Struggling to find inspiration as an artist?
- jasminehnatkova
- Apr 4
- 6 min read
6 ways to find and save inspiration so you're never short of ideas!
Do you ever find yourself staring at a blank iPad screen wanting to create but not knowing where to start!?
This is very common for artists and can leave you feeling frustrated and demotivated.
BUT... with a bit of planning you can build up a store of inspiration meaning you always have something to fall back on and are never short of ideas!
In this post I am sharing my 6 favourite ways to find inspiration and save those ideas meaning that when I sit down to create a new pattern or collection I always have lots of ideas at my fingertips.
I hope it will give you some new ways of finding inspiration too!
Inspiration from nature
I think this is probably the biggest and most obvious source of inspiration for all of us! My patterns are usually full of flowers, birds and insects and the best place to gather inspiration for these is outside with a camera (or camera phone).
When I am out in the garden or on a walk I often take pictures of flowers and leaves and upload them to a dedicated folder on my computer.
I created this simple pattern from these beautiful Rudbeckia that grow in my garden in the autumn.
The key thing is to build up a collection of different flower photos so that you have multiple ideas to look through when you are creating.
You needn’t just focus on the flowers either. Why not build up a series of photos of different leaf shapes and colours?
I often find myself defaulting to a particular leaf shape when I add foliage to my patterns so I find it helpful to have a bank of different leaf photographs to take a look at to ensure I am not making my patterns too alike.
Alternatively if it’s difficult for you to get outside you could search for leaf and flower photographs on royalty free sites such as Unsplash or Pixabay and save them to your camera roll on your ipad so you have them readily available when you come to create.
I also love creating brushes in Procreate and I often stop to photograph interesting textures when I am out and about! Here’s one I took this week of an unusual texture on some rock. I haven't tried it yet but I'm pretty sure this will make an interesting texture brush!
If you're interested in creating your own brushes from textures you find, check out this post.
Inspiration from textiles and architecture
I often find I come across beautiful textiles and interesting architecture or patterns when I’m out and about and I always snap a picture to save for later if it has inspired me.
You can get inspiration from simply browsing clothes in shops or even through shop windows. Sometimes a display in a shop window gives me a great idea for a colour palette!
We visited Venice a couple of years ago and as you can imagine, I couldn’t go far without taking pictures of textiles, buildings or colours that inspired me. See a couple of my favourites below.
Pictures like these can be used as a starting point for creating. You may be inspired by the colours used, or the motifs or shapes. Often I store away architectural shapes as inspiration for blender patterns!
Inspiration from traditional crafts
Sometimes exploring traditional crafts and art techniques can inspire you to create a pattern in this style. I frequently search for traditional art forms on Pinterest and create boards dedicated to these crafts.
Pinterest is an invaluable tool for saving inspiration. You can set up boards for different categories and just pin ideas as they come along. If I'm ever stuck for ideas I will always take a scroll through my Pinterest boards!
Some traditional crafts you could explore are:
Block Print
Batique
Ikat
Sashiko
Patchwork
Lace
Weaving
It’s possible in digital software such as Procreate to recreate the style of these types of crafts. You don’t even have to stick to them absolutely, they can just get you started on a style!
It can be fun to research a style and put your own creative twist onto it.
Below are a few of my patterns inspired by traditional block printing. If you're interested in creating this particular effect in Procreate you can check out my texture overlays.
Inspiration from books
I have a few books I often flick through to give me inspiration.
The Complete Pattern Directory is a great book to have to hand and spans a wide range of time periods, artists and techniques. It always gives me an idea when I look through it!
I also pick up books at second hand book shops if I think they look interesting. The art section is often packed full of lovely books! Here’s one I found recently with some beautiful floral illustrations in.
Gardening magazines can often be useful too with lots of pictures of flowers and leaves you could use as reference images for your patterns.
Inspiration from art movements in history
Specific art movements are a great place to start if you’re keen to try out a new design style.
Here are some examples of art movements you could research for fresh ideas:
Art Nouveau
Arts and Crafts
Rococo
Art Deco
Mid Century Modern
All of these styles have had revivals of interest in the past few years! People are still on the lookout for fabric, wallpaper and home décor with these specific design features in.
You can always incorporate elements of these movements into your work whilst maintaining your unique style.
Again, a Pinterest board where you pin patterns relating to these styles is a great way to collect your ideas and inspirations into one place.
Inspiration from trends
If you’re frequently stuck for ideas one easy place to find inspiration is from what is currently trending in the design world.
It can sometimes be hard to pinpoint trends, but there a few places I go to in order to find out what is currently popular.
- Make a note of what keeps popping up on your instagram feed. Is it another pink bow!? Maybe bows are trending…
- Keep a track of the Spoonflower design challenges. Spoonflower creates the challenges based on what is trending on the site so you can be pretty sure if you’re designing around the current themes that is what shoppers are searching for!
- Pinterest Predicts. Pinterest has a wealth of data on what people are searching for on their platform. Taking a look at Pinterest Predicts is a great way to stay ahead of the trends and design motifs people are looking for.
Copying vs inspiration
When it comes to talking about inspiration, I think it’s also important to talk about the difference between inspiration and copying as it can sometimes be a confusing and blurry line!
None of us creates art in a vacuum and we are all influenced by many things.
That’s inevitable and actually a good thing. That’s why there are historical ‘movements’ in art and why there are trends.
To be inspired is to take a spark of an idea from something you see and create a new piece of art in your own voice.
Here are some examples of being inspired:
- Seeing a colour palette in a shop window and creating a whole collection of patterns around this palette.
- Studying patterns by William Morris and creating your own pattern in his style using some of his popular motifs such as trailing vines, foliage or birds.
- Seeing a design on a bag in a shop and replicating the design style using your own motifs and composition.
- Seeing a pattern you love by another artist and designing with a similar motif but in your own unique style and palette.
The key to being ‘inspired’ is that when you come to design you are always adding something of your own, whether that’s your style, your own palette, or a fresh composition.
Copying on the other hand means replicating someone’s design or concept without adding any original thought or transformation.
In the world of surface pattern design this might mean replicating the composition, style and palette of another design without offering anything new or different.
Copying could also be tracing an image or motif that is not in the public domain. Whilst as digital artists it is very normal to use a reference image, it’s important that the image isn’t someone else’s artwork (and that includes photos!)
Be careful when sourcing your reference images, ensuring they are in the public domain, or to be on the safe side use your own images. That’s why it’s important to snap photos as you go along. You never know when you might need them!
To summarise:
Staring at a blank screen with no ideas is not much fun. It's better to incorporate 'inspiration gathering' into your every day life.
Recording these ideas in an organised way is the key thing to ensure you have something tangible to look at when you come to create.
You could save your images on your phone, iPad camera roll or dedicated folder on your computer.
If you haven't already got stuck into Pinterest, I'd suggest you set up an account and get pinning, it's such a great way to save and organise ideas!
If you have any other great ways of gathering and saving inspiration you think might be helpful for other people, please leave a comment below!