As the new school year settles in and everyone begins to adjust to their routines, it seems like a good time for a dose of creative stimulation. With the loss of summer’s freedom, it can be tough to find time for scribbling, but fear not! Your next scribblin’spiration is here and this time it is… autumn leaves!

 

What better time to embrace the change in seasons and use them for our artistic gain? The beautiful changing foliage is all around you, providing inspiration each day. You might take this inspiration literally and focus on drawing trees and leaves. Go to a local park or look in your backyard for a great landscape sketch. Collect leaves to study, press, or trace. Or use them as a starting point to create something different, abstract, or even unrelated.

photo by Pantone, via Plenty of Colour

 

The beauty of inspiration is that it can take you anywhere—different qualities of the leaves can stimulate your mind, perhaps even an image or association you have with them may arise.

 

There are so many elements within changing foliage to find inspiration; one of the most noticeable is certainly color. The rich greens, golds, reds, and oranges create a glowingly warm palette for the season. Try using these hues as a jumping off point for your project or picture.

 

photo by Corbis, via The Guardian

 

Another interesting quality of leaves is their shape—each type of tree’s leaves boasts a different figure and you can find all shapes and sizes on the ground. Experiment with the scale and design of leaves to inspire your creation. Also consider large-scale shapes, such as whole trees or forests. How are trees’ shapes affected as the leaves begin to fall?

 

photo via Fermilab Today

 

Finally, don’t overlook texture. The green leaves emerge from summer smooth and supple. As autumn advances, those leaves become dry, brittle, and crunchy. Play with surface and touch in your work to explore this element.

 

What images or ideas to changing leaves bring for you? See how they influence your art all season long. All you have to do is peek outside your window for a dose of inspiration!

 

 

 

 

 

Time for a new dose of inspiration to get your hands scribbling!

Do you have a sweet tooth? What are your favorite sweets and candies to splurge on? We all have our usual preferences, but did you ever stop and think how wildly diverse candy is? Chocolates, gummies, sour candies, bubblegum, licorice, taffy, lollipops… the list goes on and on!

Image: Wallpy

Image: Dylan’s Candy Bar

That makes it the perfect inspiration for some scribble action. Grab your pencils, crayons, markers, or paints and get ready to explore the sweet world of candy.

The fun thing about sweets is that they’re just as yummy to look at as they are to eat. With bright colors, nifty patterns, and differing shapes and sizes, this sugary snack group is a feast for the eyes as well as the tongue. So it’s no surprise that artists like Wayne Thiebaud and Margaret Morrison find it such a fascinating subject. They focus on extreme detail and texture when creating their incredible still life works.

You can follow these painters’ leads and try your hand at still life sketches of sweet treats or take the inspiration a bit more conceptually.

Three Machines (1963) by Wayne Thiebaud, Image: Wikipedia

Gummi Bears (2008) by Margaret Morrison, Image: Art Fumes

Let the rainbow of vivid colors, bevy of interesting textures, and myriad of shapes and sizes inspire and inform your scribbling! Pay attention to the labels and packaging… or just focus on what’s inside the wrappers. Perhaps you’ll want to try an extreme close-up of a sour gummy worm’s texture, or a collage of your favorite treats, or even something totally abstract yet inspired by the elements of candy. Draw what you think a certain candy tastes like. Or use the color scheme of certain brand or flavor to create a picture.

Image: Sparknotes

 Enjoy your extra-sweet scribbling treat! What’s your favorite kind of candy?

Scribblin’ Inspiration

 

Inspiration is a funny thing– it can really come from anywhere. And while inspiration is all around us, sometimes it feels like there’s just a big roadblock between your head and your hands.

 

Creative prompts can be a great way to get the imagination rolling (see here, here, and here), but maybe they’re too specific for the mood you’re in. There are times when you could use a jumpstart, but want something broad that you can take and run with in your own way. Well, we’ve got you covered here, too!

 

Every so often, we’ll throw out an image or idea to get the ball rolling. Any part of it can pique your interest– texture, color, topic, associations, whatever! Let the idea take you wherever you want.

 

Now without further ado, I give you today’s inspiration. (Drumroll please)

Photo via The Jellyfish Lovers Blog

 

The jellyfish is a most elusive creature. Feared for its sting, it can easily ruin a day at the beach, yet it is so beautiful and elegant in its movement. Its transparency and long flowing tentacles give it an unlikely grace. Shape-wise, though, it reminds me of a mushroom. Its variations in color and its ghost-like quality make it a great subject for such mediums as watercolors, colored pencils, and tissue paper. But feel free to try anything! Again, these are just some thoughts and images to get you started.

 

Photo via Fine Art America                                                   Photo via Jellyfish!

 

Where did the jellyfish take your imagination? We’d love to see what you came up with! Share a link in our comments or post a picture to our !

 

Have you ever been in a creative rut not knowing what to draw/pint/crasft? Try working with prompts!

What’s a prompt?

A prompt is something that incites or brings forth a reaction or feelking.A prompt can help you explore new creative ideas and ways of thinking that you may not have thought of before!

Here’s a few to give a try:

Journaling:

Get a brand new notebook with a plain cover and decorate it (decoupage, paint, sketch) to create a cover that inspires you. Then, for a given periord of time (try to start off with doing this for a week), sketch/decoupage a collage/ paint what you see and feel each day. How did today make you feel? Visually, how would you portray that? Do this once, or more, each day and you’ll slowly see a wonderfully creative journal unfold!

 

Inspired by the random:

Carry a camera with you every day.  Once a day, snap a picture of something you find odd or unusual. Print out this picture and create/draw/paint a scene for what this image represents to you.

 

Working with the unusual:

Go outside and pick up the first 5 itmes you see. A leaf? A plastic bottle? The newspaper?…
With the 5 items you find create something. Can you make an abstract sculpture? Can you make a clearly identifiable sculptures or scene from the random items?

 

These are just a few ideas. Give them a try and let us know what you make!

Happy Friday, Scribblers! Can you believe that on Monday it will be October already? I sure can’t. September really flew by. Now’s a perfect time to pause for a moment and think about what you’ve done so far this season, and what you’d still like to do. There’s still plenty of time! Any good plans this weekend? Maybe a little scribbling? Here’s a nice dose of creative inspiration—autumn edition!—to get those hands drawing!

-Draw a beautiful tree in autumn. Are its leaves changing color? Are they still on the branches or have they fallen to the ground.
-Make a birthday card for Johnny Appleseed
-What are your goals for this school year? Show them in a picture!
-Draw a scarecrow fashion show
-Create your ultimate Halloween costume. The sky is the limit!
-Draw the spookiest house you can imagine!
-Draw a family of Jack-o-Lanterns. If they had a pet, what would it be?
-What are you most thankful for this year?
-Design your dream tree house
-Draw a comic strip about a day of apple picking

 

Have a fabulous, creative, fall-filled weekend!