I was stuck and couldn’t decide what to paint.  I wanted to play, to create, but nothing was inspiring me.  I was looking for the inspiration before I started, a huge flaw in my thinking.  Sure, it is great to be inspired before starting, but that wasn’t happening today.

So what did I do to get myself unstuck?  I trusted it would come eventually. Without any clue of where I was going, I put big blobs of paint on the palette, set up a kids easel outside, and a clipped up a big sheet of paper. Still zero inspiration.

Blank pages do not impress my muse one bit.  She wants me to have some skin in the game before she sprinkles her magic dust.  I had to start doing something, so I made a messy circle.  Which led to more marks.

Before I realized it, I was inspired by the flowers in the garden.  Those flowers had been in front of me the whole time, but it wasn’t until I started taking action that they became the inspiration for the play.

By the end of the play, I was happily lost in the rainbow, watching the colors layer on top of each other and feeling the freedom in loose scribbly painting.

Turns out Pablo Picasso was right, “Inspiration exists but it has to find you working.” Or playing!

A little found poetry did not go as expected on this art journal page.  I had high hopes for it since I was using a page out of a Danielle Steele novel.  Turns out…I don’t know Jack but I do know how to play and have fun!

Watch Using found poetry in an art journal on YouTube.

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Where was the best place to put this on the page? Anywhere! Since I had no plan what so ever, it didn’t matter where I put it.  The important part was to glue it down and play. All that white space was an invitation to play.

I searched for words or phrases that popped out to me from a randomly chosen page from a book to create a bit of found poetry.  I expected something a bit racy…after all it was a Danielle Steel novel.

Here are the words that called to me, ” Jack was cautious.  She asked me if I had something in common.  An easy smile she said.  She couldn’t argue with that.” Not exactly Pulitzer worthy.  In fact, it really doesn’t make much sense now but it did in the moment.

All that kept going through my head was, “You don’t know Jack.”  Did this mean Jack Sparrow or Black Jack Randall (I’m finally caught up on Outlander)?  I don’t know, since I really don’t know Jack.

Apparently time passes more slowly for me when waiting for anything to dry.  Waiting just a minute or so felt like weeks with that white ink so some quick blotting sped up the process and shortened the wait.  

What will I be doing with this cardboard art journal page? Binding it into a Permission to Play style journal. You can see how step by step in my free workshop here.

Want to play?  Get the Spark, print it out and see where it takes you! And of course, would love to see what you’re making in the Facebook group too!

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Here are the supplies I used. Some of these links are affiliate links which means I get a small percentage. It doesn’t cost you anything extra and it helps keep the free tutorials coming!

InLinkz.com