A Week of Inspiration - Day 1

This is the first week of my 'A Week of' series and I am starting with Inspiration. For the next five days I'll be bringing you a post every day that has a connection with this and hope that you find some inspiration of your own along the way.

Let's start with the dictionary definition which states that inspiration is 'someone or something that gives you new ideas and the enthusiam to create something with them'. People may even refer to this as the muse or their mojo. However you wish to define it inspiration comes, and goes, at often very inopportune moments (the going usually happens when you have a deadline for something). What we need to do is open our minds to see inspiration in our everyday llife.

One of the things we should realise is that very few times do we come up with totally unique and original ideas. Yes, every once in a while we do have a flash of brilliance, but on the whole our creativity is based on some subconcious memory flash that suddenly just 'pops' into our heads. And there is nothing wrong with that. Remember we don't have to continually try and reinvent the wheel, as long as we are expressing ourselves in our own unique style then that is alright. I have seen so many people almost turning themselves inside out because they haven't been able to come up with a new, clever idea. And then, ultimately, they feel as if they have failed because of it. And 'yes' I have done that too in the past.

So what inspires me? Sometimes everything and sometimes absolutely zilch! And sometimes I get in the way of my own inspiration, I'm sure you know what I mean. It's many of the things I talked about in my Alpha Tag series, trying too hard, not letting myself breathe, life, trying to be too clever (see above)! But I am truly inspired by others who have overcome great difficulties and hardships, by the colours of nature -  which can be absolutely extrordinary, by other artwork, by patterns, by magazines or sometimes just by playing with my crafty stash. 

I am sharing some artwork with you which I recently taught at a workshop and although I'm not sure where the inspiration came from I am honest enough to say that it is probably from a combination of 'stuff' I had running around in the filing cabinet I call my brain - fed by images from a myriad of places I had already visited.

This strip is the inside of the card, created by masking off the required width and then inking, stamping and colouring or removing colour. 

The idea though is to turn the inside into part of the outside

The front of the card has a strip of acetate inserted to reveal the inside panel. I haven't been able to show it very clearly in this photo because the light reflects too much off the acetate. The corresponding matted layer under the sentiment was created in the same way as the masked strip.

So although I don't know exactly where the inspiration came for this card I do know that it fulfilled the definition. 

Please check out the beautiful artwork that both Sam Macdonald and Debbie Martin have created since the class.  Thanks girls.

 Be back tomorrow with more inspiration.