by Monika Blichar

One of the hardest things artists struggle with is finding inspiration. We have no shortage of ideas that come to us, but actually finding inspiration for individual pieces or collections can be tricky! This is even more true when you experience a creative block-nothing’s coming!

Having spend the last two weeks abroad on tour with our annual artist retreats, Painting Dreams International Art Tours, I have thought about inspiration quite a lot. Being in a new place has not only inspired me to make new and entirely different work, but has also opened up my palette for a thirst for something more in art and creativity. I thought I would share my top three tips for finding inspiration with you while sitting in our city apartment on a Sunday evening in Wroclaw, Poland. Feel free to try them out, share and connect with me on social media and share what you’re doing to find inspiration!

1-New Environments 

We all know that stepping away from your day to day routine can spark an enormous amount of insight, creativity and inspiration. Each time I travel, I make sure to document my surroundings carefully as I always find some kind of spark of intrigue in the things around me when I create paintings especially. In our suite this year, I have been delighted to see antique furniture and items that are engaging in my curiosities. I haven’t painted any of these items yet, but have taken pictures so that I don’t forget and can incorporate them into my art later perhaps.

My room where I’ve been writing and sharing my trip, art and visits to galleries. Below are some of the cool pieces in this suite. 

2-Challenge Yourself

Another thing to remember when looking for ways to find new inspiration is to challenge yourself. If you’ve always painted flowers, try buildings or landscapes. If you’ve always made abstracts, try doing a portrait or a plein air painting outside at a local park. You don’t have to travel far to try new things! It’s just about the conscious effort of finding new items, people, or local things to draw on for inspiration for new work. I also recommend trying new products. Recently, I worked on the two paintings on cedar blocks below with beeswax, fabric, pearls, paint, pages from “The Winter’s Tale” by Shakespeare too! I added word cut outs from magazines and even dried leaves!

These are the two pieces that were definitely outside my norm. Both are available for purchase. $150/each or $250 for the set. 

3-Research 

If you are really stuck on finding inspiration. I leave you to the wonderful world of Google. Where anything is possible and researchable. Try typing in a word or era and see what you find! The possibilities are limitless and everything is “Google-able!”

Check out this Google Doodle by 11 year old Audrey Azhang, the 2014 Doodle 4 Google winner.

In response to the question, “What would you invent to make the world a better place?” more than100,000 Google Doodle contest entries were received from students in grades K – 12.

Azhang told Google:

To make the world a better place, I invented a transformative water purifier. It takes in dirty and polluted water from rivers, lakes, and even oceans, then massively transforms the water into clean, safe and sanitary water, when humans and animals drink this water, they will live a healthier life.

From: http://searchengineland.com/doodle-4-google-winning-illustration-earns-winner-30000-scholarship-spot-googles-homepage-193568 

Don’t forget to like my page on Facebook and connect with me on Twitter! I share lots of daily tips, progress and love to hear from artists all over the world about their work!

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