Weird/uncommon inspiration source?
3yr
Yiming Wu
What are your inspirations for image creation that you don't find people talk about much?
For me it's mostly other artist and modern photography (a lot, though not sure how to use it in image creation), some film as inspiration. Some fantasy novels are also really great!
Because I love planes, I get my inspiration from there as well. Other than that, I can't seem to think of anything unusual, but I want to know some other sources that you guys get inspiration from.
Would like to hear you guys experience.
One thing that really inspires me is actually "bad" art, or art I don't like. When I see ugly or bad art I think "Well, if they can call THAT art, and have the audacity to call themselves artists, then....why not me?!" And then I go and create my own art. And even though I am quite critical of my own art, I still think it's better than that bad art that just inspired me. It's weird, but...anyone understand? x)
For me an uncommon inspirational source is weirdly documentary photography or street photography. There are a lot of photographers that capture bad kids, or troubled youth and for me it is compelling as it gives so much emotion and story in a single image, it is a great example of visual storytelling. Photographers such as Justine Kurland, DuBois, Lewis Robinson, Mark Cohen, Sophie Day etc...
My inspiration source is taking macro photos of tiny insects in my garden and finding out what they are... then how I could incorporate them into art. I’m particularly fascinated with little parasitoid wasps, which can be only 1-2mm long or smaller. Like the deep sea, the insect world is endlessly surprising, unusual and inspiring for me, but definitely a niche source that can be hard to find information on, or others who share the interest...
Ah I see... Small creatures can be very fun in their patterns and little details. I used to have a camera which has a lens can focus up to 1cm, and I sometimes do that as well. I'm glad you find that as your inspiration, maybe I should notice more about the small creatures as well.
Well, photography and film are not that unusual, then it all depends on how you rework them.
There's this designer who creates spaceships out of everyday objects, like potato peelers, and they're really good designs!
Unfortunately I don't have much time for personal projects anymore, so I don't have much freedom to look for inspiration either, as I get directions on what and how to design it from others (sigh). Otherwise I also used to get a lot of inspiration from photographs and film, but also just from a particular colour scheme.
For the stories I had started to write a subject from a strange series of interconnected dreams I had years ago I had already done quite a bit of preliminary work on settings and characters but I didn't feel like developing the script myself, so it stayed in a drawer. :(
One day I hope to get back to it because I really wanted to.
OH I've seen that dude make designs out of forks and tools and stuff! To me I love the result but I often find the result a bit too literal, just shape-guided and I don't really like this factor.
I've also been writing based on some of my dream worlds, I'm not a trained writer or anything, just describing the scenarios and making my self-insert characters in there. Kinda fun and awkward as well, and I like doing it from time to time. I find writing still limiting because words explain things well but they can't really describe, which image does in reverse. So I plan to do image-text combined approach to these scenes.
...my nightmares are one of the most inspiration-best source... I wrote so many little scripts and so many strange universe ideas thanks to bad fever or high fatigue...
Also, I don't do it that much but I used to do automatic drawing and use it most when in bad mood, it relief the feelings and produce some interesting associations.
I do draw some fragments of dreams as thumbnails from time to time. Recently I have done it quite frequently. I think those lucid moments can have very weird effect on how you combine visual and sensational experiences.
However I haven't figured out a way to properly turn those into a finished painting/drawing :(
this is really interesting to here because i rarely have dreams that i can remember like that be i have a friend that has very vivid dreams like the ones that you mentioned mainly horrible nigh mares that give him some form of inspiration for writing his books. ✌😉
I definitely wouldn’t consider my inspiration sources to be uncommon or weird but for me I’m got inspiration from:
personal experiences/feelings
podcast interviews
music
books
death/life
nature
old architecture
And my old sketchbooks I sometimes browse through. It’s surprising what you’ve forgotten about from a sketch years ago that could inspire you in some way today.
