A Thirst for Colour

Sophie put down her brush and looked up.
She did not feel like looking at her design, nor did she feel like carrying on.
Getting up from her desk, she wandered with her thoughts around the studio. It was about time for that. The little watercolour paints sat on her desk, looking solid and deliberate. For a moment she could not bear to think of using them again.
'How can I, who used to be so inspired by so much, keep going with this?' she thought sadly. It was true that the sole reason for becoming an artist was her love of everything natural, and after three years working in her own studio, making a living from her work, she found herself becoming increasingly distant from it.
Her love of colour had become a case of buying the right shades of paint, and mixing the right amounts, and ratios, on the palette.
Where was the enjoyment now? Where was the inspiration? It had disappeared some time ago.

Sophie was not unhappy, indeed she loved the fact that this is what she could do. She painted all of the time, and her paintings were even liked by herself, the most important critic. She loved life as it was, and she put this love into her work - even though it was becoming so very difficult to do that these days. A friend had suggested she take a few days off, and now, as she walked around her studio feeling flat, she was very inclined to. So she got into her car and drove away, without any thought of where she should go. Driving around any road to be found was very 'her', and so it was what had to be done.

She stopped, suddenly. She looked at it. She loved it. She could feel it. The stretch of hills that she could see from the road spoke to her. They told her what she needed to do, and she listened with everything she could manage. The colours seemed to flow, despite being very blocky in nature. Sophie knew that the secret to natural inspiration was the natural inspiration itself. How could anyone argue with that? She knew that she could paint these hills. There were a few materials she kept with her for any en route work. Some paints and a canvas were on the back seat. She reached for the canvas.

There were a few leaves on the verge by the side of the road. They were all different, which was useful when she picked them up and placed them onto the canvas. In her craft bag was a little glue stick. It came in very handy at that moment. Sophie arranged the leaves in a patchwork like design to form the shape of the hills. Each leaf stood for a field.

She smiled to herself. That little spark of inspiratin and enjoyment had popped its head around the corner.