A Guide to Gathering Creative Inspiration
Inspiration is at the core of creativity. As an artist, inspiration is what drives me to continue to create, innovate, and find joy in making art. A lot of times, inspiration is portrayed as something that will strike us out of thin air. Many people feel like they have to wait around and hold off on creating anything until inspiration hits them, but in reality, inspiration is an ongoing process that you can cultivate in your everyday life.
Inspiration is active. In this post, we’ll explore the different ways that you can actively seek inspiration so that when you sit down to paint you’ll have a treasure trove of inspiring images, feelings, and thoughts to pull from!
To me, living an inspired life means keeping an open mind and being ready to soak up inspiring things I discover in my day-to-day life. Will you commit to keeping an open mind and cultivating curiosity as we go on this journey to find inspiration together? Let’s do this!
Become a Collector
Becoming a collector doesn’t mean that you need to start a stamp collection or have a basement full of knick-knacks. I’m talking about becoming a creative collector! What do I mean by this? Start growing your creativity collection. This can be in a sketchbook, a photo album, or even simply a note of ideas in the notes app on your phone! Take photos, sketch, and keep notes of things that catch your eye. You’ll be amazed at how helpful this can be when you sit down to create!
Taking on the identity of a creative collector means that you’ll start to think about things in a different way. It gets you in the habit of looking for things that catch your eye, and you might start to notice patterns over time. I started to notice that my creative collection was full of photos of colorful doors that I spot around the world. Now that I’ve identified colorful doors as a key part of my collection, I am more in the habit of looking out for that specific thing.
In this day and age, almost everyone has a camera that they carry around with them in their pockets, so this makes documenting your collection as easy as can be. Stay on the lookout for beautiful things that inspire you, and start growing a creative collection of your own!
Curiosity
As an active seeker of inspiration, curiosity will be your superpower. Ask questions of yourself and others. Think about why you are drawn to certain imagery. Is it because of the feeling it evokes? Ask what you love about it. Even if you don’t feel like you’re a naturally curious person, this is a skill that you can grow over time. Practice asking questions and you’ll find that curiosity becomes more and more natural.
Being a curious person means following your interests even if you’re not sure what the outcome will be. And this doesn't have to be exclusive to following your creative interests. For example, I’ve recently discovered a passion for African Dance. Even though this isn’t directly related to my work as an artist, it has been an incredible source of inspiration. The joy and freedom I feel when dancing, the rhythm of the drums, and the colors of the costumes all have become sources of inspiration that I’ve added to my collection as I’ve followed this interest and passion.
Explore
One of my favorite ways to gather inspiration is to explore my surroundings! Whether that’s when I’m traveling or just exploring a new neighborhood in my city, there is something about the freshness of a new experience that heightens the inspiration it brings. Let your curiosity take you to new places that you’ve never been before.
Travel is a great way to get a fresh perspective, but you don’t need to travel far to expose yourself to new things! Even visiting a new coffee shop or park in your area can bring inspiration flooding in.
Personally, a lot of my inspiration comes from unexpected moments of color. Whether that’s a bright door that I see while walking in a new neighborhood or a tree in bloom in the middle of a gray city, I love to find inspiration in these moments. When you are in the routine of visiting the same places, you might miss these moments of color simply because you see them so often and your brain has gotten used to them. But if you’re exploring somewhere new, the colors and unexpected moments will stick out to you since you’re viewing everything with a fresh lens.
Consume
Be a sponge and an avid consumer of art. It’s important to know what trends are going on, how other artists are pushing themselves, and how to use different materials in new and creative ways. I was inspired by the texture of overlapping brushstrokes which led me to ask myself what it might look like if I painted on glass!
Be inspired by contemporary artists to stay on top of what’s current in the creative world, but make sure that you never steal anyone’s work. Your unique creative voice deserves to be heard, so be inspired by others, but not too inspired if you know what I mean!
Another great way to consume art is to study artists that have come before us! Visit museums with your curiosity in tow. Think about what the process for creating the artwork might have looked like and what the artist might have been inspired by. Asking questions will take this inspiration-gathering activity to the next level!
How to Use the Inspiration You’ve Gathered
Gathering inspiration helps us determine what colors, shapes, and forms we use in our artwork and can help determine the composition of the piece as well. If you want to learn more about how to take the inspiration you’ve gathered and turn it into a gorgeous abstract piece, join me in my class, Joyful Abstracts with Acrylic Paint. In this class, I share how I turn an inspiration photo (of…you guessed it! A colorful door 😉) into an abstract painting that evokes the emotion of joy! You can sign up for the class for free when you sign up for a free trial with Skillshare.
I hope that this post has inspired you to take action in finding inspiration instead of waiting for it to hit you. Being a creative collector is one of the most fun parts of being an artist. It puts a smile on my face just thinking about the inspiration I’ve yet to discover! I’m so excited for you to follow your curiosity and I can’t wait to see where it takes you!
xo, Jessi
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