Before the first brushstroke, there is a moment of looking.

Perhaps you know that moment when you are ready to begin, but your attention has not quite arrived. The materials are ready. The canvas is waiting. You may even have an idea of what you want to do. And yet your mind is still carrying everything that came before.

Before I start painting, I give myself a little time to become attentive before asking myself to make something.

I move through a few images, notice colors and forms, and allow myself to enter a visual world before I begin. For me, this quiet ritual has become the true beginning of painting.

Finding Your Way Into the Work

Perhaps you also know the feeling of sitting in front of a blank canvas and wondering where to start.

We tend to think of the creative process as beginning with the first line or the first brushstroke. But sometimes the difficulty lies precisely in making that first move.

The day has already begun. There are thoughts to carry, things to do, messages to answer. Even when we have arrived physically in the studio, our attention may still be somewhere else.

A blank canvas can make this particularly apparent.

What should I paint? Where should I begin? What if the first mark is wrong?

I have found that I don't need to answer those questions immediately.

Instead, I give myself time to arrive.

*Gathering inspiration from my sketchbooks and other sources*

Entering a World of Color and Form

When I start my day by looking for inspiration through images, I choose from my collection of different types of visual material.

Sometimes they are works by artists whose paintings have stayed with me. Sometimes they are images from an exhibition or a book. And sometimes they are my own paintings.

I am not looking for something to reproduce.

I am looking for a visual world to enter.

Perhaps one painting draws me in through its colors, while another interests me because of the way its forms occupy the surface. A third may have a particular sense of space or rhythm that stays with me.

I don't necessarily try to understand why.

I simply allow myself to stay with them.

Gradually, colors remain in my mind. Shapes return. Certain relationships become more noticeable. Without making a conscious decision, I begin to inhabit a particular visual language.

This is what I mean by entering a world of color and form.

I am not searching for an idea of what to paint. I am preparing my attention for painting.

And when I finally turn toward my own canvas, I am already in that state of attention.

A Morning Practice

If you sometimes find it difficult to enter your creative flow, you might try making this a small morning practice of your own.

Choose a few images.

Three to five are enough. They don't need to have anything obvious in common. Follow your instinct and choose what draws you in.

Spend some time with them.

Notice colors, forms, spaces, contrasts, rhythms, and relationships. You don't need to interpret them or decide what they mean. Simply notice what holds your attention.

Allow the impressions to stay with you.

Perhaps a particular color remains in your mind. Perhaps a shape or rhythm begins to feel familiar. There is no need to turn these impressions into an idea immediately.

Return to your own work.

A painting you made the day before can be especially revealing. You may remember why you chose a particular color, covered a certain shape, or followed an unexpected mark.

Try to observe it without judging it. The finished painting is a trace of the process that produced it.

Then begin.

Turn toward your canvas, sketchbook, or whatever material you are working with. You don't need a complete idea. You may simply notice that your attention has changed.

That is enough.

A Quiet Beginning

Perhaps my attachment to this ritual goes back to childhood.

I remember spending long stretches of time with picture books, returning to the same pages and discovering details I had overlooked before. The images had not changed. My attention had.

And every time I opened a book I had already looked through a hundred times, I found a new story within it. How exciting that was!

Something of that experience remains with me in the studio.

Perhaps you might try giving yourself that same space—not as another task to add to your day, but as a quiet way of arriving at your work.

Because sometimes the most important part of beginning is not making the first mark.

It is becoming attentive enough to know when you are ready to make it.

Maybe you’re curious to know how I rediscovered my curiosity about color.

If so, I invite you to read my previous journal entry “Finding my way back to color”.

If you’d like to take a look at my inspiring sketchbooks, you can find them here on my website.

You can also follow me on Instagram.

The Ritual of Looking: The Art of Entering the Creative Flow