05 - FINDING CREATIVE INSPIRATION

Foreign. Hey there, guys. Hope you had an awesome week. This is Jason with another edition of the Ink Spired Life, a podcast about creativity, positivity, mindset, personal growth, and anything else that happens to come along. Yeah. So I hope you had a great week. Maybe you found some time to do something creative, whether it was sketching, painting, cooking, gardening, sewing, dancing, sports, whatever creativity is about for you and your life. As most of you guys know, for me, it's about sketching. I just love drawing. And it's also about creative problem solving, something I use in my architectural practice, something I bring into my classroom when I'm teaching my high school kids as well. So, yeah, so creativity can have so many different layers. This week I want to answer a question that I seem to get a lot and it's where do I find inspiration for creating? And that is definitely a fair question. Sometimes our creative souls, our creative wells are dried up and we're searching and hunting for ideas. And sometimes it can be challenging. Right? So here are just a few things that I like to do to help kind of keep my creative inspo going. Keep that well filled and I could take ideas out of it. So I guess my first tip would be to kind of look at the world in a childlike sense of wonder. You know, sometimes we go through the daily grind and we're just so blinded by, by things that are happening around us. You know, be curious, be wondrous. You know, listen. Listen to the sounds around you. Look at the world differently as well. Look for colors, textures, maybe shadows, patterns. I'll go out on nature walks, or even if I'm walking in a store somewhere, I'll sometimes set an intention. Like today I want to see or look for patterns that are out there. Or maybe today I want to look at how shadows are being cast. So experiencing the world in a childlike sense of wonder means you have to be open minded, right? So be willing to kind of look around and absorb things like a sponge. And by doing that and developing a practice, you will find that you'll have almost a subconscious library that you can tap into and create from. You might even want to journal. I actually, I highly recommend journaling or keeping a sketchbook and making notes about these different observations. So that would be probably one tip for me is inspiration. Second thing I like to do for Inspo is surf the web. I mean, there is nothing wrong with a creative looking at the web, looking for inspo, inspiration, different ideas. I do that in my architecture practice as well. I'm always kind of looking, you Know, to see, you know, what designs are out there, whether it's a skyscraper or an eco design, or maybe it's a house down the shore. Pinterest. Pinterest is a great, great, great resource for looking around and getting creative ideas. It's very easy to get lost down a rabbit hole when you go on Pinterest. I can get lost for hours. But think about Alice in Wonderland. What happened to Alice when she fell down the rabbit hole, right? She ended up in Wonderland. And that goes back to our first tip about being wondrous about the world. So search for creative ideas. You know, I'm not saying to look and copy something, but you can be inspired. Maybe I want to sketch a bridge. So maybe I'll google bridges and I'll find 10 different images or five images and I'll pull things I like from different bridges. Maybe one is the color scheme. Maybe one has to do with the way the structure, the cross bracing is. Maybe another is the location of the bridge or the way the cables are on the bridge. So you could kind of, you know, pick bits and pieces and kind of mash them together into your own creation. So that would be tip number two. Surf the web for inspo and creative ideas. And what would be tip number three? That's a really good question. Tip number three actually comes to me when I teach. Whether I'm teaching a sketching workshop or I'm teaching my CAD or architecture high school students, I'm open to feedback and listening to my students and they inspire me just by being themselves. I'm not a teacher who puts stuff out there and says, you must do this my way or it's wrong. No, I like to leave things open ended and see where the kids go, where the students go, where they, what paths they wander down. And just by observing how they solve problems or what creativity they're bringing to the game, that inspires me and motivates me and kind of fires me up. So, you know, inspiration is not only about seeing, seeing objects or seeing beautiful things. It's not just about researching or looking up on the web for ideas, but it's also about observing the way people problem solve and process information and the results they're doing as well. So yes, my students definitely inspire me. So if you don't teach anything that's okay. Just maybe talk to a friend or share an idea with a friend. Maybe start a little sketch challenge with a group of friends and see what they're doing and how are they solving the problem. For example, this month my Website I started arctober 2022. So arctober is a sketching prompt that I give every week. For example, this week the prompt is sketch something Barney. Not the purple dinosaur, but Barney, like a farm or a harvest scene. And in your sketch, use fall colors. So I give a couple of bullet points. Put it out there. And then I love to see what the inklings out there or students are or people don't even know if they're sketching things. I like to see what they're doing with those bullet points, how they're solving that problem and what they're producing. So, guys, that is my tip. Those are three ways that I kind of like to infuse my creative soul. There are more tips I'll be sharing throughout the duration of this podcast. That's it. I'd like to leave you with an action step today. So here's your action step. Maybe pick out your journal or your sketchbook. Write down three ideas of different ways that you can be inspired or you could replenish your creative soul. Just write those down. When we write things down, there's a mind brain connection that happens. I think it's awesome. I love that. I love how my subconscious mind kind of remembers things as I sketch or write stuff down. Guys, if you like this podcast, I'd love for you to rate it. Subscribe to it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Either place, I'd love for you to share it as well. This is a work in progress. You kind of get to see me stumbling and fumbling along the way with this podcast. Something I'm making, something I'm venturing out in and just trying a different format. So please also leave me feedback as well. You can do it on my Facebook group, the Inspired Life or, you know, send me a message or you can even email me. Check the show notes out for links and also have a special offer, discount offer from Lockbe that it will also be in the show notes as well. Lockbe is a great, great tool developer. You can see I use Lockbee Journal here all the time. I. I absolutely love this journal. I'm not just saying this. I carry this everywhere. I just did a bridge sketch at the dentist office the other day. I have a. A place where I do mind mapping notes as well. It also has a planner. So I'm not using a planner quite as much as I want to yet, but I'm going to start figuring out how to incorporate it more. All right, guys, thank you so much. I really appreciate you all. Do something positive this week. Yeah, peace and live creatively. Take care. See you soon.