Art Inspiration
By Jo Phillips
If you are an artist of any kind, one of the most important things that you are always going to be keen on is figuring out how to actually get inspired to create more art, and better art. This is arguably the work of a lifetime, and so many artists spend a long time trying to get to the bottom of this. Nonetheless, there are some important and useful ways in which you can approach this, and it is worth knowing what those are if you want to get more inspired for your own art. Let’s take a look at some of the most common places to find inspiration as an artist.
Other Artists
The primary source is always going to be other artists. The artist who does not pay attention to what other people are doing is always going to produce work that appears to exist in a bubble because it really does. You need instead to make sure that you are looking to other artists as much as possible, and seeing what kind of things they are doing. It can help to look locally, too. If you are in Australia, look to popular Australian artists for inspiration, for instance. The more you look to other artists, the more you ironically end up producing singular work that only you could produce. It sounds strange, but it’s absolutely true.
Nature
There are very few artists who have never got any kind of inspiration from nature at all. If you are looking for some freshness to get into your work, you can often get there by spending some more time in nature and seeing what that does for you, and you might be surprised at the kind of effect and impact this can really have. Because nature is so beautiful in itself, but also so varied, there is a lot to find there, and you will generally come away feeling as though you have really made some huge strides in that area. Nature is always going to provide you with what you need when you need it, and that is a fact that you can trust no matter what.
Your Past
So many artists use their past as a means of understanding themselves, and of therefore producing better art. You don’t necessarily need to be producing introspective art for this to be important. You will find that the experiences you have gone through are always going to have an impact on your art no matter what, but by taking control of this process you should be able to produce much more engaging and interesting pieces. If you are stuck for inspiration, therefore, you could think about purposefully delving into a painful or difficult period of your past, and seeing what comes out of that. You might be surprised at how much of an effect this kind of work can have on your art as a whole.
