identify 100 little ways to be creatively inspired

95. Rent and watch the movie Rivers And Tides about the artist Andy Goldsworthy. No one can help but be creatively inspired by this. Then go outdoors and make something.

96. Dance with your cat, your dog, or any young kid.

97. Lay down in the grass. Smell and feel what green is. Try closing your eyes and just being. Try opening your eyes and looking for shapes in the clouds.

98. Bring paints or drawing tools to an art museum. Try to copy an art work. Really look at the details of color, composition, and technique. Try painting or drawing some pieces of work you don’t like too.

99. Doodle.

100. Stretch. Make up your own yoga poses and name them.

90. Get a sketchbook and do a group of line drawings using an ink pen. Go back later and color them in using crayons or colored pencils or markers. You’ve made your own coloring book.

91. Pick out quotes or funny sayings or jokes and try to do a drawing to illustrate each one.

92. Watch pets or animals at the zoo. Try to see if you can sit or move like they do.

93. Buy cheap sunglasses and embellish them with things you have around the house or buy craft supplies to use. Wear them.

94. Reach into your craft cupboard, junk drawer or shelf and pull out some old dusty box or container. Use whatever is in it up making something.

85. Buy some sand or just head to the playground or beach. Using a rake, fingers or other tools smooth it and inscribe it with lovely patterns like a japanese garden.

86. Draw many small works of art on sticky notes. Combine them into an art collage on one sheet.

87. Buy some fabric (or use up some of your stash if you have one), write blessings for yourself, for others, and for the world on the flags using permanent markers or ink and string them up and fly them as prayer flags. These don’t have to be standard size. I’ve made a large one that I use as a curtain on our screen porch.

88. Collect grasses, weeds, flowers, yarn, wire, etc. Weave it all together to make a funky piece of ‘paper’ or art.

89. Make cutout sugar cookies and decorate them with colored frosting.

79. Make like Jackson Pollock. Bonus if you start with a used drop cloth because it’s already started. Get paint from freecycle or a local drop off site (our town has this with free latex paint). Drip and splatter away.

80. Leave notes/quotes/drawings inside of library books when you return them. (Thanks to Mary Poppins/HopingFlower for this idea, from the goal http://www.43things.com/things/view/349937 )

81. Draw an elaborate tattoo on your skin using markers or face paint.

82. Hire a person to be a live model for you and draw or paint them. (This can be pretty reasonable if you go in with several other art inclined friends.)

83. Go to a public place and write down made up character sketches for the people you see, backstory, motives, passions, etc.

84. Make pastry or bread or pretzel dough and form it into abstract shapes and art forms. Bake it up and eat your art.

78. Become a social commentator. Blog a store. Bring a pack of post-it notes and a pen to the grocery store or drugstore (go sometime when you don’t need to buy anything). Go around and look at products and stick notes on them. Say whatever the things inspire you to say—maybe something about the packaging or marketing or how you might feel eating or using it. NOTE: This idea was in a piece in Utne reader Sept/Oct 06.

75. Invent a flag design. Sew or paint a flag to match it. Fly the flag.

76. Felt (shrink by washing with soap in hot water) an old wool sweater. Create a bag or mittens or other object from the felt.

77. Get together with a friend and paint each other’s clothes while you are wearing them.

70. Make up new shadow figures using a flash light. Look it’s a maggot! A buddha!

71. Dig. Find a spot in the woods, backyard, sandbox or beach. Start an archeological dig, or just dig to China.

72. Make a yard sign and put it out. (Like the political or religious ones, but be creative with the message.)

73. Take a figurine you don’t want anymore (or buy one at a thrift store) and glue on little bits – mosaic pieces, pasta, beans, beads, pennies, bits of jewelry, sand or whatever. Is it uglier or better? Is ugly always bad?

74. Buy a smallish styrofoam ball and decorate it in some fun crazy way. Impale it on your car antenna.

63. Film a loving message to yourself and watch it.

64. Perform a strip tease all alone just for fun.

65. Write up your life story (or some portion of it) as a fairy tale. Illustrate it.

66. Add lots of bubble bath to the tub and do bubble sculpting.

67. Go to a grocery store and rearrange some items artistically—arrange by colors or stack creatively.

68. Pretend to be doing a survey and ask people on the street questions (a clipboard is a nice touch).
Look at http://www.43things.com/things/view/323064 for possible question ideas.

69. Rename things. Go around and touch things in your environment and say a word out loud – just free associate. The longer you do this the more relaxed and real you can be about it so don’t stop too quickly. This is really fun to do in as a group too (everyone does it on their own but in the same area).

Keri Smith’s list of 100 ideas. (Any duplicates in my own list are coincidental!)

51. Create a boardgame.

52. Climb a tree or get up on your roof.

53. Fingerpaint, toepaint, or use any other body parts you like to paint.

54. Start plants from seeds or clippings.

55. Close your eyes and pick a place in the phone book then go there.

56. Go into the pantry or spice shelf and pick a number of items at random. Create a meal or dish using these random items.

57. At restaurant with many selections, close eyes and point to pick what to order.

58. Wear non-matching shoes (one each from two pairs).

59. Make paper airplanes and have a scientific ‘fly off’ to see which designs are most accurate or long flying.

60. Draw a comic strip of some event that happens in your life that seems especially potent or odd (a la Crumb – use stick figures if needed).

61. Watch children’s shows and do the interactive stuff (answer the blue’s clue, sing along with Barney, move like a crab, etc.) when the characters ask you to.

62. Film your own children’s show (for your inner child?) using a camcorder.