One of the best ways to train your eye and encourage your creativity is to keep a scrapbook. Think of it as a visual journal for thoughts, images, and completed work. Tear any inspirational images from magazines. These could be faces, colors, or design concepts you find appealing. Sometimes even stationery, logos, or labels can inspire. Carry a digital camera to record inspirational visuals you encounter in daily life, such as colors and textures found on buildings or in nature.
The way you organize the scrapbook is up to you. Options include slipping images into plastic sleeves in a binder, taping them into a bound notebook, or tacking them onto a large bulletin board. Some artists prefer creating virtual scrapbooks, using a Web site to organize and store images and ideas. Other artists prefer to organize scrapbooks by topic rather than chronologically. They keep binders on various topics, such as bridal looks, natural looks, celebrities, color, or objects that inspire them.
As a makeup artist, you will go through dozens of scrapbooks during your career, but be sure to hold on to them. It will be helpful to reference your previous work and inspirations when preparing for a shoot or fashion show. The scrapbook becomes a historical record of your career, and reviewing old ones can be an important source of inspiration. I used to staple Polaroids into my day planner, and I still love looking back, remembering each shoot. I still have the red leather notebook I kept when starting my lipstick line. In it are the names of the women who inspired the colors and all the notes from meetings in which I discussed the line. It is a history that can reinspire me.