Creative Inspiration: Why You Need to Collect it

Collect

Collect, hoard, store, save, treasure, amass, obsess, obtain, keep. When you’re looking for inspiration, collect as much as you can. This can be supplies, ideas, or stories. Collect all of it and keep it close. Create a studio space that’s filled with stuff you’ve collected. Collect pieces of work from other people. Collect images, scraps, magazine clippings. Save images on your phone and email yourself links to websites you find to keep. Store them in a separate folder specifically for inspiration. If you can’t hold onto the object, image, or idea, then create a facsimile of it so you can refer to it later on. You never know when you’ll be short on inspiration. Take notes, create lists, save color swabs that stand out to you. Once you’ve created a library of resources in your mind you’ll always have something to go back to. Nobody can take that library away from you. Collect now and collect often.

You need to look at other creativity

Part of collecting is storing ideas and inspiration for later. To do this, you need to look at creativity in all the ways it shows up. This goes beyond just looking at it, but instead involves looking at it. Creativity shows up in all shapes and forms. In fact it can be shapeless and formless, but nevertheless is there. Creativity in all forms is source for inspiration. As you ride your bus or walk through the streets, look at the world around you. The buildings, people, objects all are born from creativity. As you walk through the forests, float over the water, or climb the mountain, look at the way the beauty they contain. These scenes have been inspiration for artists for generations.

You need to look at it with a pencil ready

As you take in the creativity around you, it is helpful to have a pencil ready. If not a pencil, have some other way of collecting the shapes, colors, forms, figures, ideas, and movement around you. A phone camera and note app will work just fine too. Find what works for you and organize your collection in whatever way makes sense. As you trace the lines in front of you, you create stronger connections in your brain and solidify these images into your psyche. They become a part of you the same as they become an image on the paper. From one object comes two more. One that lives in between paper and one that lives in your mind. As you look to create you can draw from these sources. They will not let you down.

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