Of course, it is so much easier to paint or draw something that exists or doesn't have to mean anything. Inspiration for a mood or a concept is so much more difficult to come up with. Off the top of my head, drawing things from movies, music, and media can be a good place to start. Or picking you favorite subject and having a very clear mood involved. For example if you like to draw landscapes, make in melancholy with blue hues or red and fiery. If you like to draw flowers, exaggerate colors, or add some sense of surrealism with ice, fire, or anything else. (look for more inspiration tips in a later post). Or, say you are into the Hunger Games, a unique novel, or god forbid this whole Pokemon Go thing, turn some aspect of it into art. This can be great tinder for ideas that you are passionate about.
I think this concept also applies to art class. As a high school artist you are constantly running into projects that are confining, specific, and create drawings that look like everyone else's in the class. For example, in one class we were confined to draw a anatomical heart. Almost everyone in the class drew hearts that looked fundamentally the same. However, a small handful including myself decided that while the drawing had to be a heart the heart could represent anything. Here is how mine came out.
For now I'll let you ponder what it means because that's the fun of it. But soon it will be in my gallery and you can feel free to read the artist statement.
