How to utilise Pinterest to grow your creative practice

In my course Gold Gilding on Glass, I talk a little about how and where I find inspiration.

There are many places for this - online in places like Instagram and Facebook groups, in person at events like Letterheads and more locally to me, Letter Luvvers. Another great tool is the relatively new magazine BLAG, now on its fourth iteration.

One extremely useful tool for gathering ideas, collating groups of styles together and discovering incredible craftspeople is Pinterest.

I genuinely think the website isn’t as respected as it should be - while there are endless adverts and sometimes less than relevant posts on the home or explore pages, it’s really convenient for creating albums of similar types of work and in doing so, having more of them recommended to you.

I use Pinterest to break these categories up, making it easier for me to have a quick browse at a later date when need be. For example, if I have to design a new commission and can’t seem to settle on a lettering style for it, my Alphabet board has a collection of (primarily vintage or vintage-inspired) styles.

Another example would be my Close and Cast board, and within it (another really useful tool provided by Pinterest - subcategories) my Mock Block board.

Close and cast, otherwise known as block shade and cast shade, is an effect where a 3D look is added to a letter by painting a raised block to make the letter appear as it is coming out of the surface. The ‘cast shade’ element comes from another faux shade being painted, usually to the opposite side, to make it appear as though a shadow is being cast across the sign from the (faux) raised letters.

Most related to my course would be my Gilds board - mainly used to hold very extravagant pieces with special techniques I want to try.

Just a few notes on this use of categories - occasionally you may find pins on mine that are in the wrong board (this is fairly easy to do as Pinterest usually recommends which board to add a pin to, and sometimes it chooses the wrong one, and I don’t catch it!)

Another note is that - while this is a fantastic tool for inspiration and coming across new techniques and effects, as with anything, these should never be copied. I’ve had it happen at least once or twice where I’ve come across exact copies of my work, and it’s never a good feeling, and I’d never want to be the cause of that for somebody else.

One of the main reasons I’m so in love with this craft is the never-ending possibilities for each piece. You can see on my boards such a rich variety of styles, colour combinations, lettering style combinations and effects - while making each piece you should view the totality of your inspiration and not individual pieces.