].

If anyone has tips on how to get in the mood to sketch, I would like to try it :)

I find that when I get a new magazine in the mail, or see something interesting I get inspired and want to go put it on paper, but then I run out of time or energy and I end up just collecting ideas and not actually doing them. A sunny day is way more inspiring than a cold, wet, gray day, so maybe I am driven by weather changes. The muse does not come and stay as long as I would like, and I wish I had more time to give to my art and not have to spend all my time and energy just paying the bills.