“The Napping Muse” Paper and Acrylics Collage © N. Doany
One of the hardest challenges in our artistic lives is facing the dreaded creative block. I have had so many of these hurdles over the years that I could write a doctoral dissertation about it!
You know the familiar symptoms: whether the artistic paralysis happens suddenly or creeps silently, its effects art?e always the same. All the joy, dedication, and self-assurance you once had art?e replaced by frustration, anxiety, and self-doubt. The more you try to summon your creative skills to the rescue, the more elusive they seem. You start questioning your very own artistic abilities as if, by some magic, all your talents have vanished overnight.
My dry spells used to last weeks or even months and I would get extremely discouraged until I figured out that the artistic block is part and parcel of the creative process. Without it, there would be no renewal.
I have come to realize that a creative block is like a computer system overload. Instead of crashing, our creative mind decides to take a breather. Because artists tend to be very emotionally intense and usually do not know when to stop, the unconscious (or whatever you want to call it) decides it’s time to switch gears and slow down.
I have learned to accept this slump as an opportunity to take stock of my artistic matters and ask myself certain questions I may have not thought about for a while. I now take the time to examine my priorities, to dream about the future, and to rest from the maddening intensity for a while.
This does not mean that I always approach the problem serenely every time I am faced with it. I cope with the block differently depending on my moods. Therefore, I have compiled a few suggestions to deal with the tyranny of the creative block. The list is in no particular order. Scroll down this post, pick and choose what might work for you, which inspiration suits your individual personality and artistic temperament best.
Please let me know what you think and how you cope with your own artist’s block.
1. Be honest with yourself. Ask yourself: Why I am doing what I am doing? Is there some things I need to change? etc.
2. Focus on a simple and clear goal: do you want to sell your art?? Do you want to be recognized by your peers? Do you want to have fun? And so on.
3. Sharpen your observation skills: look at surroundings and re-discover it
4. Understand that real life happens and that stuff such as illnesses, daily chores, increased family demands, all play a vital role in your creative balance.
5. If you art?e disciplined, approach the task as any other job. Force yourself to create something, anything. It does not have to be good. Just do it if it makes you feel better.
6. Create in little chunks of time during the day.
7. Do not take more than 20 minutes at each time
8. Invest in a handy labeler and label your spice jars. Doing something mechanical will get your hands busy and you won’t feel you’re wasting your precious time.
9. Make large sheets of graduated colors as a reference for later.
10. Paint or label the top of your acrylic jars.
11. Cut out random words from a magazine and create a poem.
12. The poem does not need to make any sense. Just play with words.
13. Make your own calendar and decorate it as you please.
14. If you would like, jot down easily attainable goals. For example, write something like: By next Tuesday, I would have scanned all my new collages.
15. Come up with funny or imaginative names for colors
16. Re-visit your old art?work. Title them or write something about them
17. Try to recapture what inspired you to create this previous art?work. What feelings or events do you associate with this particular creation?
18. Classify your art?work according to the date you created them. Put them in portfolios
19. Photocopy some old painting. Cut it, draw or paint over it. You might be surprised at what might happen
20. Re-discover getting messy. Make some papier-mâché projects. The uglier, the better!
21. Make something really horrible and laugh at it.
22. Open the dictionary to a page and get inspired by a word/phrase.
23. Some people advise copying the Masters or other artists to get out of your own rut and learn from them (This is one advice that’s very hard for me to follow)
24.Change media: if you like drawing with pastels, use oils. If you fancy photography, try modeling clay,etc.
25. Change your perspective. Imagine yourself looking at something from above. See the subject from different angles. Imagine yourself a very tiny person inside a bed of flowers.
26. If you only do figurative art?, switch to abstract. Let some colors drip over a canvas or board, flip it halfway through, let the colors run into a bucket. Use large brushstrokes. Adhere to it anything you fancy.
27. Search the web for certain key words and browse the images for inspiration.
28. Paint in monochromatic colors
29. Read poetry… in another language
30. Go to a tattoo parlor or somewhere you have never been. The more outrageous the better! Think of it as a local tourism. Take a friend!
31. Explore your heritage. Make a family tree. Or imagine what it would have been like if you were your great-great-grandmother.
32. Make a business plan for the next six months and learn everything you can about the business of art?.
33. Check out what’s coming up next in your community: a local art?s fair, a magazine challenge, etc. Scope the possibilities and plan to participate at least in one function.
