Monday, February 9, 2009

Illustration/Inspiration Journal






People always ask artists "where do you get ideas and inspiration?" My answer is nature, that is the biggy. That is probably a biggy for most everyone. I get a lot of inspiration from fashion and the fabric designs I see. I love to look through magazines and collect images of things that catch my eye. It all started with Oprah. Ahhhh... that Oprah. Way back during her search for spirit days, she had an episode where they talked about Illustration Journals. She had always gone on about how great journaling was, but I could never get into it myself. But an Illustration journal was different, collect images that speak to who you are, who you want to be, quotes you like, etc. you get the idea and cut and paste them in a journal. I could handle that! Finally a purpose for all my magazines that I couldn't quite throw away. Now I could snip out what I needed and recycle those old mags! So now I love my Illustration Journal! It is very multi-purpose. I use it for expression of goals, and quotes that I love still, but I also put in it bits of this and that, that I think could inspire me in my artwork. I don't do sketches in it. I have a separate notebook for that. When I put sketches in it, it just did not work as well for me. It has Ads that I think are cute, a pretty necklace, a snippet of color, a photo of a bug, all sorts of things. Now when I feel like I need an injection of creativity I browse through my journal. I like to do it before bed and very often my subconscious will work out a new idea for me by the morning. I highly recommend it. It is also a great activity to work on when you feel like you need something creative to do, but you just don't have the energy for something major. I do it when my husband is watching some show on tv I don't like, (like poker or baseball, snooze) if I haven't already fallen asleep :)

1 comment:

  1. Very nice! Congrats on starting your own blog! You've designed it beautifully.
    Cyndie
    http://breathtakingbeadzz.blogspot.com/

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