a real CREATIVITY BLOCK! im in danger!!!!! HELP

[clueless sketch]

ive had this block for about 2 months.. im scared i cant even doodle! i tried the DSG but evrytime i get to it its really late my little brother has more scribbles in my sketch book than i have my drawing! and my house its kinda a depressing place so i got no insperation watsoevr

[vrm1979]

Nah! Nothing happens, what you must do is to take a rest and do something that you like doing, relax and then go back to the craft. Or take a free weekend and go out for a trip with your best friends or alone, whatever you prefer. If after this break you are still lacking creativity then you should consider going out to draw, to a quiet and inspiring place... don't know... anywhere outdoors when the weather is fine, a library, a quiet and peaceful bar... don't know... must be a place where you feel good and full of inspiration. Or just try to give another look to your room, change decoration or whatever, make it look different, your place and when you draw stay there, in your own environment and tell your family that you need to be alone and peaceful to create, ask them politely not to interrupt you during a certain time... in exchange you show them what you've done when you finish your drawing session, that way they won't feel that you are excluding them.

That's my 2 cents, good luck :)
And happy new year ;)

[She5los]

I would agree. What kinds of things do you usually think about? Is there a book you're reading? A story you're righting? Someone or somewhere which strikes your fancy? If you can't think of anything to draw, sitting there thinking about it won't help unless you like to do abstract art. Talk to your friends -- they'll probably have some good suggestions. But you can't get inspired if you're not doing anything. It doesn't even have to have any meaning to you. Draw your pet being lazy, draw your friends, draw yourself. Just draw something and you'll get inspired soon enough.

[Taneli]

You don't need inspiration to draw. Employ some self discipline. Maybe try some studies from books, copy something, google some interesting faces from Internet. Draw something you haven't before. Do your daily chores (keeping your room tidy and stuff like that) in timely manner and you'll be more motivated throughout the day. Try to start a routine to draw a little every day and the inspiration will hit sooner or later. The more you draw, the more you'll feel like drawing. At least that is the case with me.

[arttorney]

Perhaps take a few random things like a box, a ball, and a shoe and make a little still life arrangement. Draw the contours of the perimeters of the objects but continue the lines right off the edge of the paper. (extended line) This will make some shapes in the middle of the paper, but it will also divide the paper out into a bunch of regions that you can hang around and fill in with various colors or different values of shading if you do black and white. As you go through the mindless process of coloring in all these marked off spaces, you will be drawing without having to really think about what you are doing. As you see your drawing developing up you will probably start to get some ideas about where you would like to go with the drawing (and then you are thinking ... creating ... which is your goal).

Since the outcome of this drawing is bound to be rather abstract, you don't have to get all seized up in worrying about how good the initial still life drawing is. You are just kind of using that as a jump off point while you create a kind of semi-random "paint by numbers" looking page that you can go to work on with your soft pencils or coloring devices.

[Gundersen]

If i get creative blocks i normaly watch movies i like. Normaly a cheesy feel good movie :) hehe

[Sepulverture]

Sounds like a thread for the lounge, rather than the mentoring forum.

[Elwell]

Sounds like a thread for the lounge, rather than the mentoring forum.
Agreed, and moved, even though there are already 10,000 others just like it here :rolleyes:.

clueless sketch, stop worrying about inspiration and just draw. Or don't.

[steve kim]

christ somebody buy the man some spellcheck

oh and 2 months is like way too long for a block. i'm afraid it's permanent now.

[FlipMcgee]

.....

[Gloominati]

Personally I do not believe in such stuff as "creativity blocks". Carl Lagerfeld (and for sure manymanymany other artists) once said that inspiration comes at the least when you just start working and I believe that he is absolutely right there. So just do it and don't ty to think of youself as being in some kind of mental crisis. It's just pointless.

[Farvus]

Then draw something from life. You don't need any inspiration for that.

[Stoat]

Most of my inspiration comes from the inevitability of a mortgage payment.

[figure2]

I haven't posted or even visited the forums in over a year. I just happened to drop by and felt a connection to this thread. I have had a similar block for over 10 years. At first it was the cause of tremendous stress and anxiety but at some point I had to accept that the flow of ideas and passion were not going to return.

I deal with it by making sure I attend a life group at least once a week. This helps me maintain my drawing skills. I still get the occasional illustration assignment and when the when the idea & concept is coming from someone else, I am still a good problem solver.

My sketch book goes through long periods of neglect but I try to do something in there at least once a week. Sometimes it turns out to be once a month. I find it helps to keep a spare sketchbook in which you allow yourself to do crap. Open it up and do something, anything, even if it is nothing but random lines & scribbles. Sometimes a germ of an idea can come out of this and you can switch to your other sketchbook(s) to flesh it out.

I like the suggestions about taking a rest and doing something else. Perhaps even a different creative outlet like writing, ballroom dancing, etc. The problem with a block like this is that the stress it causes makes things worse. You need a distraction that will help you relax.

