Inspiration and Motivation

As a full time artist, Stuart Loughridge has had many conversations with other artists about what their motivations are in pursuing art. The thoughts and ideas that he pursued as a student aren’t as relevant anymore now that he has years of experience behind him. He has grown through his career and has delved deeper into what drives his work, drawing on paper with a pencil seems to be an integral part of that. His years of drawing and painting have made him more sensitive to a creative zone that perhaps he would not have been able to access earlier in his career.

Through his travels his creativity starts to take over as he sketches. His pencil is able to do something that a photograph can’t. He can move buildings, mountains, rivers. He imagines and creates a landscape that doesn’t exactly exist, but there is a hint of the truth that does exist in the scene in front of him. It’s a window into another place. He finds the most inspiration from the place that he lives, from the place that he sees consistently. It forces him to think on paper instead of copying exactly what is in front of him and gets those creative thoughts and landscapes to become more real in his mind. It’s the city sketches that really allow him to compose another world for the viewer. His personal favorite medium to use is watercolor because it is so difficult to master.

Allow yourself the time to put the world aside without a camera to sit and study a scene with a pencil and paper, without thought of anything other than opening the door to new ideas for finished masterpieces down the road.