INSPIRATION
Seeking artistic inspiration.
INSPIRATION belongs to the following groups:
1 on 1: The Fine Art of Portraiture , All Things Orange Artwork Gallery, ! 100% !, "Exceptional Ekphrasis", All Around the Styles, Altered by Design (3 per day), Birds and Creatures of Flight, Ebony and Ivory, Escher and Perspective Art 5/24, Fine Arts, For the Love of Cats , 1 image a day , Iberia , Impressionist Art, Japanfluence, Living Christianity, Melbourne & Victoria, North East England, Not What It Seems, Painters In Modern Times - TWO PER DAY, Safe Haven, Shameless Self-Promotion, Steel Blades and the Power of Viscosity, Surrealism *MAX 4 PER DAY*, United Kingdom, Vibrant and Vivid Color and Water Media (Paintings by hand only)I’d like to share some thoughts on inspiration.
It’s something I have problems with. As a child I often said, “Mummy, I’m bored; what shall I do?”
Now I’m married I’ve found that such questions attract answers like, “the shed needs painting” or “How about doing some dusting?”
In my attempts to seek inspiration for my drawings and paintings I have found that inspiration is hiding everywhere we go, but it’s so easy to forget those magic moments amidst the hustle of our everyday lives.
This can be solved by the simple act of ensuring that you always have a little notebook and a pen in your pocket (okay .. your handbag/purse if you are female).
I get ideas at the strangest times. Soaking in a bath of hot soapy water is often a time of inspiration and a source of many “Eureka” moments. Imagine my panic when my wife suggested removing our bath in favour of a shower cubicle. Phew … she changed her mind and we now have a new bathroom with the shower above the bath as a compromise, like before, but newer.
When I have time, I gather together the thoughts I have put down into my notebooks and arrange them in a word Document.
I have a folder in my computer I call Dave’s Inspiration. I am very scrupulous and always try to include the names of anyone who offers constructive advice. I have learned a lot from my Redbubble friends and look on Redbubble as a sort of correspondence course in art.
Here is my Folder (well, part of it):
I hope to add to this piece of Redbubble Writing in due course.
Thanks for reading it.
AnitaInverarity
Wow Dave !! I too have an inspiration notebook that I scribble down ideas in- I collect postcards and things too- but this wayyyyyy more organised- I’m impressed xx
BLYTHART replied
If I had a perfect photographic memory, I would have no need for all this organisation, but I haven’t .. so I do :) Thanks for reading this Anita.
Paul (Quixote)...
Excellent ideas Dave. I have been collection Words for a book to write later. I keep a file called New Words. The idea is to record word that are unique but are used frequently by regular folk to get their point accross. I also keep an image file tiled “UNTITLED” where I keep bits and pieces of images for use at some time or another. It works great for me and I see it does for you as well. I am sure that many other bubblers will be inspired by your constructive effort to improve your Art.
BLYTHART replied
It’s lovely to find people who have a similar mind-set to myself. It’s so easy to lose inspiring thoughts, so it’s a great idea to have somewhere to store them for future use. I’m hoping by sharing my thoughts that others will share theirs and together we can all grow artistically. Redbubble is brilliant for that. For example, reading Anita (above)’s comment prompted me to take another look at her lovely portfolio of work and in doing so I was introduced to the work of Kaffe Fassett
Karin Taylor
great ideas Dave!! thanx for sharing!!
BLYTHART replied
I think we should all share .. I know you do and I am grateful for that.
AngelArtiste
Oh, that;s such a nice idea. I have thousands of ideas in my head, and I never make a record of any of them…maybe I should take your advice =) But they are all fantasy. By the way, I hate handbags and purses…I’ll take the notebook and pen! =D
BLYTHART replied
What … a lady who hates handbags and purses? :) Never thought I’d meet one. Seriously though, my wife doesn’t carry a handbag either unless she has to. I can cram as much into my pockets as any lady can into her handbag :)
wutz4tea
What a great reminder , Dave….I’ve been blocked lately but as everything else..”this too shall pass”...I’ll be ready, though, when it finally breaks up….....r
helene ruiz
excellent !!
Catherine Howell
Very interesting read, Dave! Inspiration really is everywhere:)
Linda Callaghan
what a fabulous idea Dave….so that is why your work is always so wonderfully fresh and glowing….the bath!!!! I must soak in one more often. You do need quiet moments to discover what is inside of you and what you are capable of and in this day and age it is hard.
Like the idea of paper in your bag… I had an idea for a poem the other day and had to find a bit of scrappy paper in my handbag lucky I had some…womens bags are neverending and one has to dig deep to find anything…some bright orange paper will do the trick. :-D
Thanks for sharing Dave…interesting read.!!
