Step #290: Creative Ideas
Tue, January 26, 2010 at 06:00AM "Some people are still unaware that reality contains unparalleled beauties.
The fantastic and unexpected, the ever-changing and renewing
is nowhere so exemplified as in real life itself."
~ Berenice Abbott
Where do you "find" ideas? Do they just come to you, or do you actively seek ideas? For me, creativity spurs creativity. Here's what works for me:
- Carry my camera. It pushes me to actively looking for things to photograph, for patterns, shapes, juxtapositions, colors, beauty, grunge.
- Read blogs of all sorts; art | craft | photography | creative| gardening | writing| psychology| political | homeschooling | leadership | parenting | design | etc.
- Study photographs. Flickr is an easy place to start... the world seen through my eyes, mrs. french, but ALSO check out blogs like Cannelle et Vanille for luscious photographs of food, Lauren Clark for gorgeous wedding images, plus Curious Girl, Pancho Tolchinsky, J.R. Photoblog from Julien of Montreal, street fashion at The Sartorialist.
- Study design. You'll find inspiration at Print Mag (esp. image galleries), the HOW magazine blog (esp. Designer section), the ideas at sfgirlbybay.
- Peruse non-fiction at your favorite book store. Ideas flow, magically unrelated to the books. It turns on your brain, which then hums along in the background. These books were all quite fun: Drip.Dot.Swirl: 94 Incredible Patterns for Design & Illustration
(Glitschka), Things I Learned From Knitting
(Pearl-McPhee), Creative Time and Space
(Freeman-Zachary), Magic Books & Paper Toys
(Smith), Adobe PS CS4 One-On-One
(McClelland), Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us
(Godin).
- Variety is the spice of life.
- Do creative stuff. Expand upon what you do. Lather, rinse, repeat.
I've been exploring the Studio Mothers blog. 5 Ways to Be a Writer When You're Not Writing by Alison Wells of Head Above Water (the article is also at her blog) is just fantastic! The women who contribute to Studio Mothers are an eloquent, creative + intelligent bunch!
More ideas at The Unofficial Guide to Daisy Yellow Creative Prompts and the entire step-by-step art journaling series.
Where do you find your ideas? Or do they find you?
Find more in the step-by-step art journaling series.
Reader Comments (4)
Your entry reminds that when you do something, anything, your mind has a way of just kicking into gear. It might keep you awake at nights, but the more you choose to interact with the world, in whatever form, even if it's just dragging yourself to the local coffee shop and doing people watching, the more ideas you'll come up with. And I love your points about non-fiction! It's so helpful to see the world from a perspective you may not have been interested in before. That's not to say that you may turn into a physics junky overnight, but you might get one sentence out of that book that spurs a whole year's worth of creativity.
Thank you for reminding me of what I need to do daily to keep my art flowing!
pia
What a lovely shout-out, Tammy! Thank you for the kind words. We've started sharing your posts at our Facebook group--your blog is fabulous!
* Pia, It's great to meet you! Non-fiction is so important to my creative inspiration that I make it a point to venture to the bookstore every other week for several hours with a stack of seemingly unrelated books. And leave with ideas and a bag of books. I cannot leave a bookstore empty-handed...
* Miranda, Thank you for saying hello! I love the creative synergy of sharing links. We help each other screen the seemingly infinite writings on the web.
~ Tammy
Your site is very inspiring!