No, I don't smoke, let alone chain smoke, but I am borrowing the idea as it applies to my art. I came across the term from the author, Austin Kleon whose work I follow. He describes the process of chain smoking as "instead of taking a break in between projects and worrying about what’s next, use the end of one project to light up the next one." By working in this way "you avoid stalling out in your career by never losing momentum." When I read that I thought it was a great term to describe the process.
This last series of paintings I have been working on is a perfect example of keeping the inspiration flowing and the pieces coming. While working on the first piece I had items that I wanted to use but that just didn't fit. That led to a bit of brainstorming and the beginnings of the second piece, after that I still had things (different ones) leftover. So I continued on to a third painting and now I have a fourth piece percolating (slight logistical stall- I need another support to work on before I can begin). I have quite happily been able to go quite far with just one small dose of inspiration. Hopefully I will be able to use this idea of chain smoking to my advantage and keep my creative momentum going.
Detail of Piece #3
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