This weekend, there were two events happening in the Bay Area: the Castro Valley Fall Festival and the Mountain View Art & Wine Festival. It was a tough decision for me to choose which event to attend.
In the end, I decided to check out the Mountain View Art & Wine Festival. It turned out to be the best choice cause there were a lot more booths to explore and to see what would be my inspiration for future greeting cards and paintings.
As I was discovering each one, I learned that there’s more than one way to make a card and there’s other things you can do with them aside from cards. For example, an artist named Alain Fastre’ created his masterpieces and turned them into serving trays.
Another artist named Niklas Lyback used the same idea, but she used maps of the Bay Area and other places instead. I may not do serving trays, but seeing paintings and photographs of different landscapes definitely gives me the inspiration for future paintings.
However, I wanted to expand my creativity with my interest in sports, such as baseball, basketball, and football. After developing an idea in the graphic arts lab at school, I wanted to see what else can be done. There were a couple of ideas that I got that could be turned into something that I plan to do in the future.
One was from an artist who uses team logos and welcome signs out of stone. Another one used the same idea, only with wood, and bamboo for the front yard. The one thing they both had in common was that they created a thing called “A House Divided” where they use two teams to created rivalries such as the Oakland Raiders vs the San Francisco 49ers.
Although I may not use stone or wood, it did give me an idea I can use in the graphic arts lab, and maybe they’ll be used for greeting cards or even a poster. The one rule I will use for myself is to only paint landscapes and create sport logos on the computer.
Whenever I go to an art-and-wine festival, an antique fair, a flea market, or a swap meet, I’ll definitely find inspiration and use them in my future designs. Who knows, maybe someday I can sell my creations to other people at places like that.