Art Journal Every Day: Inspiration

I ran into a delightfully sweet woman named Tina on Tuesday night.  Tina is a lovey artist and she rather guiltily said to me, "I failed miserably at your art journaling thing."  I'm sure that you can guess my response, right?  I told Tina that she did not fail!  Participating in Art Journal Every Day has never been about failing or succeeding!  It's about trying to make the act of creating a daily habit.  Emphasis is on the word trying.  Some days you do and some days you don't.  Who cares?  It's a process and it takes time.  So if you're feeling like you've failed or fallen behind, I demand that you stop thinking that!  Think of yourself as a marathon runner in training.  You need to think about doing a marathon.  Then you train.  Maybe you get injured and have to stop for a while.  Then it takes you a while to get back to where you were.  You have to carve out the time to run in your schedule.  People think you're crazy for dedicating so much time to running.  Maybe you give up for a time.  Then you decide to come back to it.  But you know what, at some point you will complete that marathon!  And you will feel so darn good about it!  And the same is true for getting into the Art Journaling Every Day habit.  So stop kicking yourself and put that energy to better use!  Psych yourself up for a little artistic jog today!

If you're new to Art Journal Every Day, all the posts can be found here.  Please read this post first.  There is a flickr group for sharing right here.  Remember, it's just ten minutes of nourishing your creative self every day!  No need to finish anything or even like it.  Just play! 

Today's guest post is from an incredibly talented artist and calligrapher Lori Vliegen.  

Hello dear bloggy friends!  My name is Lori Vliegen, and while I can usually be spotted over at elvie studio, sweet Julie has asked me to join her here at her fabulous creative playground to talk a little about inspiration......and all of the wonderful places I’ve found it!

{And can i just say that Julie’s blog is one of my all-time favorite sources of inspiration!!  Many thanks, Julie!} 

I think that the only tricky thing about inspiration is that sometimes you have to go looking for it.  there are days that you can literally spot it while you’re walking down the street...

...and poof, inspiration strikes for a journal page!

There are other times where you might already be working on something else and see something interesting in your scrap papers...

...and before you know it, a random thumb-smudge becomes a fun color wheel!

What about those times when you’re roaming the aisles of your favorite craft store and you spy a rubber stamp set that you “just have to have”?!

Turn one of those little lovelies into something you can stitch!

Probably one of my favorite inspiration hot-spots is my collection of Pottery Barn catalogs......oooh, my credit card is cringing already!

But this is a lot more budget friendly, and I had a ton of fun creating it!

And speaking of collections, don’t forget about all of those special things you’ve been gathering and tucking away in little shoe boxes all these years...

...they’re a treasure-trove of inspiration!

The main thing to remember is to always create with your heart.

Because when you’re truly inspired, your heart will always let you know.

It’s really just as easy as following it!

Lori Vliegen works and plays in a happy place called elvie studio.  Having been blessed with a very curious spirit of creativity, her art path has taken her just about everywhere using just about every medium available. Lori discovered a true passion for letterforms early in life and has spent the past twenty years studying the fine art of calligraphy. Her artwork has been seen in many different museums and venues, and she has been honored to participate in two juried exhibits at the Smithsonian Institute/National Postal Museum.  She was also thrilled to be a contributing artist in the book Sharing Stitches. Enjoying life in NorthFlorida, Lori and her husband Walther, have two wonderful children and a sweet bearded collie named Molly.

Please visit lori at her blog: www.elviestudio.blogspot.com

and her etsy shop:  www.elviestudio.etsy.com