Posts Tagged: art inspiration
Inspiring Your Art: Attraction and Creation
For your inspiration this week, I’d like you to consider this quote by Buddha:
“What you think, you become. What you feel, you attract. What you imagine, you create.” — Buddha
We are constantly busy dealing with the minutia of our daily lives and frequently don’t take the time to slow down and reflect on the bigger picture. I think we often forget how intimately connected our thoughts, emotions and actions are.
A lot of times, I find myself focusing on all the things that need to get done or the things I’m missing rather than on what is good and right with my world and I’m sure many of you do the same .
What if, instead, we take a moment to reflect on the good—the things that are going right, the things that make us happy? Instead of attracting scarcity and business and chaos, we can instead create happiness and peace.
How does this quote relate to your artwork or your life in general? Tell me in the comments below!
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Inspiring Your Art: Independence Day
It’s the 4th of July today, so for your inspiration this week, I’d like you to consider Independence Day. What does Independence Day mean to you? Is it about get-togethers, picnics and cookouts? Family time and fun in the sun? Do you spend the day at the beach or the park or just in your own backyard? Is it about the fireworks? Is it about remembering where we, as a country, came from and celebrating our freedom?
I think for me, what I remember most was as a kid we’d get sparklers and smoke bombs and those strange black pellets that you light on fire and they grow into long, curly black ‘snake’ ropes. My siblings and I had a great time setting those off every year. We never had any real serious fireworks. They were illegal at the time and I think my parents always considered them a waste of money. We had a neighbor that would set off some pretty impressive displays of illegal fireworks though, so we always got to see them anyway!
What do you associate with Independence Day and how can you bring that into your art? I’d love to see what you come up with!
Want to keep updated and see more of what I’m working on? Sign up for my mailing list here and get a totally FREE digital download of a tiger linocut print. (I promise not to be spammy with my emails—I hate that too!)
Inspiring Your Art: Roses
For your inspiration this week, I’d like you to think about roses. They’re more of a summer flower to me, rather than a spring one, though my roses are all blooming right now. I just extended the landscaping along the side of my house and purchased two new rose bushes to help fill in the space. The images here are of flowers from those two bushes.
I don’t have a theme or overall plan with my landscaping, I confess. I mostly find plants that I like and then figure out where I’m going to put them. I couldn’t resist the vibrant colors of these two roses, so home with me they came! I love color and flowers can have some of the most intense, vibrant colors I’ve seen.
But anyway! Roses have many traditional meanings—there’s a whole language of meanings associated with the color of the rose (and for different flowers as well). That’s certainly an aspect you can explore with your art, if you’re so inclined. Other associations exist too, including a wealth of feelings and associations around the thorns—another potentially good topic to explore with your art.
I lived for several years in Aberdeen, Scotland, which is known for its roses. There are roses throughout the parks and gardens. They claim to have over two million roses in the city! So in a way, roses symbolize Scotland to me, though I have a stronger association with daffodils, of which there are also millions in the springtime in Aberdeen.
What do roses mean to you? How have you (or can you) use them in your artwork? I’d love to see what you come up with!
Life and Tips: Art Challenges
Lately I’ve been feeling… less than inspired in my art. It happens to everyone at some point. While I’ve been working on (and completing!) pieces, they’ve frequently been pretty slow going. So I got to thinking about how I can shake things up a bit and get myself back into my enthusiastic, inspired art mindset.
Back in December I wrote a blog post about ways to make time for your art during the holidays and in it, one of the suggestions I made was joining an art challenge. Now, I’ve never actually participated in an art challenge before and I still didn’t really feel like joining an established, current art challenge. I guess I didn’t want the pressure of following what I perceived to be a rigid, predefined challenge (sure, I realize they’re probably Not actually rigid and intimidating—it’s art, after all!).
But when I was digging around in my studio, I ran across a small leather sketchbook that I had forgotten about. It’s about 3”x4” with a cute, tooled leaf pattern on the cover. So I thought, why not make up my own art challenge?
I confess, I’m not actually fond of sketching and drawing (I’m pretty sure that’s some sort of art sacrilege!). I do have a sketchbook, but I primarily use it to jot down/sketch out rough ideas for future pieces or to work out details of composition. But my sketchbook is definitely not like the ones you see everywhere that are full of gorgeous artwork! And that’s okay—there’s no rule that says you need to draw intricately detailed artwork in your sketchbook.
So, in need of a bit of a change and looking at this cute little leather sketchbook, I decided that I would actually use the sketchbook to… (*gasp*) sketch! It’s tiny, so it’s not intimidating—there are no large, blank pages staring at me, taunting me to put pencil to paper. And I decided that I would use one page per day—just one. If I feel some crazy desire to do more drawing, I’ve always got my regular sketchbook, with its sad, empty pages just waiting for me to show it some love.
To keep myself accountable, I also decided to post each day’s page on my Instagram account, regardless of whether or not I actually like how the sketch turned out. I’ve included a few of my pages here. Go ahead and follow me on Instagram if you’re curious to see how it progresses (@tamarajaegerfineart).
We’ll see how it goes, and hopefully the challenge of working in a medium I don’t particularly enjoy will help me to look at things in a different way.
What about you? Have you ever joined or invented your own art challenge? How did it go? What other methods do you use to keep or renew your enthusiasm for your art?
Inspiring Your Art: Memorial Day
This week I’d like you to use Memorial Day as inspiration for your art. It’s a bit early, I suppose, but the holiday is coming up fast! The weather is warming up, making it the perfect time for working in my garden. Not that I have a large garden; it’s just a couple small-ish raised beds. But it’s fun and lets me grow some fresh veggies over the summer months.
