How To Find Artistic Inspiration In These 4 Uncommon Places

Inspiration

How To Find Artistic Inspiration In These 4 Uncommon Places

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Unique Ways To Gather Artistic Inspiration

Whether you work as a creative or engage in art as a hobby, there will always be challenging moments where you feel stuck or uninspired. As covered in a previous post about the lack of artistic inspiration, this road block usually stems from being burnt out, overwhelmed, or overworked. However, it’s important to remember that these periods of creative blocks are common and can be worked through. You can start by taking the time to care for yourself, then reevaluate your creative goals until you feel ready for a small project.

But beyond these simple ways of getting back on track, there are also unique approaches to reinvigorating your artistic inspiration and bouncing back better with more creative work — here are some of them.

Read inspiring books about art

While you can simply search for art references online to see if they spark something from within you, there’s nothing like flipping through a book and witnessing the tangibility of creative works right before your eyes. Among the art books to scour for inspiration is the “Art Of” series, which collects sketches, doodles, and concept art of various forms of media, be it an animation film like Coco or a renowned video game like Horizon: Forbidden West.

Instead of looking at polished, overly produced final outputs, you get a glimpse of the raw and real creative process and see how concepts are broken down to the fundamental level. This behind-the-scenes perspective can be especially comforting if you’re struggling to transform and flesh out a basic idea.

Observe how people move and interact

If you have the time and opportunity, go to public places like trains and parks to watch people and find inspiration from real life. For one, people-watching lends insight into how simple, everyday items like eyewear can physically alter the contours and proportions of a person’s face, ultimately transforming their character and aura. Since people choose their glasses based on face shape, you get a more concrete understanding of how soft features can be balanced out by sharper, more defined angles in frames.

Meanwhile, you’ll notice that oblong face shapes characterised by long and wide features are best complemented by glasses with decorative details and mixed colours and textures. More than a way to practice sketching the human form itself, observing people interact with objects and move in natural environments can be an enriching exercise that helps you pay attention to details and witness how basic concepts like proportions play out in real life.

Look into other fields or disciplines

Another unique way to work your creative muscle is to expand your horizons and look beyond the art forms you’re already familiar with or have worked with. Take, for example, how designer Iris van Herpen recently released a haute couture collection inspired by architecture. Specifically, the Dutch fashion designer looked to cutting-edge aquatic architecture in modular neighbourhoods and futuristic laboratories to elevate traditional fabric construction and dressmaking techniques like embroidery.

Similarly, you can look into other art forms like music and dance – and even other fields or disciplines like biology and astronomy. There are a lot of images in the public domain that aren’t necessarily art related, but can still be inspiring. You never know what kind of elements, theories, or world views might strike you and thus ignite your imagination and creativity like never before.

Review past works

Last, but not least, it helps to review past works in your portfolio to try and see if there are any pieces you would like to recreate differently this time around. There might be a subject matter worth revisiting, except with a different medium or art style. What’s more, your entire perspective on the theme in the question may have already changed over time, creating fertile ground for new ideas.

Conversely, you might want to stick to a medium like painting but change things up by painting portraits instead of still life. Sometimes, merely seeing what you’ve achieved and how far you’ve progressed can set your creativity alight once again.

It’s not easy to find motivation and inspiration to keep creating, but there are many innovative ways through which you can overcome this hurdle and emerge with fresh ideas. As you go through this lifelong journey of being an artist, remember that support from your family, friends, and fellow artists can go a long way in unlocking your full potential.

HOW DO YOU FIND YOUR ARTISTIC INSPIRATION? LET US KNOW IN THE COMMENTS BELOW.

Also, don’t forget you can always share your art with us or tag us on Instagram – @darkyellowdot.

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