Here's a small list of how my brain works and how I find inspiration to create the things I do.
HOLIDAYS
It may sound weird but holidays can be very inspiring, well at least to me they are. Two of my favorites are Halloween and Christmas. There are parts of Christmas I find really frustrating, all the gifts and stress of hurrying around. sometimes it seems as though some people have forgotten the good things about the season.
I will never forget one memory as a kid, my mom sat the three of us down and asked us how we would feel if this year for Christmas instead of getting our usual gifts, we would help another family who was less fortunate than us.
We all agreed and the cool thing was we got to meet the mother of all these kids. We got to see where they lived and just how little they had. We never met the kids but I felt connected to them through their Christmas lists. They asked for nice things and you could tell they were very nice children.
I can't speak for my sister and brother but it felt really good to help this family. I remember how sweet the mother was. She had made this basket of things for us to show her gratitude. It was an experience I'll never forget. And on Christmas morning, I felt something I never felt before; some sense of pride that I could help another. That I could make someone feel that good. I imagined those kids opening their presents and being so happy.
I do believe that is what Christmas should be about - giving.
There are so many good senses surrounding holidays too.
The coziness of Christmas time. Being inside and watching it snow (when it does), all the cookies, and snacks...
The smells of balsam fur trees, pine cones and snow, the chimney fire and chestnuts roasting (even just imagining that people actually did this) hot chocolate and Christmas cookies baking in the oven, and a favorite of mine, cinnamon.
The smells are enough to trigger so many good memories. There is an enormous wreath that hangs in my mother's barn. When the weather is right, I can still smell it. My niece and I made that wreath together years ago. She wanted to learn and I spent 3 hours with her making it.
I loved that she was enjoying it so much and we got to spend that time together. I think moments like that are important for ourselves and for kids. They help us create together and just enjoy the process.
When I was a little girl, I loved to imagine what Christmas looked like for all the animals in the woods. I would draw little scenes of deer, bear, fox, and rabbits all gathered peacefully by a special tree in the woods. Almost like they had decorated it. I wanted the animals to have the Christmas spirit.
There’s something about owls I fall in love with. I am from Maine so there's a lot of owls here. They are so beautiful, the way they are silent when they fly and how they blend right in with the woods. They kinda just instantly remind me of Christmas. Maybe that's because they stick out more in winter snow and they give off this peacefulness about them.
When I painted this snowy owl with the snow globe, I imagined the owl traveling through the night during Christmas Eve, sort of like a feeling of presence within the owl, embedded within the heart and wings.
The sky color came out after the owl. Those colors remind me of the northern lights. A lot of this wacky idea comes out from a feeling, there’s not a specific image in my head at the time. I am remembering feelings that Christmas gives me, joy, peace, sounds, colors all play into it.
The more you paint, as you go along, the more the character of the animal comes out. You might start off thinking you know what you want them to look like but they sort of make themselves up as you go. It can be fun. Both these owls carry Christmas with them and within them.
Magic
Maybe growing up watching so much sci-fi and The Never-Ending Story made me love magic so much. Magic makes things more memorable and fun and inspires for sure.
Some people ask me why I made this bear blue with red eyes. “Why not”? It's my painting, I'm inspired during the moments I paint, I just trust them and go with it. It’s more fun that way.
I am a huge fan of Harry Potter. There’s just something about that world that is so cool. Who wouldn’t want to imagine you had these special powers inside you that grow deeper with practice and experience. Even though really that's a lot like real life.
A little visual magic and make-believe though, have the amazing ability to make people relate to those things. At least that is why I think so many people, including myself, love the movies. They're very relatable, there are great life quotes from Albus Dumbledore that I think are wise and true.
How amazing it would be to have your own cute animal Patronus that is unique to you? The amount of thought and creativity that went into those stories blows my mind.
One year I decided I was going to have a Harry Potter party. It was the best costume contest and a trivia party. I had planned everything myself, spent months creating decorations I made by hand. It was very time consuming but I had so much fun and so did everyone else.
Just reading magic and watching it can get the creativity going inside you. The more you get involved, the more crazy ideas you come up with.
I painted this Harry Potter image of Dragon Ally. I did this entirely for my own enjoyment.
DREAMS
I have always been fascinated by dreams. Years ago I became really interested in figuring out what they meant. Dreams are real emotions, and how you're dealing with things on a subconscious level. Our dreams choose to show us those expressions through images.
A lot of times they don’t make any sense and we barely remember them by the time we wake up. I was determined to figure them out, so I read this book on how to log down and interpret your dreams. It taught me how to wake up and write down small details of my dreams. Like the second you wake up you concentrate on what you can remember. It trains your brain to trace back images and to log them down quickly so you can go back to it. I also referred to a book my sister gave to me for Christmas and an online site that gave descriptions of the meanings of dreams.