BLYTHART replied
Tell you something I used to do when I was younger … if I woke form a dream I would write it down immediately, before it faded away. Made interesting reading.
bites
Thanks for sharing Dave,
I used to be real messy with my ideas till I organised it all into Art not finished, art not started and art for rainy days : ) But no matter how organised i get I always seem to get inspired when I’m out somewhere and cant document my ideas which makes me wanna run home lol : )
BLYTHART replied
As artists we often need to be spontaneous, but for practical things I believe a little organisation helps. I’m still trying to get it all together, so feel free to chip in with any hints or tricks you have up your sleeve.
bites
The only tip I can give is don’t thro any idea away, it will grow and become its own in time! : )
BLYTHART replied
I agree.
Alexandra Felgate
How terribly organised you are!! I have folders on my computer filled with photographs for inspiration, and I’ll admit I carry a small notebook in my bag which is filled with all sorts of curious ideas, many of which will probably never come to fuition! My problem is TOO MUCH inspiration!! Particularly since joining RB, every single artist I come across inspires me in some way!! The number of new/ different/ even revisited ideas I have put onto paper or canvas since joining is HUGE. Thanks to you all!!!
And thanks to you Dave, for sharing your inspirational ideas, and for inspiring me to work in coloured pencil, it is an amazing journey!
BLYTHART replied
I know what you are saying about “too much inspiration” ... what I often find frustrating is when I have a “brilliant” idea, only to discover later that someone has beaten me to it. I study artists and have 2gb of info on my computer (that’s quite a lot) so I am aware that there isn’t really such a thing as a truly original idea; merely variations on a theme. If you examine the greats of days gone by you can often discover where today’s artists get their inspiration … and why not. The man in the street often enthuses over “new” art which isn’t really new at all, but “improved” or altered … and there is nothing wrong with that of course.
Linda Callaghan
well my dreams are crazy sometimes…I seem to piece things together that have happened in the day…my husband said I could write a book on them! good idea tho.
Firedrake
I have lots of notes too, and 5 corkboards to store them! Different boards have differnet significance too, so I move the notes around :)
BLYTHART replied
Nice to hear from you Kaitlin.
adgray
A great treatise that shows such a brilliant way of finding inspiration
Love the inclusion of your file page as another interpretation of what you are offering us!
A great ekphrasis of your art style done in such a different way! lol
Chookas! xXx
Nira Dabush
Dave.. I read you, and there’s always inspiration.
My inspiration come all the time.. and i agree, it’s a very good idea to write it in notes.
About the bathroom… I think it’s better then the shower.
Here, my husband could suggest to arrange a shower instead of a bathroom :-)
Thanks for sharing your thoughts… I have too many folders of inspiration as well.
Pat Yager
Amazing I should read this just now, Dave, as I’ve spent the last while trying to organize the clutter I’ve let creep into my painting space! I think one of my problems is that of finding almost too much inspiration from too many places. I have file folders of trees, sunflowers, you name it, and numerous plastic boxes filled to the brim with photos I’ve taken. Then pics from magazines, and on and on! THEN, when I actually sit down to decide on something to paint, I’m mentally overwhelmed at my choices. HELP!!
BLYTHART replied
So true … there is inspiration everywhere. One problem I didn’t mention stems from the fact that over the years I have collected many biographies of artists, so now, whenever I get an idea, I find myself thinking, “Ah, but X did something similar in 1888” :) It must be good to be totally innocent of knowledge of other artists … that way one will imagine everything one dreams up is totally original. As for your choices … why not write them down on separate pieces of paper and pick one from a hat or box.
ISMAIL ALAOUI ...
very nice to know
Orla Cahill
My problem is I have too much inspiration…and I’ve been collecting it for years. My attic was until recently, full of boxes of folders in the form of heavy duty ring binders each with hundreds of pages of stuff collected in the form of magazine cuttings, photocopies, photographs, doodles, drawings, typography, collages, writings, etc. The trouble is I had become so inundated in the ‘stuff’ that I decided to throw out most of those folders lately. I also have way, way too many labelled folders on my hard drive full of more inspiration. There’s enough inspiration to last me ten life times.
I think one can have too much inspiration and sometimes this can cloud the creative juices. Well in my case I feel it can because I find that there is too much to deal with and I can’t decide what I’ll do next. It’s like being in a wonderful sweet shop as a kid and trying to decide which sweets to buy for your 10p as there are so many colourful ones of all shapes and sizes but you can only get a few for that 10p.
Of course there is inspiration all around us every day, everywhere we look or something we hear. The camera certainly is a handy tool for capturing something that is visually interesting. I would probably rely more on the camera nowadays than I would on notebooks as I am tired of building those paper mountains that have been growing in my attic for years yet never seeing the light of day.
