Inspiration is the very first step of any creation.

Artists all around the world agree that you should collect parts of that inspiration and put them all in one place (a very laic explanation indeed). That’s why most artists, whether they are painters or designers, make inspiration boards. They’re also called mood boards.

When it comes to making art, inspiration is crucial to create and to feel satisfied with your own work. You just need to lure it in and make use of it.

It’s practically a collection of things that you find inspiring. For example, you can collect magazine images, tickets, flyers, fabric pieces, paper clips, anything that inspires you at that moment so you can use it for later.

After you’ve gathered all these inspirational things, you arrange them together in a collage.

People usually do this on a board, but I love doing it in my art journal because I can make more than one or even make it into sections with different topics.

Why would you need a mood board?

1. First of all, it’s fun to make.

2. Secondly, it really helps you see some relations between colors or objects that you might have never noticed before. I’ve found some neat color combinations I never used before that are in fact amazing together.

3. Even more, you’ll discover how easy it is to start an art journal page when you already have inspiring things sitting right there on the previous page, or in a box, cluttered together. In other words, a mood board/box makes you find inspiration quickly and easily.

My best advice is to collect these things and keep them in folders or boxes, so you can use them on your page as well. I'll explain this in detail in the video below.

FUNWORK!

Go through your paper scraps and magazine images, cutouts, etc. Arrange them according to color. Pick the ones that you really, really like and use them for your inspiration board. You can make it in your art journal, at the beginning or at the end, it doesn’t matter. 

Besides images, gather other bits and pieces that you think agree with those images and the colors, like paint, pens, stamps, etc. 

Arrange them together, then take a few steps back and look at how it all came together. Think about the ways this can help you start your pages. You can choose the colors, the mood, the stamps, words, etc. 

Or you can put them together in a pouch or a transparency folder.

Now, try to make a background (or the whole page) with the inspiration from your mood board.