 Hey everybody, how are you today? So today I want to talk about inspiration or more Specifically creating your own inspiration library. I've actually been doing this for years and over the years I've collected a mass quality of stuff that I've gone through and purged stuff. It's kind of a cycle for me every few years This year is no different. So years ago. I created this just this is a kid's spiral notebook I got it if I'm not mistaken. It was like 25 cents after back-to-school was done. I probably started this 2005-ish 2008 somewhere in there. It's this has been hanging around for a while You don't have to have anything fancy But I collect Articles and images that I don't want to use in collage art or mixed media But I know at some point I want to reference back to because they've provided inspiration for color pattern shape Something like that. I'm not intending on copying what's in the piece that I've put in here, but I'm using it for inspiration for future artwork Sometimes in the case of articles for me It's a technique article that I want to reference something I want to try going forward And so I have a whole bunch of those too. This is the original one and And depending on what kind of art I'm into at the time really makes a difference about what kind of things I keep in here I know when I started this I was doing a lot of sewing and I was exploring taking that further and then quickly decided I'm I like sewing. Okay, but I don't love it. You'll notice these are just taped down with regular regular scotch tape regular clear tape nothing special They're not glued down all the edges aren't even taped down. I have things taped over each other There's a lot of different Interesting images in here everything from clothing and homes to these bugs that were off of gift wrapping paper There are there we go kitchen cabinet designs that at the time that I liked Flowers that I liked it could really be anything if it's an image I find interesting that I find inspirational. I stick it into one of these notebooks now again This is the first one. So it literally has a little bit of everything you can tell towards the back of the notebook I'm starting to get into painting and color composition more and mix media Quotes start to make An appearance in here. There are a few quotes and This is when I got into magazines like Cloth paper scissors and art journaling and I started discovering mix media the joy of vintage images If I have a vintage image I've gotten to use in mix media I frequently don't use the actual image and I make a scan copy. It's for personal use all of these the for personal use They're not for resale I would never do that. They're All I'm sure copyrighted by somebody other than myself an old photograph I found More vintage images a vintage Valentine's Day card and look then look at these beautiful beautiful images old banknotes It could be anything. I just I would randomly stick anything in here And I think if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, there's a few blank pages at the end that I never quite filled up And I found this when I was cleaning out my closet in my library of existing inspiration images which were literally to be honest all Over the place I had some in big binders some in little binders some in photo albums. I'm just loose They was just crazy. It was driving me up the wall. So I took all of those images and some new spiral notebooks and I created some new notebooks now the original one says design inspiration. It's going to stay that way I'm not taking it apart. These new ones are categorized and there's room in there to add This one's tips and inspiration and this is the one I talked about where I've saved specific articles by other artists that I found interesting that I thought had Techniques in them or inspirational images in them. I found super interesting I wanted to sit and read at a later date at some point and really study and reference back to so that's what this is Think of this as my own personal Mix media magazine and that's what I'm creating in this one. So yeah, that's gonna be fun I have one that's just floral in nature images Some of our pictures I've taken again. Some are from magazines. They're literally from all over the place. Some could be From brochures throw away items Some have been altered by me in different image software and then printed and so I have this one Abstract textures. It's just what it sounds Color and texture different patterns. I found interesting. Yeah Buddha mermaids and exotics. I had a category of things. I wasn't sure I wasn't sure what to call them. So Buddha's Mermaids and exotics and my sharpies started to run out of ink Can you tell so and I just got some Buddha images from a friend that I'm actually gonna print and stick in here But I've got these little Japanese dolls. I've got some Buddha images Forget what goddess that is but I So they're in here Cities and architecture. I really love cities and architecture and Fun fact, I think I hung One of these up might be this one. No, it's a different one that one. It's upside down, but that's okay It's gonna stay that way Some of these I took again some of them I found in different places some of them I altered the original image and I did actually a painting from this People I like to have a reference photo of people to Do paintings of people from not because I'm intending on copy the copying the photograph or in some cases