…but you knew that, right?
I’ve been looking at some of my old sketchbooks. Back in 2011 I did a textile art workshop. The topic for our designs was grids.
The week before I’d been to the Kniting & Stitching Show at Ally Pally – I came home with bags of new goodies to play with, and a camera full of ideas.
I was really struck by these images of the frondy leaves against the metal framework of the glass roof. Grids!! These were the grids I focussed on at the workshop…
…which quickly evolved into these…
You can see the real frondiness of the cut out pages come to life here…
The magic of this sketchbook, even 5 years on, I still get new ideas rush at me as I flick through the pages.
Do you look back through old art journals and sketchbooks? Do they keep sparking new ideas even years later? Next time you’ve got a few minutes spare and they’re ready to hand, open one up somewhere in the middle and see if it stirs some long forgotten inspiration. Seeds of thoughts you planted way-back-when. They might yet grow into something beautiful!
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Mixy's Art Blog 
I do look at my art journals now and then. They do trigger inspiration and it’s fun to see what I was doing at different periods. The funny thing is…as much as they are fun, they are all political and working TOWARD something…LOLOL I was born that way, I guess. I like them fat, so none of my close, or lay even close to flat. There are things sicking out of them, torn pages and they are sometimes messy, just the way I like them. I work fast. I do most things quickly and my journals are a reflection of that. I rarely think about what I’m doing, I just do it. That goes for my artwork and my writing. If I write a story I have no idea what’s going to happen, no plot and just the character/s I start with. I find out what’s happening with everyone else. That’s the way my journals are as well. I think that’s how I communicate with myself.
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oh my they sound delicious!! yes – fat and juicy and bits of all sorts sticking out here and there! Completely unmanageable and un-bookshelf-able but like old friends and like a mirror of our imaginations…. Self communication – that’s such a great way to express it – so true 🙂
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Yes, I love looking through my old journals. Inspiration comes immediately and new ideas come up and ready to be explored on. Looking back at my previous work always helps especially when I’m stuck with an idea and can’t possibly put it in paper.
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Hi Carrie 🙂 isn’t it great – I think of it like me-in-the-past helping out present-day-me when I get stuck!
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Confluence! I was just yesterday inspired by something I wrote and sketched in a 1980 journal to use in an upcoming show. My first ever real art teacher told me, “never throw anything away”. I love the images in this post Mixy…keep on truckin…
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Synchronicities everywhere – always find this reassuring in the chaos of life! 🙂
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Absolutely…
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I love looking through old sketch books! And you’re right about the inspiration, you can get new inspiration from a sketch you know as well as the back of your hand when you least expect it!
Thanks for sharing 😀
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