Finding Ideas for Paintings & Illustrations: Guidelines and tips for Artists
For me, coming up with ideas for illustrations never came easy to me. I've always been accustomed to drawing my characters, and dedicating anything I drew to them. I never drew anything just for the sake of it. That is, until I decided to start my art store which pretty much forced me to start drawing things outside of my characters. So today, I'm going to share some steps that helped me get better at planning paintings and illustrations!
Going by Themes
Something that really helped me was to use themes or choose specific subjects for illustrations. It was something that I started doing ever since I decided to launch an art store, because I wanted to have collections with a unifying theme. This helped me focus on actually making illustrations since the subject was already chosen for me, as opposed to having endless possibilities of what my painting could be.
I was able to create these two prints because I already had a previously established theme, and simply used elements from other items in the collection to make these!
Pro tip: Following your creative intuition
Though the first step helps me make illustrations consistently, there are times where an idea for a painting pops into my head. Whenever that happens, be sure to sketch out the idea as soon as possible. The more you listen to your creative intuition, you'll have moments like that more frequently.
And for my Christians:
That “creative intuition” can also be the Holy Spirit giving you an idea. He just gave me two a couple days back. When you think it's Him, take it back to God and go from there!
Putting the inspiration together
This step isn't something I always do, but it can help nail down the colors and vibe you're going for. Basically just take any pictures that speak to you or somewhat resemble how you want your finished painting to look like. I mostly mean this in terms or the colors used and the vibes the inspiration gives off, not the art style!
Pro tip: If possible, try to skip the inspiration tip altogether if you already have a solid vision for your painting. This helps you to paint from your head more, and also takes away the risk of scrolling more than drawing!
Limiting your color palette
Because my art print ideas comes from whatever collection I'm working on, I will typically use the same color palette that I used for my sticker designs for my prints as well. This helps me to just get started painting, rather than sifting through my watercolors and procrastinating. However, you should use more colors if it's needed for your painting, but maybe wait to do that after you start.
That's what I did for the new stickers I'm working on. Before I started, I took time to choose some colors and used the same palette for every design. It helped me just get started with painting rather than mulling over what colors to use and end up procrastinating.
Look through your inspiration bank often
I talked about something similar in a previous blog post. I always have some photos or art that give me inspiration on hand, and make sure to look at it every so often. I like to sketch or write down whatever comes go mind while looking through this little gallery so I have a stack of ideas to go back to whenever I feel stuck. This also helps me keep my creativity running throughout the day, so when I have time to draw or paint, I'm already a bit warmed up and have some ideas to put on paper.
Don't force anything!
The best thing you can do for yourself and your creativity is to work with yourself and not to push yourself to draw something you don't really visualize. For me, illustrations can feel a bit stressful to create and I know for a fact that if I rush anything I'll lose motivation. Give yourself time to naturally create illustrations, and don't feel bad if it takes you a while to come up with something, it will all need worth it in the end!
For my beloved Christians: Let the LORD guide you on when to and not to work on specific projects or paintings. His plans are far beyond our own and so we should trust His perfect timing when it comes to these things!
Choose a smaller canvas
Big paintings give me a lot of anxiety. I noticed when I cut down my paper size from 9x12 to 6x9, I'm actually able to finish paintings AND enjoy the whole process. If you find yourself feeling stuck or unable to finish paintings you started, go for a smaller paper size. It may help you by giving less opportunity for you to not finish, it's also not as daunting! (The LORD gave me this idea, all credit goes to Him!)
I had done that with these two paintings and will continue to do that until I feel ready to take on something bigger. It just felt so easy since no mater how long my painting session was, I would always make significant progress towards the final result!
Well then, those are some guidelines I like to follow that helped me create illustrations more often, especially since I have a shop I need to keep up with. I encourage you to test some of these tips out and stick with the ones that work best for you!
And for my Christians: all these tips have helped me greatly, but the LORD is our greatest provider. When all else fails, He will restore you and give you the creativity and motivation you need to finish the projects He has called you to. So my biggest recommendation and tip of all is to be with our Father in prayer. Glorify His name and ask Him for what you need. The Bible instructs us to do so after all! (Read Matthew 7:8!)
Thank you all so much for reading, especially to those who have made it this far. I truly appreciate it~
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