As creatives, it doesn’t even have to be such a serious thing as creative block, blank page anxiety or blank canvas anxiety. Sometimes, we just lack inspiration. When this happens to me, I usually feel a little bit of tension inside, my mind won’t relax, and everything seems either too boring or too difficult. One of the things that helps me to gather inspiration and get back to writing or painting, are flowers. So below, I’m answering a few questions on how I find inspiration in flowers and share prompts for you.
(This is a serial blog post, want to know more? Have a look at the overview post)
3 Easy Ways to Find Inspiration in Flowers.
Even though I find this thought incredibly bizarre, I know that not everyone can access flowers equally easy and that some people don’t even have any kind of flowers in their life. So, these first two ideas may find you well, while the second is not an easily accessible one:
Buy a flower bouquet.
Who doesn’t love a solid flower bouquet? Buying flowers for your home is one of the easiest ways to get your hands on flowers and start being creative (prompts below), but there are two things to keep in mind:
No. 1: Try to buy seasonal flowers, as they connect you to your surroundings, help you to slow down and get in a state of mind that may help you to find your creative flow, especially when you’re struggling right now. Also, they are a great connection to nature and usually we tend to feel better around them.
No. 2: Try to buy slow flowers / locally grown flowers. The flowers you can buy in the grocery store or even in many flower shops have been grown elsewhere (e.g. roses where likely grown in Africa) and their carbon footprint is huge, and their social and ecological impacts aren’t looking that good either. So, finding a flower field nearby would be best, or finding a local flower shop that buys from rather local flower farms would be best. Here in Germany for example we have the Slow Flower Movement (EN) / Slow Flower Bewegung (DE) On their website you can look up where to find the next flower field, which is pretty cool.
I have never been that kind of person who always has fresh flowers in a vase at home, because I enjoy looking at them while they’re growing in my mother’s garden or on my balcony much more, but since we’re now having a little flower field next to our village, I have had many bouquets this year. It’s just a nicer way than to cut your own or buy some in a shop.
Creative Prompts for Your Flower Bouquet:
For the writer: Describe how your bouquet looks like, describe a petal in detail, describe the light and how it changes the colours. Or reflect on what you feel when looking at your flowers at home and how it felt to buy them or pick them yourself. How do they connect to the season? Why did you choose these flowers for your bouquet today? Then go from there and see where your mind leads you.
For the artist: Painting a flower bouquet sounds very old-fashioned and boring, I know. A still life. Now let’s make this still life interesting. You could paint any detail up close: A leave, a petal, just one flower. Paint the bouquet from any angle, try to focus on light. Paint it in just one colour or go abstract by just taking the colours and see what happens. What do you feel when looking at this bouquet? What does it mean to you? Put that energy into your painting OR just sketch. Try to be as precise as possible, or as imprecise as you can. Make it ugly, on purpose.
Go on walks in nature and find wildflowers.
The next great way to boost your inspiration through flowers is going on a walk and look out for wildflowers along your way. It’s one of my favourite ways to find inspiration for my artworks – I’m living on the countryside and even know where some of my favourite wildflowers are growing, year after year – and this one even comes with the bonus of going on a walk.
Maybe you’re already familiar with Julia Camerons approach to creativity, but in case you are not: She is a huge advocate for going on walks as a creative, as the walking gets your mind thinking and working in different ways than when you just sit around and “wait for it to happen” (there’s even science behind it, as you can read in this study report from the Stanford University). So, the walking activity with looking for wildflowers will possibly spark ideas (be open to all of them 😉).
What to do when you’ve found a wildflower?
Well, I love to take photos either with my smartphone or even better with my camera, if it’s at hand, as I usually paint from reference photos. I just follow the flow with them, except I already have an idea in mind.
Or just take a moment and really look at the flower for a while, very consciously and mindfully, is also great to take it all in.
Last but not least, I’m a bit nerdy with wildflowers and plants in general, so if I don’t know which species I’m looking at, I also use the Flora Incognita App to identify the flower and read up about it later.