I went with a more patriotic image for this week, but with some spring flowers to go with the weather. But like many holidays, there are lots of other associations with Memorial Day than just its original purpose.
So, what does Memorial Day mean to you? Is it about the weather? Family get-togethers and backyard cook outs? Is it about remembrance of military service? How would you represent it in your art? Tell me (or show me!) in the comments.
Inspiring Your Art: Love and Hope
For your inspiration this week, I’d like you to consider this quote by Rodin:
“The main thing is to be moved, to love, to hope, to tremble, to live.” Auguste Rodin
To me, it reminds me of the emotion, the passion, that I feel when I create art. There are (too many!) days when I don’t make time for art. I’m sure we all have those days. The days when you’re just too tired or stressed or “busy” and think, “well, I’ll just skip today and pick up again tomorrow.” And that’s valid. It’s a great thing to strive for, making art every day, but sometimes life just gets in the way.
But I’ve definitely noticed that if I’m not creating art regularly, I just don’t feel as calm and centered, as content or even happy as I do when I Am making art. So I try not to skip too many days. Even on those days when I’m tired and drained and don’t really feel like it, I try to work on something for at least a few minutes. Sometimes all I manage is those few minutes, but other times a few minutes turns into an hour or more!
In the spirit of the quote above, I’d like to hear about how you express your “passion” in your art. Is it through the subject? The colors? The medium? Or is it just the process of creating itself? What does this quote make you feel and how can or do you relate it to your art? Tell me in the comments.
Inspiring Your Art: Texture
One of my favorite things to do with my art is to incorporate lots of texture. I rarely make smooth-surfaced pieces, in fact. Even the majority of my paintings have heavy texture, though it’s not usually the paint itself (like brushstrokes) that gives the texture.
I often add other materials to my paintings to add texture. This can be from various acrylic mediums or from using layers of fabric, crushed glass, or even natural materials like moss and pinecones.
When I work in mediums other than painting, I still typically involve a lot of texture. From my ceramic pieces back in college to my torn paper collages that are one of my current focuses, there’s texture everywhere!
This week, I’d like you to focus on texture in your artwork. How do you use texture? Is it with a smooth surface that is painted or drawn to appear textured? Do you use actual, three-dimensional texture? What do you use to get your effects? Can you think of any new ways to incorporate texture in your art?
Inspiring Your Art: Seeing Art in the Everyday
I like these trees. I see them pretty much every day. They always look to me like they’re dancing, wild and free. I can almost hear the music, when I look at them.
Sometimes, I think, it’s important to take a step back and just observe the world around you. Art isn’t just about making or creating. It’s about seeing. I truly believe that it’s the ability to see what others do not that makes someone an artist, rather than their ability to draw or paint or create or recreate.
So for your inspiration this week, I’m not going to ask you to make anything. Though you can, of course. I’m certainly not going to tell you not to create! Instead, I want you to go out and find yourself a piece of the “everyday” and just observe. What do you see? What does it make you think of? How does it make you feel? This is an exercise you can do literally anywhere. No tools or supplies needed. No sketchbook? No problem!
If you’re feeling a little unsure about “everyday,” I’ll suggest “nature” as a topic—and that can be taken pretty loosely: it can be a forest or a lake or some other outdoor space; it can be animals at the zoo (that’s one of my major sources of inspiration!); it can be as simple as a dandelion growing in a crack in the pavement. But I’m not going to stop you if you want to use a different source for your inspiration. Feel free to choose whatever source of “everyday” you’d like.
What I really want you to do is focus on “seeing.” See the shapes, the colors, the emotions. What do you observe around you that you see as “art”? What everyday scenes can you find “art” in? Tell me what you saw; I’d love to hear from you.
Inspiring Your Art: Easter
I have a lot of fond memories of Easter from when I was a child. It wasn’t a particularly religious holiday in my family. It was more of a fun, family time. But with Candy! It also wasn’t a particularly large celebration—just some Easter baskets in the morning and sometimes a bit of hunting for hidden jelly beans and other candies. Not big Easter egg hunts or anything like that. But still fun nonetheless.
For your inspiration this week, I’d like you think about Easter. What does Easter mean to you? What are your favorite memories of Easter? Is it a religious holiday or more of a secular celebration? What images or feelings does it invoke for you?
Inspiring Your Art: Spring Flowers
I’ve been eagerly awaiting spring, and it looks like it’s finally in sight. The weather is warming up (sort of!) and the spring flowers are finally starting to appear. The crocuses are all up and the daffodils are also starting to bloom now. I know a few weeks ago I had you use crocuses as your art inspiration for spring, but I’m pretty excited about the change of seasons, so I’m going to do it again!
This week I’d like you to consider spring flowers for your inspiration. This time I have a whole bunch of lovely purple crocuses blooming in my yard. I like the contrast between the pale, delicate lavender petals and the brighter yellow stamens. These particular flowers feel like happiness and warmth, to me.
I’d also like to present this photo of some early daffodils in my garden. I love daffodils. They’re bright and sunny and I love their cheerful exuberance. They also remind me of Scotland. I’ve lived there twice and I’ll always remember the millions of daffodils covering the parks and roadsides in the spring. It was truly an amazing sight. I miss Scotland; it’s a place that I really felt at home. So while daffodils remind me of Spring, they remind me even more of Scotland and all the great times I had there.
What are your favorite Spring flowers? How can you incorporate spring flowers into your art? It is the colors? The textures? The shapes? Show me what you come up with!