When I looked out my window last fall and saw the giant sunflower my family and I had planted wilted over and covered in fresh frost, I knew I wanted to draw it. It was so warm and so cold, the details so fresh. 

I'm always looking for ways to challenge myself as an artist, and I've known for years that my greatest weakness is my attention span. I struggle to take the time to really nail the picture. I find myself rushing at the end of a piece because I'm so excited and anxious to finish it. When I took this reference I knew I found one to teach me that lesson in patience. 

First off, I want to start by saying that I hate drawing from my own references, or at least I did. I have them, thousands of them. In fact, my last photo transfer from my old computer to my new computer involved moving 25,000 photos (No. I'm not kidding. It was upward of that number). Incidentally, that was before I got a smart phone with the in-your-pocket-everywhere-you-go camera built into it. Now, I look for references everywhere I go, but I still didn't use them, until now. 

It is easy to be inspired by the photography of others. Too easy, I think. I can look and instantly see the end result of a photo: the composition, the light, the feel. It all speaks to me in an simple-to-grasp moment of clarity. Training my eye to see the possibilities in the world around me, using my own creativity to find the piece that will speak to others, is much more difficult and requires active searching.