having it look Anything like the person in the photo, but I'm using it as reference for shadow and light So I have lots of different people in here including this is my dad his high school picture 1957 Myself that's an altered that again altered with an image app. There's that's me again My uncle Aldo Different people mother Teresa different people Frida Kahlo, that's my daughter Rebecca My mom that's my uncle Aldo and his wife Marcella my aunt Marcella and Just anybody really with an interesting beautiful face and especially a photograph with interesting lighting they go in here And it's not just face shots. There are full body shots in here. See there you go if I find one that's interesting Body positions, this is one actually I've referenced the body positions in this a number of times Especially this one so I taped the whole thing in I taped down the part of it I never use and save the whole thing and made a tip out I have one that's animals and insects Some pets I knew in real life before they passed and some just images I found in magazines and things Some pictures I took some other people took and then landscape and So these can all sit on my shelf and at some point I may tag or hang a tag off of the Spiral binding So that when they're sitting on the shelf like this, I can just see what it says. I'm not gonna do that right now But I may at some point So this is the tips and inspiration one and how I do these these are you know again magazine articles so These are a bit trickier than the other ones. You know, it's a magazine. So it's printed on both sides, right? You can't There's probably a different way to do this than what the way I'm gonna do it, but I think my way is pretty easy So I take the magazine article after I ripped it out over to my local coffee shop And I make copies of the magazine of at least one side and In this case, I really loved the color So I Copied the pictures of the little houses in color And Then I copied the actual pattern part of the magazine in black and white and so what I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna quickly So I have the actual magazine here and this is the copy So I'm going to tape That's my husband's computer. If you guys can hear that I'm gonna take the actual piece I copied Making sure to yeah, just grab one piece of paper I'm gonna take that down then I'm gonna take I Copied that side, right? So that means I can use this side to tape down. I Don't want to lose any part of the article Whether it's the inspiration images or the directions. I'm trimming it a little bit so that it fits better in the notebook and Also just eliminating some of the waste so that I really don't need to reference the article and again I'm just using regular scotch tape regular. What do they call it? Cellotape? That what you call it? clear plane Tape Yeah, so I'm gonna do that through the whole article and I'll be back in just in a minute in just a minute and show you guys How I did this. All right, I'll be back Okay So for this article as I said I copied one side of all the pages so that I could Paste that in the copy in and then on the other side use the actual article And I didn't lose any of the images the front Part of this article where they showed all the houses the different people made I really didn't want to lose any of the color part of the article. Sometimes I print them in black and white When You know the particular image It's okay if I don't have it in color because I've got all this other color inspiration from the same article over here But in this case, I didn't really want to use lose the color so I printed it so that I would have the original color on both sides and These are all the houses people made and then the actual article is here With a copy of the pattern now Part of the process of looking at this. I remember I found this other pattern for a similar place On the internet so I printed it too and then I taped it in But I made a second copy of both of these and put it in an envelope here in the back So I actually at some point can take this out and use this as the pattern and I plan on making a hard copy of The pattern and I can put the hard copy in here And this is just going to be my own like mixed media Catalog and before anybody asks these articles are from all over the place cloth based paper scissors art journaling This particular house one is from caught cloth paper scissors in 2011 and I only know that because it was on the bottom of one of the pages when I was trimming the pages May June 2011 So anyway, so that's my idea what to do with your inspiration images make yourself some unique to you Inspiration books to keep in your art room Rather than keeping the whole magazine just tear out the parts that appeal to you Take the rest of it and fish for collage images and recycle the rest honestly That's it for today. Don't forget to check out the video description for any relevant links Including the link to my link tree, which is down there and it if you click on it It's going to take you to every single a list of every single place You can find me on the internet including my tip jar my Amazon wish list my Etsy shop my website everything So click on it and check me out. That's it. Leave a comment or a question I'd be happy to answer and respond Don't forget the most important thing go out and have a great day Do something nice for yourself because you deserve it and I'll see you later. Bye guys