All is well in creation of art when the muse is in our favour and we are driven by inspiration. Or so is the case when we are working on a commissioned work because we are usually driven by working within the constraints given by the client.
Some times, you need to practice to keep your skills sharp, but you just do not know what subject to choose to create art.
Here is a list of 5 things I do to choose a topic and create art.
- Copy others art - The politically correct term would be emulate. It is no shame to get inspired and try to emulate the works of your favourite artist. Think of those artworks that inspired you to get into the field of art, and try to reproduce them - albeit in your own interpretation.
- Explore earlier artworks in another medium - You might be working on two or more types or techniques of art - digital art (pixel, vector, painting) or traditional (oils, waters, pastels, color pencils), and in the past you might have created art in one of the medium. Create the same artwork, in another medium - this will help you broaden your knowledge of the subject and also the medium/technique.
- Explore variations of earlier artworks - This is one of top approaches when I hit an artist’s block. Try and create artworks on variations. If you had created artworks of a white horse, try a black one this time. Or may be a unicorn. How about a mule or a donkey? Variations help you explore with in the genre or niche of subjects and help you figure out the nuances and details in more depth.
- Explore opposites of earlier artworks - Try to grab an antonym of the subject you have created earlier. If you had drawn an angel, try creating an artwork on devil or a demon. If you had created artworks of midgets, how about exploring giants?
- Combinations - This approach can be taken in two perspectives. One - combination of the above approach to get inspired. Two - combination of the earlier artworks you created. This could end up in dramatic subjects like a flower in a hellish environment (if you had created artworks of flowers and hell-like environments earlier). Or may be, the classic beauty and the beast, if your favourite artist had created an artwork on a beast (here, you are emulating the style and subject, as well as extending them to a bigger scope).
This are by no means a complete set of tips that can help you get inspired for your next artwork. There are many approaches.
What do you do to get inspired for creating art?
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November 2, 2007 at 12:37 am
Popolon
Another good inspiration is some hazardous constraints. This constraints can be self generated of generated by an automated generator.
You can fix yourself a constraint like color, shape, subject, etc, taking a dictionnary to find a word, think a this word, and the meaning and image for you.
An automated generator can be as simple than for exemple 3 lists, with :
1. a character (animal, human, monster, even object),
2. an action or more generally a verb
3. a place (less necessary)
you can decide to use a second caracter (or a second an object) depending on the verb.
This is generally enough to kickstart inspiration
Lot of writters/graphical artists take lot of notes too. Have always a little notepad on you, and fill it with ideas you see, you hear or you meet. Some life experiences. You can later search on it for ideas.
And you forgot photography !
Now than cheaper phone take photography or you have good (enough) digital camera for low price, than you can use to your computer. That could be a database of inspiration, but that’s like a notepad, it has to be heavily filled to work fine ;). It is often better to work after photography than other artworks too. This allow to avoid to add other artist errors to personnal errors, but can be a source of inspiration for moving own style(s) another way.
November 2, 2007 at 4:20 am
Vyoma
Hey Popolon - thanks for dropping by and giving some more methods to get inspired - in depth.
I have seen the constraint method at work - sometimes, I feel - only under constraint do we become more creative.
Photography - yup. Yet another way.
Come to think of it, after I wrote this post, many people have suggested a lot other methods to get inspired.
I guess I will be doing another compilation of them.