The meanings of dreams are very interesting and scarily accurate to how you are dealing with your life. I guess I wanted to know the meanings bad enough because I thought I could help myself with awareness and change them. I ended up doing this for months and really enjoyed it. I have journals full of dream interpretations.
A few neat things that came out of this dream journaling.
I figured out a lot of my thoughts and current emotions, how I was dealing with life stresses and I changed them. I paid more attention to myself and started to express my feelings more.
I ended up using the dream interpretations for my photography course on a project theme. It was challenging because I had to make the photos resemble the dreams I had but make sure people could relate and make sense of it all. It was so much fun and I ended up doing really well with it. This is one of the dream photos I did for Tafe.
And lastly, some of those dreams have given me great ideas to create paintings with. Some things you see in dreams are very detailed or at least mine have been.
DAYDREAMING
One thing I've always been good at is daydreaming. Now, this hasn't always been a good thing especially when I was in school trying to learn. But I do believe it has some really good benefits.
When it comes to imagination, the more you are imagining, the more easily I believe creative ideas will come to mind.
Pretty sure most of the daydreaming is part of me already, but the more you use your imagination, the more creative you will become. At least this has been my experience.
Some people are probably better at imagining than others. I'm going to assume most people reading this are similar to me, most likely right-brained and visual thinkers.
A lot of good can come out of daydreaming. One of those can be a manifestation. What you think about frequently will happen. And when you're that focused and excited about it, those dreams and thoughts become your reality.
It's very easy to do. For example, I have imagined what I want my art space to look like in my apartment. I focus on my senses when I imagine. What I would want to feel like when I walk into my art studio, the smell of it, the window light hitting certain areas, the sound of the fish tank in the background. Then I start to imagine what things could look like and the little things that might be inside the studio space. Supplies, special jars for paintbrushes, and everything organized.
YouTube is a great place to get ideas too. There are so many videos on turning a random room into an art studio. Just watch one and you'll most likely be inspired. Your brain will start wondering how you can do the same.
The more you let your mind wander, the easier this becomes. It can really put you in a motivated mood. If you're like me, you might want to start creating that new studio straight away.
HUMOUR
Things that make us laugh are always a good thing. They instantly lift our moods and can inspire creativity.
Something that is really fun especially when you don't know what to paint, is randomly choosing words out of a hat. For example, write down a list of interests you have. This can be anything from animals, flowers, random objects. Then pick some colors. You could even pick a time of day or weather season.
Once done with your list, cut them up and throw them in a hat or bowl. Choose as many as you like and see what you come up with.
You may get something like a teel colored deer using his antlers as a hat rack. Oooh, I really like that!
This is a lot of fun because you challenge yourself to create this randomness and most likely it will make you laugh as you create it. If it makes you laugh and you're happy with it, go with that because it's meant to be you. Then it will make someone else smile too.
Years ago this is exactly how I created a painting for my place of work. I had to make a welcome sign for the band and I really had no idea what to do. I did know I wanted it to be funny though.
So of course I chose the most random of things I could imagine. I turned the band members into animals, had them floating down the bayou water, all while playing their instruments. The whole thing had that swamp green color going on. I giggled the entire time I made it and one of them liked it enough to take it home. I do wish I still had a picture of it but it is lost to me.
Do you remember that old movie The Blob? When I was in high school me and my friend Brianna would always draw blobs. Random I know. During class, I would sketch a blob out and attempt to make it look like someone I knew or make the blob look like it was skiing or something. When we met up later we would exchange them and laugh about it. God, I wish we still had them all.
This is all I can muster up. Look it's Bob Ross blob!
My point here is it's always good to laugh and tons of creation comes from when you aren't trying.
ANIMALS
Animals I love to paint. I grew up on a 100-acre farm and have many stories. Painting animals is one of my favorite things to do. There are so many different creatures and there all interesting in their own weird little ways.
When you spend enough time around animals, you start to observe their behavior, their body language. You notice their fur, feathers, scales, and claws. The anatomy of each and every one.
You can get creative with them too. For instance, I like to exaggerate certain things with animals. You can give them extra longhorns or make their hair wacky and colorful. It gives them more personality.
I'm a big fan of symbols and meanings of all things. This native American horse is a sketch I did.
Just for some fun meditative coloring, I gave him multi-colored hair that blew in the wind. I like the movement a lot.
I added some symbols to the horse. They mean strength and peace, two things I desperately needed at the time.
I enjoy incorporating interesting things into animal paintings. For instance, instead of painting a plain horse, I wanted to show a bit of fierceness to him. I am creating after all. I gave him blue eyes and pink flowers all through the mane to give him more character.
Or this one of the bear with red eyes. I remember reading that to native Americans, the bear represents strength, and probably other symbols as well. Dreamcatchers were created to keep bad spirits away. Since I was a child, I had frequent nightmares and had a dreamcatcher that brought me comfort. I have dreamed of bears but they were never evil. The red-eye is only what I see when I'm creating. It was a good contrast to the rest of the painting and that's why I did it.
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