[steve kim]

I haven't posted or even visited the forums in over a year. I just happened to drop by and felt a connection to this thread. I have had a similar block for over 10 years. At first it was the cause of tremendous stress and anxiety but at some point I had to accept that the flow of ideas and passion were not going to return.

I like the suggestions about taking a rest and doing something else. Perhaps even a different creative outlet like writing, ballroom dancing, etc. The problem with a block like this is that the stress it causes makes things worse. You need a distraction that will help you relax.

wrong wrong wrong WRONG WRONG WRONG

god what is so hard to understand about this issue? running away from the problem (in this case art, creativity) doesn't improve the situation. when all is said is done it is an issue of fear and how one deals with it. fight or flight ring a bell?.

frustration, performance-anxiety, fear of failure, self-doubt--do you think these things go away when you 'get good' or 'turn pro'? more like it gets worse because as you get better, you are able SEE so that many more problems and issues compared to a noob. so the difference isn't in having these feelings in the first place, because well all have 'em and actually need to them actually accomplish anything (or else it's all be a kind of masterbation), the difference is in the fact that the failures let it dictate their actions or inaction in this case while the rest get on with what they gotta do.

btw "writing" isnt a stress-free thing when it's your life's ambition. i mean there was writer's block long before artist's block lol. same goes with 'ballroom dancing' or 'gardening' or whatever! it's only casual and stress-free when the outcome doesn't matter to you.

p.s. not picking on the previous post so much as this same issue that comes up time and time again. previous post just triggered a lot of anger! :)

p.p.s. and of course i'm not saying one shouldn't take breaks or time off. but there's a difference between from taking time off cause you're burned out from working so damned hard and taking time off cause you're afraid to do anything.

[Wetterschneider]

Man up, nancy?

[Elwell]

Most of my inspiration comes from the inevitability of a mortgage payment.
Word up.

[light]

Plow through it, it's not some deep spiritual exercise, it's putting your pencil to a medium which can support lead, just draw some cool looking shit.

[lavhoes]

"Inspiration" is a term given to a nebulous concept that is too wide in spectrum to really say you've ever "lost" it. You can get the tiniest spark of creativity and make something of it, but too often people rely on suddenly being able to see it all in one grand vision, and when that vision never comes their fears and doubts build up and they ignore those tiny little sparks that would ordinarily propel them to great success.

It hardly ever works out to where you suddenly get this incredible dream of exactly what you should paint. As romantic and idealistic as it sounds, you shouldn't be relying on such things for your work. It's almost pure fantasy. I know some folks occasionally have a painting come to them, but even then the finished piece turns out even better because there's a human process between the initialization of an idea and its realization. Your own thoughts and experiences come between your ideas and your paintings, and it is those very thoughts and experiences that breathe life into your work!

What I'm trying to say here is that you are every bit as creative as you were back when you thought you "had it," the only difference is you've somehow learned to stop listening to those little sparks of creativity that used to be enough. Take a ball of clay, or some markers, or something and just start making random lines or blobs or whatever the hell you want, and then try to make something out of it. Do it a few times, as a warmup, and then go look at National Geographic or browse around the forums or anything at all until you've got a tiny little idea for a vague direction in which to take a painting.

And then go fucking paint it!

Once you get started, believe me, the ideas will flow. You'll do your research and you'll come across little ideas to put into a piece, and you'll get it done. But it takes just that tiny little bit of effort to get started, and if that's too big of a hurdle for you to leap then I don't know what to tell you.

[Sepulverture]

Plow through it, it's not some deep spiritual exercise, it's putting your pencil to a medium which can support lead, just draw some cool looking shit.
<3

yay light.

[jadefoodog]

muahahaha all this "creativity and inspiration" is nonsense. i personally have to write out a description of something in the most detail i can before i can consider drawing it or the vision will just not form. maybe im a crippled artist but i gots me crutches

[subversive-imaginati]

In danger? What? Will your pencil stab you to death if you don't draw? or something?

Sarcasm aside, there's not really any such thing as an art block. There is drawing and not drawing. So long as you are drawing even if it's not any good, you'll be fine.

Really it's just a case of putting pencil to paper and drawing. Inspiration isn't needed at all. Just consider it a bonus if you get it, otherwise just draw. Draw things around you, draw yourself, draw things on TV, draw things outside. Doesn't matter if it's good or not, draw for the sake of drawing.

[Vhan Juju]

draw for the sake of drawing.

Wow, I just got the best reason ever to not care at all what I'm drawing, or how I'm drawing, just to draw draw draw...

That was a nice little reminder.

Clueless sketch. I think your biggest problem is that your afraid to sketch: hence, "the block."

[s.ketch]

Do something completely crazy that you've never done before.

[bhanu]

completely seconding steves comment...
and yeah drawing for its own sake ....That has been my motto too .......Theres no better reason to do a thing than itself.

