9.28.2006

Inspiration

most of us have a vast amount of places we grab inspiration from. Some are free and others can cost a fortune but in the end inspiration is what drives us creative people to get the best out of our imaginations. Since Kim has been home I've been doing everything I can in my power to keep her from thinking about her personal life tragedies, so my weapon of choice is bringing her creativity back. I've been teaching her how to become a bookbinder and we've also enrolled in the open figure drawing studio at our former college, UB. Last night was our first attempt at figure drawing again...Wow, what a big blow it was to our creative psyche! We really thought we would suck and only be able to draw stick figures since we really haven't illustrated on paper in a few years, but I thought we did fairly well for our first time back. I don't have pics for you now but I will as soon as we feel confident in showing our work again. All in all I think we really needed it and so did our motivation to get back in the habit. As we were leaving we reminisced and even better we began brainstorming about our brainchild of a paperie studio and possible future paper good collections and.... So my point being, if you feel like your ever in a creative slump, force yourself to hone into your foundation, whether it be drawing, painting, or even digital art, just go back to the basics of where you come from creatively, enroll in a workshop or two, even if you feel you are already a genius at what you do there can never be enough learning.
which brings me to another free source of inspiration.... Even though I'm not a member, from time to time I like to surf the AIGA design archives for design trends, annual winners, read articles and forum posts. Well, god bless technology because the AIGA archives will allow you to pull from their archives and create lightboxes of all the things you see that you think inspire you and group them all together into one big inspirational slideshow. You can even email it to people when you are done! Mine is usually all the clever book jackets that come from their annual book design collective. Here is a quick glance of my lightbox which I simply names "inspiration".

try it out, it's free to get a web pass on their site and if you have the $$ you can become a member and have your own profile online where you can have further access to job openings, networking and portfolio space.

2 comments:

  1. Oh, what a great resource. I keep meaning to joing the AIGA. Its been on my "to do" list for months, but I keep spending that $ on other things...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you Colie for all that you have done for me:) You are a true and great friend. You have helped me so much in the past few weeks to overcome a lot and although there are still good days and bad days, I know that I am passed the worst and feel good that I have such wonderful friends in you- and i guess jay... lol. THANK YOU even though you don't like it when i say that! love ya
    kim
    ps...
    "ISN'T IT FANTASTIC?!" - L.M.

    ReplyDelete

LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails