Collecting Inspiration

"The artist is by necessity a collector; 

he accumulates things with the same ardor and curiosity [with which] a boy stuffs his pockets. He borrows from the sea and from the scrap heap; he takes snapshots, makes mental notes, and records impressions on tablecloths and newspapers—why one particular thing and not another, he may not know at the time, but he is omnivorous. He has a taste for children’s wall scrawling as appreciative as that for prehistoric cave painting."

                                                                                                 -Paul Rand, American Graphic Designer

I can't tell you how much that quote comforts me.  I look about at my welter of possessions with a sort of ruefulness.  And so many of them are art-related, which means I find it almost impossible to get rid of them.  
They are either inspiration, tools, raw material, a project in flux, by-products of a past project, or simply interesting (and therefore indispensable to the art-making process.)  It is such a comfort to know that I am not alone in this need to accumulate interesting stuff. There are thousands of people like me who do the same thing, pulling together the intuitive raw material which will become their art.


I am daily thankful for the internet, and for the many many people who post pictures of the things they find beautiful, or the work they are creating.  
I I never tire of looking at other artists and designers websites.  They inspire me and challenge me, and teach me to think in ever-more non-linear ways.


As I wander from link to link, I bookmark pages I find useful, and download pictures that I want to use later for design sources or photographic inspiration.  I thought I'd share what I've been looking at recently:


Perhaps because of the gray weather and the tentative spring plants, I've been lusting after color. Bodacious, glorious color.
These photographers and blogs have been providing my fix:

clockwise from top left: 1. a picture of lichen via chanel no. fly  2. Eric Cahan, sky series via Butdoesitfloat 3. Sarah Ryhanen, being unusually vibrant, via the Little Flower School. 4. Eric Cahan, sky series.


I've been thinking about color and its application to photographic portraiture.  One way to start playing with color is to put colored films over your lights, but I'm not sure how interested I am in that.  There are other, more subtle ways.
One of them is to put the subject against a brightly colored backdrop. Having the backdrop be a field of color also can eject a huge amount of emotion and energy into an image. Also, If the subject is close to the backdrop, then the light bouncing off of the backdrop will bounce onto the subject, creating a color cast to the shadows on the person. 


I have dreams of photographing people against fields of vivid red and seeing the way it interracts with their personalities.  However, few people's skin tones can survive infusions of red.  It makes them look flushed, like they ran around the block a couple times before you snapped their picture.  Pink on the other hand, makes everyone look good.  Baby blue is also frequently nice.


Here are some pictues I've been looking at that have been giving me ideas.

I've done about 4 different types of searches, trying to find the source of these images, but to no avail.  I'll keep looking, and update if I find them.

Here's a few other things I'm loving:

• dreamy, interesting paintings by Phillip Haager, found via Butdoesitfloat.
• Delia Creates.  She's expecting a baby girl, and has done a series of beautiful, unfussy DIY tutorials getting ready for her little one.  My sewing machine broke halfway through sewing a strawberry baby hat based on her tutorial, and now I have to wait 2 whole weeks to see what it looks like! So frustrating for me.
• Aunt Peaches.
• She always makes me laugh.
• Jessica Hische's design work.  You've seen it most recently on February's exquisite Love stamp.

P.S. Sorry for the rambling quality of this post.  I blame it on my cold.  
Also, as you can see, I've been experimenting with making gridded digital collages, especially when citing another person's image.  What do you think?