Usually, we find inspiration to make art when we are not looking for it. We are in the shower or preparing dinner and ideas pop into our heads. We walk through nature or in a city and are inspired by what we see or experience.
Then we are so in the flow that we do not need extra inspiration. At other times we have to consciously search for it because we want to create but just don’t know how and what. We’re stuck.
To get the inspiration process going, I’ll give you 12 tips in this article.
Art sometimes has an elitist character. Artists are partly the cause of this – yes, guilty, me too at times *blushing* – by stating that the public does not understand our art and thus creating an unnecessary distance.
Self-proclaimed art lovers are partly the cause of this by being haughty and feeling they stand above the masses. While of course, everyone can enjoy art. And don’t worry: not all art needs to be understood or even liked.
In my (free) eBook “How to get the most out of a visit to the museum” I give tips to enjoy art, but museums usually require an entrance fee.
So how can you enjoy art for free?
Until 2016 I was a ceramicist. Nowadays I still consider myself an artist but I no longer have a kiln and work in other materials and other forms of art.
My ceramics was focused mainly on sculptural and abstract forms.
On previous occasions, I wrote about my photography. And made several How-To-articles about ceramics, but here I want to introduce you to my abstract ceramics*.
* Abstract means it’s not recognizable as a real or figurative subject
The biggest advantage of clay is that it is a flexible material as long as it is not fired. The downside is that the lifespan is short in some cases.
Sometimes such a short lifespan is the intention. In this article, I want to show the power of making a ceramic memorial, which was not supposed to last long.
An artist’s clear reasoning for allowing their work to be temporary can add an extra level of significance to their work.
Typeface designers and graphic designers know that if they work mathematically and exact, everybody will think they are bad designers. They have to use tricks to make sure that designs are well-balanced.
In What are the Benefits of Negative Space for Designers and Artists? I explained the trick of negative space. In this article, I will explain how designers use optical illusions.
Some techniques require adjustments that might not be optical illusions in the usual sense but are nonetheless necessary. I will give an example of that as well.
Ligature has a lot of meanings. The word is used in music, medicine, and language. This article is about the meaning of ligature in typography.
If computers had been invented before the printing technique, I wonder if there would have existed ligatures the way they do now. I am so glad that my education in my youth included hand-setting loose lead letters.
This literally gave me a feeling of the typographic origin of corpses, leading and kerning, as well as ligatures.
Negative space can indicate a toxic environment in relationships but that’s clearly not what I am talking about here, since this is a website about art and design.
In order to draw well, we must be able to observe well. Fortunately, there are tools we can use to do this. Using negative space is one of those tools.
In art school, I learned in the lessons of still life drawing that the negative space is as important as the objects themselves. I got a lot of advantages from that lesson in both model drawing class and typography class.
Through affiliate marketing, a business rewards an affiliate partner for each visitor or customer brought by the affiliate’s own marketing efforts.
As a result, a company can gain more exposure and increase sales by allowing individuals or organizations (affiliates) to promote its products or services. When the affiliate drives a sale or other action for the company, they earn a commission.
It makes sense that artists want to create, so why would affiliate marketing be a good idea as a means of generating extra income?
Gelli printing is a form of monoprinting. Each piece of work is unique and usually depends largely on chance.
A Gelli print can be created in different ways. In this article, I describe a number of pure Gelli printing methods and combinations with other techniques.
It is great fun to experiment with this technique. For me, that is the biggest charm of Gelli printing. For starting hobbyists, the advantage is that the learning curve is really low.