Creating my own inspiration collection

For a long time now I have looked to others for inspiration. I’ve looked at others art work, photography and words to try and find something to inspire my next journal page or painting. It has kind of worked, in the sense that I have made journal pages and new paintings. But what I still haven’t found is my own style and that’s because I’m not looking at my own life or my own experiences to influence and inspire my art. I need to stop looking to others and focus more on what is around me.

Initially I thought ‘but my life is so…ho-hum’. Nothing overly interesting. I don’t live next to a beautiful beach. I don’t live on the edge of an incredible rainforest. I don’t live near amazing old architecture. But there is so much inspiration around me every day, I just need to keep a record of it until I am able to use it. This is where my wonderful smart phone, with it's rather impressive 8 mega pixel camera, steps in. I mean it can't get much easier to take a quick snap shot of something that catches my eye.

After thinking about all of this and revisiting Alisa Burkes Finding Your Muse online class, I have decided on two things: 

1. To create a physical inspiration book ~ the idea came from this incredible book. I will paste in this book  anything I come across that I like and it won't be limited to anything in particular. In fact I will probably have a big collection of images of gardens I love and that’s totally fine! 
To create a collection of digital inspiration ~ I will go through photos, both phone and DSLR, and create colour pallets or find shapes/patterns that I can use in my journal pages. Here are two I have already added to my collection: 

 I hope that this new approach will lead me to create some fresh new work that will reflect more of me! 

Rhiannon xx