Finding Winter Inspiration: Three Simple Ways to Gather Creative Ideas Outdoors

Winter creativity can feel like an uphill battle. When the vibrant colors of summer fade and the days grow shorter, it's easy to let your creative practice hibernate along with nature. This year, I'm doing things differently.

The Challenge: Staying Creative Year-Round

This winter, I'm embarking on a year -round creative project designed to help me embrace all the seasons equally. The goal is simple: find those snippets of inspiration even on the gloomiest days, and prove to myself that creativity doesn't have to be seasonal.

For my first inspiration expedition, I headed to our allotment. For those unfamiliar, an allotment is a plot of land you can rent (usually from the local council here in the UK) to grow vegetables, flowers, or whatever you fancy. It's perfect for us since we don't have a large garden - it gives us extra space and a reason to get outside.

But here's the thing: our allotment in winter is hardly inspiring at first glance. Most beds are covered, there's not much growing, and those brilliant summer colours are long gone. Walking there that morning, I genuinely wasn't sure I'd find anything worth capturing.

I was wrong.

Three Simple Techniques for Gathering Winter Inspiration

I kept things intentionally simple, bringing only three tools: a pencil, my sketchbook, and my camera. These activities work beautifully any time of year, but they're especially valuable when the weather is cold and you don't want to linger outside for hours.

1. Photography: Creating an Image Bank

I spent about 10 minutes walking around a relatively small area, photographing whatever caught my eye. I wasn't overthinking it - just capturing shapes, marks, lines, and objects that drew my attention.

Something interesting happened. Themes began to emerge.

I found myself drawn to the contrast between chaos and order: plants spilling wildly from their beds versus the structured, man-made elements of the allotment. The interesting lines created by bare branches, the curves of roots, and the architecture of dried seed heads became fascinating focal points.

Without the distraction of abundant colour and growth, winter actually helped me focus. The bare earth and protective covers forced my eye to notice the subtle beauty of structure and form.

Back home, I edited some images in black and white, adjusting contrast and brightness. Now I have an image bank ready to fuel future work -perfect candidates for image transfers, stencils, or other techniques. The creative possibilities are already multiplying.

2. Timed Sketching with Graphite

Next, I tried five-minute sketching sessions with just a graphite pencil. I'd brought other materials along, but once I started exploring the different ways I could use a simple pencil, I didn't need anything else.

Setting a timer on my phone helped me stick to the time limit - though sometimes I finished early, and occasionally I worked a bit longer when I was really in the flow.

The time constraint was surprisingly liberating. Instead of overthinking, I just drew. And the limitation of working with only graphite pencil pushed me to explore different techniques and mark-making possibilities I might have overlooked with a full palette of materials.

3. Shadow Drawing (When the Sun Cooperates)

If you have a sunny day, shadow drawing is a fantastic way to capture marks and lines. My day was cloudy, so I had to wait for breaks in the weather—but I didn't mind. It wasn't raining, and the waiting gave me time to simply be present in the space.

A note for next time: bring clips to secure your sketchbook pages and attach them to something stable. Trying to hold everything while drawing shadows requires more hands than I have. I learned this the hard way when I dropped my lens cap in the mud. Not my finest moment.

Bonus Discoveries

While I was there, I experimented with placing foliage directly on my sketchbook pages and photographing it. I absolutely love these images. The white background makes you focus entirely on the twists, turns, and overlapping elements of each piece.

I also collected dried foliage to bring home for further exploration - maybe for gel printing, or perhaps I'll make some brushes from the sticks and twigs to create interesting marks. The possibilities keep unfolding.

The Real Lesson: You Don't Need Much

This whole experience reminded me of something important: you really don't need much to get your creative fix. Just a pencil, some time outside, and maybe a bit of sunshine.

I left the allotment that day feeling like my creative cup had been completely refilled. I came away with tangible inspiration and countless ideas to explore further.

If you're feeling like you need a creative nudge at the start of this year, I hope these simple techniques might help you rediscover your spark. Because once you've got that spark back, you never know where it's going to lead you.

What about you? How do you stay inspired during winter? Have you tried any of these techniques? I'd love to hear about your experiences.