34. Call your local charity and offer to donate one of your art?work for their next auction or benefit.
35. Subscribe to art? magazines, chat in artists’ forums
36. Update your blog/website. Revisit your spelling,grammar,etc.
37. Visit artist blogs and leave sincere comments. Do not fake it. It’s not nice J
38. Design a biz card or re-design your biz card
39. Dedicate a small box or basket and put your basic supplies in it (scissors, glue, magazines, for example) and put it in the room where you spend most of your time (not your studio or art? desk). This way, whenever you art?e inspired, you will have all your supplies ready next to you.
40. Take up knitting or cooking, learn something totally unrelated to what you usually do.
41. Psych yourself up: stretch a canvas, make cardboard mats, etc. in anticipation of the day when the artist’s block subsides
42. Tidy up your work space. Working in a messy environment is not really inspiring if you rarely know where your stuff is or if you have to throw everything from your table unto the floor to make room. Take this time to re-design your work space
43. Sort out your supplies and donate what you don’t want
44. Make an artist’s swap party with your friends over coffee or wine and cheese
45. Clean up your garage. You might discover a few things you may have forgotten about.
46. Browse your kid’s illustrated books or your old childhood books. Re-read them.
47. Doodle while watching your favorite summer rerun on TV. Use your left hand if you art?e right-handed.
48. Set your eyes on some subject you have and sketch a blind contour. Follow the object’s shape with your eyes and trace what you perceive without looking at your paper.
49. Don’t put undue pressure on yourself. Understand this is just a time-out. Your creative abilities art?e still there. Once you learn how to drive or swim, you cannot forget it. Same with art?, it’s like breathing. You know you have it. So don’t feel bad.
50. Make room for errors, don’t judge yourself too harshly.
51. Allow yourself to daydream.
52. Don’t expect to create a masterpiece
53. Sharpen your pencils. Put them in a nice box.
54. Decoupage or collage shoe boxes, plastic plates, anything you like. Just feeling the gooey glue with your fingers might cure your creative block.
55. Re-visit your old drawings…go back to your childhood drawings
56. Take an old magazine and cut out as many images you would like and put them in a box. Use them later for inspiration.
57. Use your kids art? materials: wax crayons, inks,stamps,etc.
58. Listen to your favorite music. Sing out loud and paint to your heart’s content. Do what feels right to you.
59. Illustrate a song you really like
60. Visit art? museums and galleries (go out…don’t just sit at your computer)
61. Go to art? receptions. Talk to the artist or just have a good time (even though you might think you art? if far superior. It’s okay, you don’t have to say it out loud to anyone!).
62. Join your kids in an art? project. Loosen up and erase your self-imposed rules from your mind. Be a kid again. Go with the flow.
63. Volunteer at your local senior citizen center and do some art? work with them
64. Keep a journal wherever you go, even if to jot down an idea, a song, a feeling.
65. Jot down ideas when waiting for your kids at ballet
66. Sketch your kids at ballet
67. Scan family portraits and cut them out their faces and mix them up just for fun.
68. Pick a fashion magazine and using a black marker, transform the models into whatever you can imagine them. Add curves to all these anorexic ladies J
69. Draw your favorite high heel stilettos or your husband’s worn-out running shoes. The subject does not matter as much as the process of engaging yourself in some creative activity.
70. If you don’t like what you just created it. No sweat. Trash it!
71. Imagine living in the time of Picasso, or Klimt. Research everything about that era and the artistic times. Imagine you art?e Picasso or Klimt.
72. Make friends with artists on the web. You might be surprised to find how many people want to share their art?.
73. Visit your local market and sketch or photograph the produce, flowers, people, etc.
74. Take a one day art? class in your local community school.
75. If you art?e not sure if the work you art?e creating is to your liking. Walk away from it. Leave it for the next day and then re-assess.
76. Watch or TIVO HGTV (Home and Garden TV channel) and let yourself drown in the constant stream of craft and décor ideas.
77. Explore your grandma’s attic.
78. Browse your local Goodwill store.
79. Go wild, splash colors from the paint tube unto a board. Make a royal mess. Who cares?
80. Get a haircut, a manicure, anything to make you feel a bit better. Go to the gym too! Renew yourself!
81. Write about what you art?e feeling right now. Be honest.
82. Paint,draw, collage your frustration
83. Write greeting cards. Design them
84. Write a letter to an old friend (not email)
85. Create miniatures (or large-scale painting.). Do something that you thought you will never do.
86. Explore your neighborhood or some other hood. Better yet, take a trip.
87. Have a non-art related day or week. Take the time to breathe….
88.……………. put your own ideas here ………
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