Long before Pinterest became popular, I have been snapping pictures, printing pages of images, poems, and prose, and stuffing scraps of paper into the pages of my sketchbook in the fashion on one, giant (rather disorganized, at times) inspiration board. I would feel particularly drawn to a paint swatch in the hardware store and keep it for months. Tear pictures from magazines. I have an entire folder of words that I’ve jotted down over the years: stories, quotes, poems – all of which I intend on keeping for a very long time.

Sometimes, when I’m feeling particularly stuck on a project or am having trouble figuring out what to paint or draw next, I’ll take out my folders, old sketchbooks, and begin gathering the pieces of my inspiration board, so to speak, in order to find exactly that – inspiration.

The Artist’s Way likens creative input and output to a gas tank – when we create, we are drawing upon a store of inspiration, and if we don’t refuel with new things that inspire us, our inspiration will run dry. Before taking in this analogy, I had never realized just how important my seemingly-obsessive collecting was. Now, I make a point each week to spend time finding things that inspire me – sometimes it still is a paint swatch from the hardware store. Sometimes it’s the work of another artist. Sometimes it’s something I stumble across on Pinterest. Sometimes it’s something I find in my yard.

This week, I have been in love with the work of artist and illustrator, Sarah King.

Her work is laden with fantastic hand lettering and typography. It is both simple and visually rich. All of her work – from illustrations to animations – is incredibly beautiful. Here are some of my favorites: