Creative Block: How To Get Over It With A Focused 30 Day Art Challenge
Are you stuck in a creative rut, feeling the monotony and tedium of creating the same things over and over again? Do you feel the urge to create but when you pick up your tools, your mind goes blank or you end up hating everything you have created?
You, my friend, are in a creative block.
It is a trying period when our inspiration dries up, our motivation is gone and the harder you try to force yourself out of it, the more severe the block becomes. It is deeply frustrating and it can feel like a suffocating experience.
But all is not lost.
I’ve experienced quite a number of creative blocks in the years of making art, and they have all left my feeling extremely frustrated and angry at myself for not being able to create art like I usually do. But I eventually get out of it and I would like to share with you how I managed to overcome a creative block.
Why Do Creative Blocks Happen?
1. Life got in the way - we all know this and have gone through it at some point, trying to squeeze too many things into a day and not having enough time for art.
2. Feeling overwhelmed - juggling too many things at one go can leave one feeling anxious and overwhelmed, which are negative emotions that will lead to a creative block.
3. You’ve got the Comparisonities - and it’s causing you to have unrealistic expectations of yourself and your work which leads to a crippling fear of creating.
How To Overcome Creative Blocks?
1. Walk away - engage in a totally different activity and do not force yourself to make art
Sometimes it just doesn’t do to force it, and engaging in other activities may help you instead. Take a walk in nature, do some yoga, read a book or simply just go outside and let that inspire you.
2. Self-care - holding space for yourself and the mistakes that you make.
Creative blocks happen from time to time, and it doesn’t help matters to beat yourself up over it. That is counterintuitive and will make the block worse. Embrace the fact that you are human and that our creativity ebbs and flows like the tides. If you ride our the waves, it will eventually be fine.
3. Introducing structure to your art making routines.
Over the years, I’ve both taken part and hosted a number of art challenges to help me get over my creative rut and I’m going to share you how I did it.
4. Create to play
Create because you love it and you enjoy it, remove the expectations that it should turn out a certain way and simply why you create in the first place. Immerse yourself in the simplicity of just enjoying and playing, the end product is not the important thing here. It’s the process.
Getting Over Creative Block with Art Challenges
Over the years I’ve taken part in a few art challenges, such as the most recent Peachtober20 , a Valentines challenge that I co-hosted with a few friends, a 31 days loose florals challenge where I learnt to paint 31 flowers in a month.
Sometimes I set a themed series for myself to keep my mind in the flow state and explore the same subject for a period of time, such as this trees and desert landscape series. I like setting a themed series because I can fully focus on the same subject and explore it to my heart’s content without getting distracted and side tracked.
This is my favourite vacation landscape series to date, I painted 10 landscape scenery from my vacations and by the end of the series, I felt my technique had improved and I also discovered some new ways of painting landscapes.
Regardless of whether you try out this method, remember to be kind of yourself and hold space for the ebb and flow of creativity.
Art can be healing, if you let it be.
