Time for a new project, right? But we’ve all been there. Stuck for ideas. Creative blocks. Not sure how to get going. Not sure, even, where to get started! But it’s a new season, so we’re going to make some suggestions for you to help inspire you.

After all, we’re here to help Colour Your World.

Time for a new project: picture perfect ideas for spring.

You know what’s a great artistic medium for this season in particular? The art of watercolour painting. Check out this blog if you’re an absolute beginner, it’ll give you pointers on how to get started. And here for the different types of brushes you’re going to want to use.

But as to what to paint? Well, considering it’s spring, you have several options open to you.

A lovely painting of our country’s critters would go down nicely. Bushbabies, bunnies, maybe even a dassie (technically, it’s called a hyrax, but never mind – we South Africans have a language of our own. More about the hyrax over here). The easiest way to paint wildlife is simply to print out a picture from the web of the creature in question and use that for your artist’s eye.

You can also do scenery. A view of a lake as the flowers bloom (even though we’re a country full of evergreens, it’s more about the spirit of spring as a time of renewal). Perhaps the Drakensberg mountains, which may still be snow-capped (it gets cold there!). 

There’s a lot to paint that’s spring related. Just take inspiration from the season.

A scrapbook collection. Of flowers!

You could start a new scrapbook. A seasonally based one. We have many fine binders and scrapbooks in-store. So, one thing you could do is simply take a walk around your area, picking up the odd flower and pressing it and let it dry out. Flower pressing is a lovely art in itself.

Then you add your flowers to the scrapbook. What would be even better is trying to identify the exact type of flower it is (with the help of the interwebs!) and adding its name on scrapped craft paper (also available in-store). After a few days of this, you should have a lovely collection of different sorts of flowers – a colourful springtime collection.

Go capture the moments.

You don’t need a fancy camera to take impressive photography. Most smartphones these days come equipped with everything you need. And they do all the hard work for you, from shutter speed to ISO (sensitivity of the “film” to light), and more.

You just need to experiment and get a good eye for composition (how you frame the shot). The one trick we’ll impart is the Rule of Thirds. It’s when you take a picture of your subject to the left or right with about two thirds of the space being left “empty”.

Good opportunities.

Since it’s springtime it’s the perfect time for a new project, and there should be plenty of opportunities for good photographs – maybe even go bird spotting. Or plan a picnic with the family and capture those lazy afternoons in a park in the most picture-perfect way.

Then, when you’re done, print out the pictures – make sure you have plenty of ink, which we can help with, of course. In fact, we also stock high-quality photo paper – it’s a lot more cost-effective to print your own pictures at home than go through a photo place.

You’ll find our photo paper is as good as what they use at these places anyway. Then you just need to frame them if you like – we also have a wide selection of photo frames for any occasion: that includes wedding albums.

So if you’re at a friend or relative’s wedding, taking a lot of pictures and putting them into such an album will make a neat extra gift to the bride and groom.

After all, spring is wedding season! A great time for a new project, and what a project it will be.