I would say Dave that perhaps you are a lot more focused and organised with your collections of inspirational images and writings.
Sometimes I think I have too much stuff going on and need to start allover again…Tabula Rasa
BLYTHART replied
I value honesty, as that way people don’t get misled, so I must say first of all, thank you for saying, “you are a lot more focused and organised with your collections of inspirational images and writings.”
I don’t, however, wish to create any false impressions of my worth, so I will mention that maybe what I have put on Redbubble is possibly organised, but I still have loads of unorganised material which I am slowly and painstakingly organising. I can be almost obsessive and will edit and edit and then edit again sometimes. Ideally, I would love to get to basics, but I am a hoarder of possessions and of information.
Even today, I have been sifting through dozens and dozens of art instruction articles I have downloaded or copied from books. I will take, say, six articles about the same subject or technique and highlight the passages that I feel are relevant to the subject. I will delete duplicated passages or passages I feel are woffle. Eventually I will have one article that says what I need to know.
While my mind is working (sometimes it goes on strike) can I share this with you and whoever is reading this .... we are all familiar with the expression, “getting back to our roots”. Well, As I am 59 I have been to lots of places and read lots of books, etc. This can be like a child stuffing its mouth greedily with sweets (to sort of borrow your metaphor). At my time of life I am now concerned about digesting all the stuff I have swallowed. It is a common fallacy that older people can’t take in anything new. Nonsense … it’s just that we have our heads filled with so much that there is often very little room for anything new. As Homer Simpson said, “Every time I get a new idea it pushes an old one out of my head” ... or words to that effect :)
There now .. that sounds organised and straightforward BUT it is difficult to ignore new things. Only this past weekend I visited Glasgow and came home with three hundred photos and lots of booklets and books.
Here’s a secret …I too have an attic … in that attic is a large plastic storage box FULL of ring-binders containing fascinating art info I have cut from magazines over the years. I just organised it all into the one box a few weeks ago. Prior to then it was scattered all over the house. My plan is to sift through it and destroy duplicated material, etc. It hurts to destroy anything … but I keep telling myself that as I will have to leave it all behind when I shuffle off this mortal coil … why can I not bear to part with it now? If anyone has the answer to that question ….
Orla Cahill
Well Dave, I too am a hoarder…big time…and it sooo difficult to throw out stuff. But lately a friend of mine told me “you need to be ruthless Orla, if you haven’t used that stuff for the past 5 years, get rid of it”...and I did. Phew! It seems a difficult thing to do. But I felt I had to do it. But I think maybe the hoarding doesn’t seem to overpower you as much as it overpowers me. I’m just not able to deal with it anymore. I’m a wimp or maybe I’m just getting too old. Somehow though a big weight has been lifted off my shoulders since I got rid of a skip load of stuff. Now I just need to get organised into doing some creative work again. But maybe I’m a bit lazy too. Some of you guys here on RB are constantly uploading new stuff and it seems that a lot of it is new stuff that has been just recently done. I feel a bit guilty for being lazy about getting my creative juices flowing again.
Keep up the gr8 work. And happy hoarding :~)
BLYTHART replied
Don’t let my wife hear you saying “happy hoarding” or she’ll ask what side you are on :) You Irish girls are supposed to stick to gether :) In airness to myself, most of the stuff I hoard is labelled and on shelves. I just need to be a little tidier I suppose. Some of the stuff I hoard may be valuable one day, such as my 1963 Beatles singles and my mono LP of The Shadows very first album.
Regarding art … you may have noticed that I keep the plates spinning by uploading old material occasionally, but I am slowly running out of pictures, so I have to keep producing new ones. I sometimes give myself challenges. Try producing sets of three pictures. When you are faced with three blank canvases lined up, you just have to get on with it. Especially if, as I did once, you have told Redbubblers that you are about to upload three new pictures.
Would you like me to do a Journal entry about how Orla is going to reveal to the world of Redbubble her latest 25 new paintings? Dinnae panic lassie … I am joking :)
BLYTHART replied
Of course … that should read “in fairness to myself” :)
Patricia Anne ...
incredible collection!
Orla Cahill
You’re a funny guy Dave. ...and don’t even think about telling the world about my 25 new paintings…it’ll probably take me 25yrs to do that many at the rate I’m going.. LOL!
BLYTHART replied
Hidemi Tada, a brilliant Redbubble artist, did 225 pictures last year and hopes to do even more this year … I’d love to be that prolific. amazing thing is that he manages to combine quantity with quality. Look at his work if you haven’t already seen it.
Orla Cahill
Amazing! Don’t know how he does it..fantastic..