comfort zone

This week's prompt at Inspire Me Thursday is to paint or create something in your comfort zone. It kind of made me giggle at first...my first thought was "is there such a thing in art?". Every time I pick up the brush, I feel like I enter a NON comfort zone, and that is exactly why I love to pick up a brush. Of course, I paint from my head. This is something I've really been thinking about a lot lately. In general, and I do emphasize the word "general" here, I think (in regards to painting) that people tend to either paint a subject in front of them, or they paint from their head. "In front of them" for me would include the actual subject or from a photograph. And "from their head" would mean just that. Perhaps there is no subject involved at all, or perhaps it's just the memory of a subject. I tend to paint the latter, always, and therefore I have no comfort zone. It is always a risk when I plunge the paint on to the canvas, as I have no idea what might come from it. Okay, sometimes I have an idea first, but I rarely, rarely paint from a model or subject. Typing this now I realize that if I wanted to step outside of my comfort zone, I would have to sit and paint a vase of flowers. Now all of this is not to say that I haven't done so in the past. Actually, that is all I used to do. I have always been a doodler, a drawer, and in high school I particularly got interested in painting because I very much wanted to paint the Iris that grew out in our yard. I would pick one or two every evening and put them in water and set them on our dining room table. I painted those iris religiously, and also drew them with pastel. What happened was that eventually I tired of painting and drawing them the exact color that they were...I wanted to make them blue mostly, and I only had magenta ones in the yard. I got very bored with the reassembling of the exact image, and eventually just kind of faded away from the whole thing all together. I went to college and took a ceramics class. Before they bothered to tell me the rules of firing in a kiln, I did whatever I wanted. Meaning I made little bust's of people without hollowing out the centers. They came out fine. Then the teacher told me I had to hollow out the heads, and as soon as I did that they busted in the kiln. Now I'm not dumb....I realize those rules for firing are in place for a reason, and I just got lucky...but I soon lost interest when I had to follow a rule. I was getting a degree in Theatre at the time and figured I should just stick to that (equally lucrative) career. ;) Time happened. I had a lousy first love who told me in no uncertain terms that he thought my attempts at art sucked. I plugged through college getting a degree in something I was born into and not so much in love with...and eventually got tired of it. And through a series of circumstances I found myself shortening up my degree by switching from a BFA to a BA and thereby having loads of extra time on my hands. I was fortunate enough to be going to college at a college that my father and mother were teaching at at the time, and they paid for faculty's kids tuition....so I was able to take as many art classes as I wanted without having to pay for them. This is where I fell in love with the figure. I took figurative drawing over and over again, even past getting out of college. It was as if the iris were before me again, and I needed to learn that technique to perfection too....and then I discovered painting. Or rediscovered it. When the two things met, it became a wonderful clash. I believe that anyone can paint a mountain. Or a flower. Or even a face. But the thing that people forget in striving for perfection, is that not everyone can see that mountain or flower or face in the exact way that the artist as an individual can see it. We all see life differently, right? I wanted to figure out how to portray the things I saw in the manner that they made me feel....not just what I saw. So I guess all I'm really trying to say is that being in my comfort zone is stepping outside of my comfort zone when I am creating. The two things are inextricably linked. I love a good conversation/argument about art. The only way I learn anything in the field is to study every and all opinions on it....and boy there's a lot out there and a lot to learn...and it's all so subjective.
I have to go get ready for my boring ass super part time job now so I can't go on like I'd like to, or clean this up and make it make more sense....or post some pics of my old iris or ceramic statues like I'd like to...
But it's art...
You can always just close your eyes and imagine it.