5 Ways to Reignite your Creative spark
5 Ways to Reingnite your creative spark
Inspiration may come and go; especially when you have school or a full time job to go along with your creative pursuits. But I believe the beauty and rawness in being an artist, is pulling yourself from these moments, and creating something truly unique. Here are 5 tricks I use to find inspiration for new work. I hope these can help you with your creative work and even life in general.
1.) View your Favorite Artist’s Work
Viewing some of your favorite artist work, can refreshen your mind and fill it with reasons of why you got into art in the first place. Maybe it’s an artist’s color palette, or use of line that sparked your initial interest, but these are the building blocks to your inspiration. Seeing your favorite artist do what they do, will hopefully inspire you to get back to your craft. For me, viewing some of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s early works, especially the ones on found materials, really gets the creative juices flowing, and it’s time to go crazy with a paint brush.
2.) Schedule Work Periods
Being an artist, whether full-time, part time, or even a hobby, should be seen a job in itself. And with any job or responsibility in life, you have to schedule time for it in order to dedicate your mind fully to the goal. Scheduling simply 30 minutes a day if you’re trying to improve your skill, to a 3 hour block, can not only give your creative life some organization, but also you know that something will be created out of this time slot. Therefore any progress, is progress nonetheless. Scheduling creative time will bring more balance to your life, and can set a great foundation for building great habits as you advance on your creative journey.
3.) Freestyle
Freestyling is an artist’s way, of getting out of their own way, and letting the mind and body create from a natural point of view. From musicians to painters, freestyling is the act of improvising a craft. What can come from this is sometimes better than trying to plan the same outcome. Freestyling for visual artists may simply be to grab a sketchbook, turn on some tunes, and crank out some work. There are no limits to what you can create, and that lack of pressure may bring out the best in you. Here you can make mistakes, experiment with new techniques, and be in tune with your inner artist.
4.) Experience (Get out of the House)
Sometimes the key to sparking that inspiration, is to get out of the house and experience some things life has to offer. Walking in nature, visiting art museums, playing sports, all these activities take you away from your studio, and at best give you material to build from. When you make it back to your creation station, you should have a fresh set of eyes, and a memory full of experiences to pull from.
5.) View Content (Music, Film, Photography)
It’s no secret that media can inspire us in ways that the other steps just can not. Music and Film can spark ideas, and bring out emotions in us that fuels a burning desire to create your own variation of a great piece of art. Whenever I can tap into some high quality films by directors like Quentin Tarantino, my inspiration is sparked because of the quality and dopeness that may be presented to me. Kanye West and even Grimes can get me out of a slump, to just create whatever your heart is feeling, and worry about the technicalities later.
Now get up and get to it. Your dreams are waiting.
*If you have any useful tips or insight, please comment below.*
"Always work hard and have fun in what you do because I think that's when you're more successful. You have to choose to do it." - Simone Biles
“It's kind of fun to do the impossible.” - Walt Disney
“Ah, good taste! What a dreadful thing! Taste is the enemy of creativeness.” - Pablo Picasso