Music to Paint To

I often paint in silence. It’s more for practical reasons than for preference as I paint at my dining room table. We have an open plan living room-dining room, so I am often joined by my husband reading at the table beside me and my son watching television around the corner.

But when I play music while I paint, I turn to opera and classical music. I love songs that are emotional and evocative like “Time to Say Goodbye” sung by Andrea Bocelli or “The Prayer” sung by Josh Groban. They are songs that I can’t help but sing along to as I feel the emotions build to the powerful crescendo of the song. It’s very similar with painting. The first layers are quiet, establishing the shape and direction of the painting and then as more are added they get louder and bolder to create the finished painting. This is the music I love to paint flowers to.

I also love to paint to light, quick and happy orchestral music by Tafelmusik or film classics by the FilmHarmonic. Both are great for painting landscapes. The light, quick and happy music lends itself well to painting fields of flowers and large expanses of greenery. The beat of the music encouraging the brushstrokes to quickly jump across the page and form the scene.

The FilmHarmonic is great for painting abstract paintings and expressionist landscapes. I often visualize large open landscapes when I hear film music and I picture the wind movements as the music washes over me. It makes me want to paint large with lots of arm movements and simple brushstrokes where the process is more about recreating the feeling than trying to be representational with the art.

I guess what I mean to say by all this, is that I like to feel the music if I am going to listen to it while I paint and while I love to listen to more contemporary music, I feel more when I listen to classical music.

When I am not listening to music or the sounds of my family living their life around me, I will catch myself humming and singing songs. Some are familiar like Edelweiss, but most are completely made up and fragmented from music that I enjoy. I also on occasion listen to podcasts while I paint, but I have mostly relegated podcasts to when I am driving in my car, much preferring a musical influence while I paint.

This is also why I select mostly instrumental or classical music when I post videos on Instagram. I like the music to pair with the video similarly to what I am inspired by while painting it. I often get feedback that it is very relaxing to listen to the music and watch the painting process which is exactly what I want to convey. A sense of warmth and quiet joy, which is what I feel as I make the paintings.

Until next time, I hope you have a fantastic week and find some time to be inspired by your own creative projects. If you would like to share the music you listen to in your creative pursuits, please leave a comment, I would love to hear it.

All the best,

Laura