I thought that I would give people an insight into the kinds of things that inspire me to create the things I draw and illustrate. My inspirations include nature, weddings, my dreams, food, crafts, and architecture. Since describing them all in one post would be like writing a novel, I will only be talking about one today and will discuss the others in my next post.
So the first thing that tends to inspire me is nature. Ever since I was a baby about 1 or 2 months old, I have been going camping with my parents. Also for about 13 years I was also a part of Girl Guides of Canada. So that means a real up close relationship with the world around me. It is quite fascinating how much really is in this natural world. The colours that I associate with nature are blue (lakes, oceans, the sky, rain and water) and green (leaves, trees, grass, shrubs, any other kind of greenery). It was nature that inspired my latest portfolio design and the newest comic creature, Mr. Owl.
Now as much as I love green and blue, I also love flowers and by golly nature is full of flowers in so many colours and shades that there is an endless array of colour combinations. Lets not forget that said flowers also come in many shapes and sizes as well. One must truly see the complex structures of nature's treasures and scientists are only just getting to know the inner workings or nature. The tip of the iceberg as you will.
The most important thing about nature and how it inspires me, is not just the beauty of it but the feelings that it invokes. Picture this, standing in the middle of the forest no cars nearby and you just close your eyes and just listen to the symphony that is nature. It all starts with the wind as it blows through the trees causing them to crack quietly as they sway with its motion, jostling the leaves that make a soft rustling sound. Now we move on to the chirping of the birds in the trees as they speak and sing to each other, as you hear the occasional flap of wings as a bird moves from tree to tree glancing down at the strange creature below them with a silly smile on their face eyes closed, face turned up to the sky (yeah that's a pretty picture I know). Then beneath the sounds above you hear the jostling of the shrubs and bushes at your feet, the murmur of crickets, the croaking of frogs and perhaps if you are lucky you can hear the sound of a deer crashing through the brush fallen twigs breaking beneath their hooves. The base of this symphony of course is the sound of the burbling of a nearby creek as it fluidly slides across the rocks and pebbles that make up its floor. That is just an example of what I picture in my mind when it comes to nature and there are many more scenes I can see in my head.
When I designed my webpage, I had that image in my mind as I worked to put it all together. I was looking for a clean and fresh theme for my webpage and nature seemed to fit the bill perfectly. The basis of the design itself is the fact that there are no straight lines in nature and that is reflected in the design of the tree and the leaves and the owl perched on the branches. The circles that make up the bottom of the website are pretty much representative of the fact that nature is a never ending cycle. The straight lines that do exist on the webpage are quite simply a connection to the man made world where we are capable of straight lines even though we ourselves come from nature.
I will leave off here with a suggestion. The next time your stuck in artist's block go stand in a park and let nature inspire you. In my next post I will go over my next inspiration, weddings.
