Inspiration Boards

 

 

In art school, what feels like eons ago, I was introduced to the concept of mood boards aka inspiration boards. We were encouraged to use collages of images, text, objects, art, anything at hand, really, to illustrate and develop our ideas, explore our styles and sensibilities and communicate them to other students. You guys, the boards were a revelation!

Up to this day, I use various incarnations of them whenever I need to organize my thoughts or breathe life into my worlds or spark new ideas when I'm in a rut or just help me visualize where I'm heading. Mood boards are great tools to capture that elusive "feel" of your story, to lend it such lovely tangible qualities as color, texture, shape, heft and weight, to put some "meat" on its bones. They are also treasure-mines of inspiration and creativity. Palettes of emotions. People are such visual creatures, our brains are stimulated by what we see -- a picture is worth a thousand words, in a sense that it triggers a stream of associations that leads to new sensations, new ideas, even bursts of creativity.

Here are some of the lovely, lovely mood/inspirations boards...

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

images via Pinterest

 

 

A woman searches for inspiration, 1898 painting by William-Adolphe Bouguereau