'Where do we get Inspiration' and 'The Development of our own Unique Visual Vocabulary'

How do we get inspired? Obviously the answer differs from person to person, but there is something we can all do to 'invite' inspiration. Something Picasso said that i quite liked; 'Inspiration exists, but it has to find us working.' We have to sketch, write, collect, observe... anything and everything can inspire us and help us create new ideas. The more we are doing, the more likely it is for inspiration to strike us. I believe that the majority of our ideas come from personal experience, so it goes without saying that the more we experience, the more chances we have of something connecting and inspiring us in some way. Music is a very large source for me, there are certain songs that just give me a passion to start drawing. An example would be;

This song has a very 'fantasy' feel to me, but probably not to everyone else. Its all personal preference, but we should all be trying to immerse ourselves in as much as we can, then the chances of finding another form of inspiration increases. Another way for me to be inspired, or maybe more accurately, 'motivated,' is by looking at other people's work, if i see a piece of work that is similar to my own, because i'm so competitive, I automatically want to make a piece thats better.....that might be quite shallow, but i think it does help me to improve. I analyse the work and see what i like about it and how i can incorporate those aspects into my own. 


                                   'I get inspiration from anything and everything.'


Even if we don't particularly like something, there will still be aspects of it we can learn from and use to develop our own work. Being open minded is crucial to an artist and we have to be able to analyse the things we like and especially, what we don't. If we know what aspects we want to keep and what to take away, through doing so our work will begin to form its own unique style. Nobody starts creating and instantly turns into Picasso, we begin by imitating what we like. The more we start to develop naturally, our tastes will inevitably expand and change. Our influences grow, and we start to take bits and pieces from many different artists, and this is how our style begins to emerge and develop. I can analyse how my style grew through listing the artists i admired, I can even remember clearly, looking at a comic and thinking 'I want my art to resemble this.'

Our visual vocabulary is not completely dominated by the works of others though, it is also developed through our purpose. Or maybe this just applies to me but, If i'm drawing a comic, the style i'll attempt to draw in has to reflect the contents of the story. A horror wouldn't suit illustrations done like Pokemon. If i was to attempt this, i would seek out horror style graphic novels and other sources and take influence from those, and i'm sure there would be aspects of these styles I would love and try to incorporate them into my own style permanently. This is a natural progression of visual vocabulary.