Where to Find Inspiration

   Inspiration is an absolute necessity for an artist. Without inspiration, your art would be boring and soulless. You and others would be able to tell that you had no opinion whatsoever on the work you spent hours creating. Inspiration. Is. Necessary.

   But sometimes it can be very difficult to find new inspiration. Sure, you could scroll through media sites for hours on end, but then you aren't getting anything done, are you? Doesn't it seem like a much better idea to have a constant stream of inspiration tucked away that you can access at any time? Well, that's what we are going to be developing in tomorrow's assignment. But first, let's talk about where you can find new ideas and inspirations.

   There are so many different places that you can find inspiration in, but it really depends on what you like to or are wanting to draw. For example, if you like to draw trees or plants, it might be fun to go outside and take photographs yourself. On the other hand, if you enjoy drawing high fantasy things, you might have a harder time finding references or inspirations. You can't step outside your front door and snap a picture of a dragon (though I know we all wish we could), so you have to find other ways of getting inspired.

   When I need inspiration, I turn to this lovely app called Pinterest. I have several boards dedicated to all kinds of things, including Warrior Cats and forest background things. Pinterest is a wonderful place to find inspiration because there is just such a wide variety of images on the app. Hands down, Pinterest is my favorite place to scroll through when I need ideas.

   But there are many other apps that you can use to find inspiring photos. If you'd like, you could even use Google and save images that inspire you to a certain album in your camera roll. You could also take inspiration from apps such as Tumblr, DeviantArt, Twitter, and Instagram. However, in this lesson, we are going to be specifically taking a look at Pinterest.

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Organizing Inspiration

   Organization. This is something that I absolutely love. There's just something so aesthetically pleasing about folders that are color-coordinated or organized by category. That's honestly why I wanted this school to have a Google Classroom. 😂

   I feel that organization is VERY important, especially when it comes to references and inspiration. For example, say you only have one Pinterest board for images of people, architecture, and food. It'd be kind of hard to find things, right? So why not make separate boards for each category, maybe even with a few sections inside each board? I'll be explaining how to do this in this lesson.

   Now of course, if you already know how to use Pinterest and create boards, you don't have to read this. Just skip on down to the last few paragraphs.

   Alright, now that they're gone, let's talk about the basics. Pinterest is an iOS app that I have on both my phone and iPad (I'm not sure if it's available on Android... but if it isn't, remember that you can always just Google reference images or use other media sites). To make a Pinterest board, you'll want to find a pin, or a post, to start your board. Click the red button that says "save" and choose the option to create a new board.

   Name this board whatever you'd like. I already have several boards, but I'll use my "People Sketches" board as an example. So basically, create the new board and then begin saving pins to it. As many as you'd like. And for every category you can think of, like animals, people, or plants, create a new board. Some of my reference/inspiration boards include:

  And now you have a few boards for inspiration! Thank you for reading this lesson! If you have any suggestions or ideas for future lessons, be sure to tell me in the comments! (Oh, and if you want to follow me on Pinterest my username is Willowfern_mywarrior)

Posted on Monday, Feb. 15