Preparation:
- Bang head against the desk!
- Sharpened pencils + pens (or whatever you like to write/draw with)
- Blank paper
- Imagination
Directions:
Step 1: Look around your current environment for things that look interesting or that can be altered in some way. Do some doodles and see if any motivation evolves from this. For example, right now I see a sleeping kitty, a large container of pretzels and a Buddha statue.
- I could sculpt a sleeping kitty
- I could create some sort of Buddha shaking hands with a Lucky Cat
- That container of pretzels could become an interesting jar full of fairies or insects
Step 2: Go for a walk! Sometimes nature provides us with the most interesting subjects. I generally try to look for things (whether human made or organic) and find a way to change them. A tree with interesting knots could be an old father tree with a kind face. Or an awesome older Victorian house might be transformed into a haunted house with gargoyles! A tire swing could be the moon caught on a string from a tree.
Step 3: If you still have no inspiration then it is time to hit the resources. Whenever I am somewhere that sells books, I search through random resource books. I love horses, fairytales, fantasy and the medieval era so I have fairytale books, horse reference guides, books with pictures and descriptions on mystical creatures, Greek mythology stories, guides on swords and armor, etc. Again sometimes you have to force the creative processes, so if nothing interests me I will choose a story or a book and either try to recreate a scene from the story with my own flare or find an image I like and again try to modify it in some way. For example, what would Little Red Riding Hoods armor look like, if she were to have it?
Step 4: Look at other peoples work or techniques and try to mimic it. I find trying new techniques often makes my mind fill up with oodles of ideas on my own ideas that I could try. For example when I learnt about resin I initially wanted to try what I had seen, but then I thought of all the possibilities I could do.
Step 5: Internet Timez. Sometimes I exhaust all the previous steps so I need to find something completely new. For that I use random sites like StumbleUpon, Etsy or Pinterest to show me things I hadn't particularly thought of. Or I will just Google random words and see what comes up.
Step 6: Inspiration or motivation are sometimes found in friendly competition; which is actually how this blog came to live! There are a multitude of blogs, forums or even community groups that hold contests of all sorts in the arts. Our blog holds a random themed contest every few weeks which allows us to get really creative and step out of our comfort-zones! There's a contest on Craftster.org that we will most likely be participating in where you go to a thrift store and buy an ugly item. Then somehow using your craft, you need to turn it into something amazing and beautiful! The catch is, you can only spend 20$ US on your ugly thrift item. :) I don't know about you but that really gets my creative juices flowing!
So that concludes my creative process. Generally by the end I have a lot of concept drawings and ideas that I want to try. I like to keep these drawings and use them later as references or inspiration. Hope you enjoyed this post! And sorry about the lack of pictures :P
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