You must think that is a really weird picture to put up on a post about inspiration. You're probably right but, it was the beginning of a light bulb that went off in my head about inspiration so I figured I'd start with that.

I was spending time at my daughters, helping her out after she had a baby and I found this styrofoam vegetable tray that she had. (In my neighborhood I've only seen rectangle ones)​.

I put it aside as I just knew I wanted to do something with it.​ I figured I would scratch into to make some kind of relief plate for printing but, did not know what to draw on it.

When you're into art you read alot about inspiration. Many of  the books ​I own talk about how to get inspired and the artists discuss how various things inspired their artwork. I started however, creating artwork without being inspired.

I did a lot of birds (and still do) because Hey! birds are nice, pretty and not difficult to draw and they are something to create.

I also used (and still use)  prompts from other artists to get myself moving. ​

During this visit with my daughter, I went to pick up her preschooler from her school and sat outside waiting  to pick her up. As I sat in the car I  noticed right in front of me, a wall covered with ivy. I always find ivy interesting, how it just creeps up on its own and makes its own way up and up and up.

Now I honestly cannot​ say that I was so inspired by this ivy wall that I said I must go home and make some art with about it.

BUT, later that evening as I sat in front of my black, styrofoam tray I thought hmmmm... why don't I transfer what I saw today into a piece of artwork.

So I took a skewer, scratched in a wall and what looked somewhat like ivy and cut off the edges of the tray. (My daughter didn't think it looked like ivy, but hey, shes not a mixed media artist).

I had just bought some black card stock in Walmart that day so I decided since I liked the starkness of white on black I would go with that color scheme.

. I rolled some white paint over my styrofoam printing plate and pressed it onto my black card stock making a print of what I drew.

I wanted to add something else (here's where the birds come in) and I found some gelli printed papers that I made the night before with my older grandkids.

I drew some birds (no, not freehand, I copied from some bird images I had) pasted them onto my wall and then filled in some of the leaves with some green metallic pen.

It's not really finished yet, because I really wanted to add a quote to this but, I can't for the life of me find where I put this piece of artwork and I did want to post this already.

So when I do find it, I will add the words to the piece and add it here.

This activity was an eye opener for me.

To actually take something that I had experienced or saw in my life and make art with it as its inspiration.

Admittedly you have to have some technique  beforehand under your belt. I'm not talking though,about being an expert water colorist or master artist but, something like I did. A simple printing activity.

If you like collage or acrylics or gelli printing, whatever technique you use its time to start looking at the world around you and making art with inspired by the things you come across in your daily life.

You'll be glad you did.

I'd love to hear your experiences with inspiration.