Getting Inspired

Hello, I'm Krystin ("the daughter" also known as Katts)

I'm an Illustrator by day, and bartender by night. I paint fantasy, sci-fi, zoological and botanical topics mainly. You can see some of what I do at my blog. I sent the this journal idea to my mom and I'm sooo proud that she's picked it up and decided to run with it. I will be posting now and then with some things that I would like to share.

I have been musing for a while on what I should put in my first post on this blog.. I decided that I would give a tip on something that I find difficult myself. My boyfriend recently gave me this tip after I fumed that I just couldn't get inspired that day. I've been having lots of trouble getting inspired. I would sit here on my computer staring sideways at my painting like it was a 20 foot high brick wall and I had no equipment with which to scale it.

Strawberries make me think of Tolkien's "shire"

There's a lot of inspiration that's needed to draw, craft, even to study your books for school. Next time you're doing something that you wish you were inspired for, chew some gum. Pick a flavor you like, one that you can get a bunch of. I chose Strawberry Orbit gum for my fantasy-themed paintings, and Wildberry for my zoological/botanical works. For my boyfriend, he chews mint gum when he's trying to study biology, and lemon for math.

Before it was a house!

Every time you do that task, chew the same flavor gum. Eventually you'll find that when you can't seem to get inspired, chewing that same flavor gum will set in a little reminder to your system and you can get inspired again. It's like when you eat a favorite childhood food and you can practically feel yourself sitting in your mother's kitchen again. For me, it's lemon brisk tea. I drink that and I feel like I'm standing on our land, 8 years old, as we were excavating it to pour the cement for the basement walls!