Found Image Inspiration

Creative Inspiration is an elusive little wench.  She will strike you at an odd moment and you think "I MUST CREATE NOW," only to find yourself without even the slightest of materials, or at the very least with rather uninspiring materials.  Conversely, I have also had the dreaded experience of being surrounded by beautiful, inspiring materials that practically beg me to make something with them, only to have a lack of ideas, or too much pressure to create in a fixed amount of time.  In the latter situation, I've found I benefit from imposing rules on myself, but that is perhaps best left for another post on another day.  Let us return to the problem of having an unexpected >>lightbulb<< moment of inspiration at an inconvenient time.

Many people carry notebooks for storing their creative ideas.  I, belonging to the technology addicted generation(s) of the modern day, nearly always have my trusty iPhone nearby and therefore conveniently have at my disposal both a "notepad" and a camera.  Owing that creative ideas often come from images rather than word or random thoughts, having a camera accessible is really beneficial.  We see Pinterest filling up with images and captions that provide countless inspirations for various things: room design, cooking and baking, child crafts, interactive lesson planning, fitness, and of course arts and crafts.  Pin boards aren't necessarily new to the creative community, but this is like having a pin board in my pocket.  Even better, a pin board full of images from my life, often things that are original in nature, as well as things with which I interact.

One cool thing I've learned from art classes and art therapy classes has been the idea of what I now know as "pareidolia."  (Thank you wiki.)  Have you ever laid on your back or stood with your face up to the sky and watched the clouds for animals and shapes and images? Pareidolia. Have you ever seen a vague image within some amorphous substance?  Pareidolia.  The phenomenon of finding the Virgin Mary in burned toast- Pareidolia.  Cavemen used shapes they found in the rocks; a bulge in the rock wall might be used fortuitously to emphasize the strong chest or rump of the animal they painted.  I've also engaged in the process of scribble drawing where after filling a blank page with scribbles (HINT: this helps reduce the anxiety of a blank page sometimes), one tries to find images within the scribbles.  You can ignore lines, create or erase lines, and emphasize lines by drawing over them or filling in shapes.  These found images often inspire me to create something, even if it's not a representation of what I found, and with my iPhone camera I'm able to snap a quick photo as a reminder for later when I have the time and resources to create.

Let's use a recent find as an example.  Full disclosure, I have a bad habit of brushing out my hair with my fingers when I condition it in the shower, then sticking the hair that's inevitably knitted to my fingers onto the shower wall.  Gross, but okay, at least my intention is to remove it after I shower so as not to clog the drain! Anywho, recently when I did that I found a dancer on the wall.  I hope it's rather obvious that in the confines of my bathroom I'm not exactly prepared to make art that isn't on my face, sooo I fetched my phone/camera and snapped a photo before I cleaned it up.  Today when I had more time, I uploaded the image to my computer, printed it and emphasized the "lines" that I saw within it.

So you see her booty and her hair, how her arms are raised up and her legs are crossed?  Her face is uplifted?

Then, I scribbled over the back of the print out, lightly, with some charcoal.  I put the page onto a sheet of watercolor paper and traced the lines I exaggerated before.  It left faint marks which I was able to use as guides to give life to the dancer I saw.  Here's how it turned out:

It's still pretty abstract, and I discovered I might want to use some wet on wet water color in the future, but I like her. My intention is to add a verse in the negative space to the right and below her.

So there you go, Inspiration strikes and she doesn't care how inopportune the moment. I confessed to a kind of gross habit that I'm sure my husband "adores," but now I get to show him how it might actually pay off.  I suppose the biggest point is: be open to inspiration and be prepared for it at any time.  Photos can be really helpful to get you back to what inspired you before when you're in a better position to create.

And now it's Valentine's day and it's quittin' time sooo this arteest blogger is outta here!

Toodles!