Artists... inspiration please!!

[KarisTiasMum]

I love drawing, painting with water colours, oils, acrylics... anything really..

but i never know what to paint! where do i get inspiration from? i always really fancy painting in the evenings etc and have everythig i need, loads of canvasas, paints... but i just sit there for ages never knowing what to do!

its so annoying, i started an art course when i was at college a few years ago but i discovered that i prefer it as a hobby and it was spoilt when its not at my own leisure..so i quit that... but the past few years i just seem to have lost all ideas and inspiration!

help! advice/ ideas please!!

I don't know if this will help but, at school I can remember looking through second hand books and magazines mostly old National Geogaphic and ripping out any picture I liked, whether it was a the whole picture or just a small subject in it.
I would paste them into a book and write next to it, what it is and what I liked about it. Also any quick scetches or ideas you hove however big or small. A scrap book, It is something you can always look back on and add too.
I found it very inspiring in getting all those creative ideas out.
I have only recently remembered this and am in the process of doing it now myself.
I just wish I had the time to create something.

good luck

Go to those expensive crafty gallery cafes and look at the pictures on the wall for £300 for something the size of an A4 piece of paper then do something similar but much better. Or what about getting children to commission you - a Cubist take on Igglepiggle ?

Have a look on flickr.com - lots of arty crafty groups on there so you can see what other people are doing. Also start by sketching on any old paper - big blank canvas can seem a bit intimidating.

i like to look through magazines and find interesting images and fit them together like a collage in my mind and paint it.
its weird, but it works.for me anyway.

Good idea to start on a rough piece of paper.
If it for your own pleasure then that is a personal thing, everyone is interested in something different.
I often get the back of some wallpaper and I let the children help me, then when they have gone to bed I just play with the picture and work into it to my hearts content.

I think it is difficult to just immediately create a masterpiece, you usually have to get in the flow first.