Tag Archives: Books

Late night adventures at the bookstore

By Natalie Roberts | Published July 28, 2007

Inspiration is always just around the corner if you’re willing to seek it out. Get out of the house. Drive down to the library or the bookstore. Visit the museum. Go listen to live music. Attend a spoken word event. Seek out your inspiration. As Julia Cameron writes in the Sound of Paper:

In order to make art, we must first make an artful life, a life rich enough and diverse enough to fuel. We must strive to see the beauty where we are planted, even if we are planted somewhere that feels very foreign to our own nature.

So tonight I went hunting for inspiration and found it at the bookstore. Found a book,  Artists’ Journals & Sketchbooks: Exploring and Creating Personal Pages, by Lynne Perrella. It’s full of page after page of ideas and visual inspiration to get you thinking and exploring different styles of artwork.

So here’s my list of top ten ideas sparked from this evening’s adventures:

  1. A dark and moody portrait
    with suns and moons
    in the background.
  2. Experiment with
    image transfers.
  3. Build a collage
    inspired by a
    famous art quote.
  4. Explore different fonts.
  5. Backgrounds with text.
  6. Music Notes
  7. A series of bird
    inspired pieces.
  8. Butterflies.
  9. Tarot card.
  10. Architecture.

So what does your list look like?

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Rediscovering your dreams

By Natalie Roberts | Published February 7, 2007

sculptureI am now officially in the second week of Walking in this World by Julia Cameron, and if you have ever actively used any of her books, you’ll remember how she is great at getting you to rediscover forgotten dreams. For me, personally, I have been very fortunate to receive opportunities to experiment with different mediums. During college, I basically had art supplies given to me from fellow artists that were retired, which I still use to this day. However, for me, one of the unexplored territories that I long to dive into has been sculpture and working with clay. While I had the opportunity to experiment with clay during high school art class, it’s one of those mediums that requires access to special tools and supplies, which is hard to come by unless you either invest money into the craft or take a class. Thus, I have made a commitment to dedicate any upcoming funds received on my artwork to a class where I can explore and learn more about either sculpture or creating works of art with clay depending on what I can find offered locally here. So stay tuned for upcoming ebay auctions!

As for the rest of you readers, what forgotten dreams do you have? Is there anything artistically that you’ve always wanted to explore and never got around to? If so, what is a small step you can take to make the dream a reality?

[Sculpture shot at Mirta's Gallery...while it's definitely not the best shot...I love the play on shadows this one creates.]
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