Writing and Paintings... Many thoughts. Many Ideas.

Earlier, when I could not write, (I mean stories) I found that I was looking for inspiration everywhere. I did not know what to look at, and where, and one day I was simply staring at the wall. My walls are thankfully not at all bare. 

In fact, I have prints of ‘A Café in Yalta’ by Konstantin Korovin, ‘Village on the Seine’ by Sisley Alfred and ‘Thatched Cottages at Cordeville’ by Vincent Van Gogh. Along with these, I have a simple picture of a red flowered plant, by someone I do not know, which had caught my eye.

Immediately, I was taken by these beautiful paintings, from which I realised I could achieve inspiration. I discovered that it was so much easier to build stories around these pictures by asking simple questions of them.

Let us consider the first one. Korovin’s art. To the eye, it is just a café in the open under a few trees. There are tables and chairs, and a few customers.

The customer: who could he be, how is he feeling, why is he here, what are his emotions like, when could he be there?

The waiter: Ask him similar questions. More customers. Similar questions. The café owner might have a story to tell. Their emotions could be important. A lone customer, the surroundings, the weather, the friends, their stories, the trees, the flowers, perhaps a sad looking leaf, which falls on the table, or perhaps cheerful, colourful flowers around him.

A board, what kind is it, how big, what does it have? The menu, or local activities, what could they be, would you do them, how do you feel about them?

Or perhaps we could write about the artists, for example the red flowered plant. What could the emotions be like when he/she is painting this picture, could he be sad or cheerful or a mix of both, could he be like the plant, growing to reach the skies, or perhaps his feet, like the plant’s roots, firmly holding on to the ground, or perhaps like a weak plant, with dry soil.

These were simply off the top of my head, and a few of which I just thought of. Quite simply, we could come up with two to three different stories, just by asking these questions. You could try local art gelleries, and get a few ideas there, as well. Or perhaps check the local paper, or even the internet for ideas. Wherever you are, just look...

If you do that, you then use your imagination, your own feelings, and your own thoughts to put it all together. It will probably end up as a simple essay, or write up. 

And tomorrow, you might have a short story, or even a novel, with these tiny ideas. So, let us begin…