One of the things I enjoy about details are the brief moments frozen by light that burn into my brain. Sometimes, as an artist I enjoy watching a fly crawl across my arm or the table just to see the stunted and somewhat robotic pace; the slight turning of his head and the sun glistening off the iridescence of his wings.
The intricate, symmetrical organic patterns that make up this miniscule machine can fascinate you if you let them, just as the way a shadow falls across a set of stairs and railings on an overcast day with high winds will constantly change yet never repeat the exact same pattern twice. Or throw a small rock into a muddy puddle and watch in wonder as the concentric circles ring out from the point of contact and take notice of the swirling chaotic beauty taking place in the depths that will never break the shimmering surface, but instead will relax and calmly settle back into place.
Now, freeze any of those images. Imagine yourself in that actual moment. You should have a well enough idea of how to picture it - that's good. The real question, (and there is obviously no correct answer here) as it pertains to art, is how do you feel it? Do you see it in black and white? Is it in brilliant colors? A still image or rolling like a film? Is it a positive experience, or a somewhat negative one? Even though the description has been given, the processing and internalizing of the image is truly up to the beholder.
For example, earlier, when I mentioned the shadow falling across the stairs and railings on an overcast day - when you picture this in your mind, do you see at as yourself standing in the foyer of a victorian era mansion with the mottled sunlight dancing across the hardwood stairs and bannister, or are you an observer to a gray overcast day as a condemned man takes his final march up to the gallows on the weathered steps? Art is all about personal interpretation, processing, and execution (pun intended there).
To anyone reading this, I would like to issue a challenge this week. Regardless of how you feel about your technical artistic skills, I would like you to freeze a moment in time and soak in the entire sensory experience. It might inspire you to think, write, draw or paint - all of which are acceptable expressions and the very definition of art.
Even if you sit down with a coloring book, realize that everything you do from the first colored pen or pencil you pick up and the first area you decide to color was done because of how you felt about it, because I would seriously doubt that anyone who does is thinking about how they're going to turn that page into a triadic or split complementary color scheme as it pertains to the color wheel. You chose it because you liked that color, felt like using it and used it on the first section you felt like on that picture. Be the fly. Be the miniscule machine and fascinate yourself with this massive, beautiful, colorful, brilliant, and terrifying world we live in. Process it. Draw it. Express it.
Use your iridescent wings.