[watermonster]

During an art-block I had once, I rummaged through my old, unfinished artwork and finished one piece. It really helps sometimes, because you already have some ground to continue on.
Oh, and if you're short of idea, you can try skimming through your old sketchbooks and trying out old ideas you drew in there - that helped me.

[Blue]

You don't need inspiration to draw. Employ some self discipline. Maybe try some studies from books, copy something, google some interesting faces from Internet. Draw something you haven't before. Do your daily chores (keeping your room tidy and stuff like that) in timely manner and you'll be more motivated throughout the day. Try to start a routine to draw a little every day and the inspiration will hit sooner or later. The more you draw, the more you'll feel like drawing. At least that is the case with me.

I couldn't agree more.

[Arshes Nei]

Hmm...

http://painting.about.com/od/productreviews/fr/Art_and_Fear.htm

http://painting.about.com/b/2005/06/01/dipping-into-art-and-fear-again-2.htm

http://www.amazon.com/Art-Fear-David-Bayles/dp/0961454733

From Amazon:
Editorial Reviews
Book Description

"This is a book about making art. Ordinary art. Ordinary art means something like: all art not made by Mozart. After all, art is rarely made by Mozart-like people; essentially-statistically speaking-there aren't any people like that. Geniuses get made once-a-century or so, yet good art gets made all the time, so to equate the making of art with the workings of genius removes this intimately human activity to a strangely unreachable and unknowable place. For all practical purposes making art can be examined in great detail without ever getting entangled in the very remote problems of genius."
--from the Introduction

Art & Fear explores the way art gets made, the reasons it often doesn't get made, and the nature of the difficulties that cause so many artists to give up along the way. The book's co-authors, David Bayles and Ted Orland, are themselves both working artists, grappling daily with the problems of making art in the real world. Their insights and observations, drawn from personal experience, provide an incisive view into the world of art as it is expeienced by artmakers themselves.

This is not your typical self-help book. This is a book written by artists, for artists -- it's about what it feels like when artists sit down at their easel or keyboard, in their studio or performance space, trying to do the work they need to do. First published in 1994, Art & Fear quickly became an underground classic. Word-of-mouth response alone-now enhanced by internet posting-has placed it among the best-selling books on artmaking and creativity nationally.

Art & Fear has attracted a remarkably diverse audience, ranging from beginning to accomplished artists in every medium, and including an exceptional concentration among students and teachers. The original Capra Press edition of Art & Fear sold 80,000 copies.

An excerpt:

Today, more than it was however many years ago, art is hard because you have to keep after it so consistently. On so many different fronts. For so little external reward. Artists become veteran artists only by making peace not just with themselves, but with a huge range of issues. You have to find your work...

[figure2]

wrong wrong wrong WRONG WRONG WRONG

p.s. not picking on the previous post (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showpost.php?p=1606206&postcount=15) so much as this same issue that comes up time and time again. previous post just triggered a lot of anger! :)
Not sure why my post made you so angry. I tried to be as constructive as possible in my comments & suggestions. Unless you have experienced a prolonged creative block you're not exactly in a position to judge someone else.

And for the record I didn't run away. I found ways to continue to be an artist, I maintain my skills and between graphic design & some illustration I continue to work.

I have often wondered if Salvador Dali went through a similar creative block. When you look at the uninspired work he churned out in the latter part of his career it seems to make sense.

[Wetterschneider]

“Inspiration is for amateurs. I just get to work.” Chuck Close said this, and it is a mantra worth memorizing.

[Wetterschneider]

“Inspiration is for amateurs. I just get to work.” Chuck Close said this, and it is a mantra worth memorizing.

[Wetterschneider]

“Inspiration is for amateurs. I just get to work.” Chuck Close said this and it is a mantra worth memorizing.

[Wetterschneider]

“Inspiration is for amateurs. I just get to work.” Chuck Close said this and it is a mantra worth memorizing.

[markwagner]

Two Books:

1) Art & Fear
http://www.amazon.com/Art-Fear-David-Bayles/dp/0961454733/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1200831869&sr=1-1

2) The Courage to Create
http://www.amazon.com/Courage-Create-Rollo-May/dp/0393311066/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1200831908&sr=1-1

If you are also reading, get to know Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell. They talk about deeper rivers running deep.

One of my teachers once said, PUT IT INTO YOUR ART. Make some art about not being able to make art, tell a story about a kid who is stuck.

Also get some help, this stuff is heavy, not to be taken lightly. It's way serious, you mentioned heavy family stuff, don't let it take you down. Get some support to help you dance by your inner judge. There are low cost, sliding scale graduate student councilors in local schools psychology.

By nature you are free and creative, your just in an unnatural time and space. Trust that part of you that knows, it's there, in your center, connected to your source. Talk to your art, muse, ask it to teach you.

Best,
~Mark

email me through my web site, if you want to talk over the phone, give me your phone number.