Inspirations post (delayed)

I keep several of my journals handy in case I want to use them for different things, and among those is a journal I labeled “Inspirations.” I created that one quite a while back, and here’s what’s in it.

The inside front cover page decorated with these stickers, because various birds in the corvid family are part of my inspirations.

The first page has this postcard of a Rothko painting. Seeing Mark Rothko paintings in person, reading books about his life, and collecting art books with photographs of all the paintings I haven’t seen all fall under the category of “inspirations.” I put a Rothko painting in Three Fortunes in One Cookie as an homage to Rothko’s work.

A couple of weeks back, I ordered some stencils with small patterns or shapes that I wondered if I could use on some of the wee canvases I paint, and I practiced with a couple of them on this page using gel pens.

That’s it! Those are the only pages with material in the “Inspirations” journal after all this time. Recently, as if I needed another one, I picked up this journal that appealed to me, also with the theme of inspiration.

The gel pens weren’t working that great, so I decided to try my fine point Sharpies.

And use the new journal to organize all the various creative projects I have in mind to do, working them into my writing schedule as well as other non-creative activities I need to take care of.

I knew Sharpies would bleed onto the following page, so I put a plastic sheet between pages. I don’t care if the ink shows on the page backs, because I’ll probably use those pages for mini collages that provide visuals of things having to do with characters or plot lines in the Neverending Saga.

Time will tell if this more disciplined approach toward balancing my creative projects works. I have lots of ideas of things I want to write, paint, collage, etc., and one thing I know about myself is that creativity begets more creativity. For example, there’s a project I began in 2021 related to one of the books in the saga. I’d put it aside to do other things, and this week, two years later, I finally finished it. I can’t share it because it’s a gift (as yet ungiven).

I can share this. Last Friday was Marika’s birthday, and since the first Spirograph painting I did (using INXS lyrics) was for her birthday in 2021, I was game to do another. When she asked about a possible painting using lyrics to “Wildflowers” by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, I decided to do something similar on a couple of small (3-inch by 9-inch) rectangular canvases.

I really enjoyed painting those.

I like the way so many of the things I attempt: doll fashion or dioramas; painting, coloring, and collaging; and the journaling, fiction, poetry, and lyrics I write, can all blend and overlap to inspire me.