You could also collect them to make a small bouquet or press and dry them but be VERY mindful! In some places it’s not allowed to just randomly pick flowers, and you should make sure what kind of flower you’re picking in beforehand in case it’s either rare or toxic. Some plants shouldn’t get in contact with your skin, and I hope it’s obvious that we don’t pick rare plants. Even if it’s not rare, but the only one you can find in this space. Just take a photo and leave the flower, so it can seed itself and we’re not losing even more wildlife.
Creative Prompts for your wildflower-walk:
For the writer: Why did you go on the walk? How did it feel like? What was “nature” like that day? What did this flower look like? Why did it catch your eye? What made it special? Describe it as best as you can. Reflect on your feelings and thoughts, let them be as focused on the subject or meander to different places. Trust your flow.
What about this flower’s history and background? Do research and see what happens, create a story circling around this particular wildflower or write a rather scientific essay about it. Let it be part of something bigger, or just a little journal entry for the day. Why did this wildflower inspire and influence you, today?
For the artist: Again, imagine the light and colours. Paint it loose or in detail. Make a sketch, maybe use uncommon (to you) mediums. Blow it up or size it down. What’s the mood you’d like to convey? What story may be behind your painting? Or piece of art. Can you tell the story of your walk in your painting? How did your walk feel like and how can you translate that into visual art. Make plein-air paintings or sketches, to see how these are different to working with reference photos. Now would also be a great time to make flowery landscapes.
Grow flowers on your balcony or in your garden.
Growing your own flowers (if you have the space), is one of THE BEST things ever. I may be a bit too excited about it. For me, growing my own flowers and being creatively inspired is a never-ending circle. Either I fall for a flower elsewhere, then paint it and then feel like I have to grow it myself, or I grow it myself and then feel the need to paint it.
Even though growing flowers on your balcony (as I do) or in your garden is a creative act in itself – choosing the species, colours, arranging them, etc. – it’s also such a great way to spark your inspiration and get creative. And, another great bonus, if you’re planning well, you’ll be able to find flowers that inspired you for almost every month of the year (in my zone at least, if your having much stronger winters that will be different).
Creative prompts for finding inspiration on your balcony or in your garden:
For the writer: Just create a writing space in your garden or on your balcony. I love to work outside over summer and especially when you’re looking at screens a lot, it’s so relaxing to look at the greenery and all the life that’s swirling around. Besides, you could again (as I also wrote before) dive into your plant’s stories and histories, why you decided to grow them. Describe the air in your garden-space, the light, why you enjoy spending time there, why you don’t enjoy spending time there. How do these plants connect with your life and with the other humans in your life? Follow the seasons, follow your flower’s growing circle.
Btw, a great book, that relates well to the topic and might help you find inspiration or that sparks some out-of-the-box thinking is “Why women grow” by Alice Vincent (also, check out my Must-Read Book List for Creatives if you’re a bookworm!).
For the artist: Well, take photos, do plein-air painting, or create just from your imagination. There is so much to explore as an artist in a garden or on a balcony filled with flowers and foliage. The most straight forward prompt is for sure: paint the flowers. But you could also focus on foliage, on just petals, on the other living beings that call this space their home. You can again work with the light, air, mood and colours, you could paint the big picture or just a tiny spot. You could make a series, following one flower through the seasons or paint all just in peek bloom.
Do you find inspiration in flowers?
If you come this far, you possible noticed that the creative prompts all looked a bit similar, but that’s because of the nature of the topic. There are depths to explore and work through as creatives, but there’s not a big bunch of it when it comes to flowers and in the end, there is not as much difference in starting with a bouquet, or wildflowers or a gardening-space. They all lead to having flowers that could inspire your creativity. What you do with them in the end, is upon you. I find a lot of joy in any flower, besides all the creativity and inspiration. They just make me happy, which is very important to me as well. So, if inspiration doesn’t find you (or you doesn’t find it), then my last advice would be: just enjoy them and the moment right now.
