I’m in Melbourne and revelling in ethnic diversity, graffiti and French pastries.

While stopping at a corner French patisserie yesterday I saw this sign on the wall (full image below) .

I thought how true this is. Being creative is a little like being a weird little beast.

You are constantly scanning for new ideas, stopping to check out patterns in leaves, colours of bricks, interesting electricity manhole covers. I realise I have a collection of photos on interesting doorways, graffiti and peeling painted windows.

These collections of seemingly random items appear very weird to outsiders, but to creatives they become sources of inspiration. I love the rounded lines and vivid blue of graffiti of the words below. I think I should be able to read but I can’t, so I appreciate them for their shape and colour and daring.

I love bold and bright. Garden flowers vivid in sunlight, scarlet leaves in autumn or the purple of jacarandas.

When I was in Iceland I collected bright coloured offcuts of fishing rope. I put them on my window ledge and looked at them for a week until suddenly they “told” me how to use them in new artworks. I ended up embedding them into paper pulp poured over fishing nets I found. They became the inspiration for the artworks about climate change which are included in the 1.5 degrees exhibition in Melbourne opening next week.

Right now i am preparing my next online course, gathering inspiration and ideas, listening to what people say they need to learn, devising topics that help them on their own creative journey. Hunting and gathering from life experience as ideas turn into actions. You are inspired by seemingly random things which later turn into works of art.

It's about following small intuitive steps steps and trusting the creative process so you can Dare to Create.

Here is the full image of the blackboard text I saw in the café. It inspired this blog post!