Roots and Wings: Patterns - and creativity

I seem to be adopting a blue theme in the last few posts. (Cool! 😄) Here's a collage I made of reflections of Salts Mill in the canal. I'm often drawn to these patterns in the canal and river, which constantly change with the light and the movement of the water. Saltaire is so familiar to me and, even though it's a stunning World Heritage Site, I sometimes get bored by the same old views of the same old places. It's good to challenge myself to make something 'new' of it - and these sorts of patterns and abstracts are as 'original' as you can get, in that each frame cannot be repeated exactly.

Having said that, I also feel a little frustrated that I get so far and then can't get any further, creatively speaking. This is not displeasing - nice colours and shapes - but I can't help feeling I should be able to make more of it. It's not really very artistic. It reminds me of when I was doing 'O' level Art. I'd drawn some flowers, quite nicely and neatly, and my art teacher took up a brush with red paint and drew a big messy outline around each flower head, with the idea of encouraging me to be freer and looser in my work. It clearly wasn't the right way to go about getting me to relax into it. I was horrified and didn't really see what she was getting at. Now, I do, of course, but I still can't free my brain of that 'neat' gene.

OK, pushing myself to riff on the theme now... a paler version: