Eight Methods To Overcoming An Art Block
Being stuck and unable to find inspiration happens to everyone. To me, an art block is when the art process has grinded to a halt and you cannot continue even though you wish to. When you are learning, inexperience could be the cause of an art block. It is less likely to happen as you get older and have already learnt the fundamentals. By that time you have learnt your strengths, your weaknesses and know what you enjoy doing. Also you have learnt discipline, as well as having completed many artworks. For some artists, this is enough to help them to never experience an art block. But art blocks seem to encompass different causes for everyone such as, inexperience, self doubt, fear, not practicing enough, sabotaging yourself, life events or depression. For many people it may be more then one reason for an art block. You have to find that reason for yourself. These are some of the things that have helped me or ideas that I think may help people. It should be stated I am not a therapist. My experience comes from teaching at high school, at university and privately, as a teacher for many years. I have tried to give suggestions that involve different reasons for the art block. The most important thing to remember is the fact that you have produced and made art before. As you overcome it just that alone should give you confidence, if it ever happens again.
1) Have A Break
Go out into the fresh air, do something you love. Look up things on the internet, read your favourite books or watch a movie. You never know when inspiration strikes. If you have been trying to push your art to the point of frustration and boredom, this will help you to want to have another go at your artwork with a new perspective.
2) Practice Your Fundamentals
With practice comes confidence. You don’t think you can do something and then you surprise yourself. Fundamentals give you diverse skills set to gain confidence . Follow a video tutorial, as you may surprise yourself and learn something new along the way. As I have said previously, don’t just look at the popular videos, as it may be an obscure tutorial that gives you an Eureka moment.
3) Lean On Your Strengths
What do you do well, portraits, landscape or illustrations? Paint a variation on a theme from a previous artwork, add something new. Do an art challenge that involves your strengths.
4) Give Yourself A Deadline
If you lose faith in yourself or self sabotage, give yourself a date that is feasible. You don’t have any time to waste then because you have decided I need to finish on this date. In the future this will help you will commissions.
5) Mindful Mediation
There is a lot of scientific evidence showing the positive effect that mindful mediation has on depression, on self doubt and negative thinking. It focuses you and helps you to deal with negative thoughts. What it may do is to uncover the cause of your art block. Here is an article from Harvard showing how to try mindful meditation, but also the science behind it.
6) Experiment
Experiment, have fun, do something have always wanted to try. Maybe didn’t have the time to try before hand. Learn a new style or medium. What are your favourite things to look at, what gives puts a smile on your face when you see it? Paint those things.
7) Find The Cause Of Your Block
I know I mentioned this earlier. This may take time because the block may be connected to your past experiences, which need to be resolved. When you are doing this don’t rush this process, because the problem may resurface again.
8) Organise and Clean Your Space
This is especially from the previous point, organise your space. So that there is no chaos, in your space. The flow of your art is not interrupted by looking for things. Though you may not feel confident you are taking control of your life and space. In this process, yo may find old artworks that inspires you to make a new artwork.
