is creativity a learnable skill [Archive]

wil.whalen

January 2nd, 2007, 12:05 AM

The same way you can improve anything; use it every chance you get.

An exercise I've done to try and improve creativity:
Do a thumbnail and then do 5 variations off the same idea. Then do 5 more off of each of those. Keep going until you get something you like, or just keep going until you can't think of anything else at all. Make each one distinctly different, and see where it carries you.

BlackGuy

January 2nd, 2007, 12:09 AM

but when you lack creativity, the problem is that you can't think of anything at all in the first place isn't it?

Tully

January 2nd, 2007, 12:45 AM

A big part of creativity comes from being interested in stuff. For the longest time, I was really interested in characters and creatures, but not that interested in environments and vehicles. I liked them fine when other people did them, but didn't think I had much aptitude in that direction.

Lately I've done a whole lot of work on more techy and environment stuff. A whole world has opened up, let me tell you! Now that I have a store of info about these things in my head, I can draw from it and make interesting things like I've never been able to before. Further work will just make the store even bigger and better.

It was basically just *doing* it.. looking at other people's work, photo reference and all sorts of things. Every concept I've done has been an improvement. Did I magically become more creative? Heck no :P I'm working hard and getting better.

BlackGuy: there's never a "can't think of anything in the first place." If you can't think of something, it's often gonna be because you don't know enough about the subject in the first place, and it's especially bad if you don't want to know. There's lots of resources to find out, and you can if you just look.

Björn

January 2nd, 2007, 02:28 AM

As Tully saiz, a lot comes from curiousity.

Also the fact that the better you can draw shapes and forms, the better you can articulate new ideas.

blanquish

January 2nd, 2007, 02:51 AM

An english teacher once told my class to ask him a yes or no questions of a book he had written. Some questions were" does it contain goblins, dragons, was it set in an elizebethan period, is the pratogogist(bg sp there)a gay metrosexual dancer. He answered or questions..yes or no.
Afterwards he told us he answered or questions if the first letter started with a vowel or not etc.

This started because the kids complained of lack of ideas.

I have a few methods for originality.
get a friend, partner, yourself, dog etc, to give you some shapes on a page . Get the page back and stare at it for a while, flip it, scrunch it, until you see something . Ive come up with some weird stuff from random doodles.
Same goes with painting. Large abstract texture brushes can give thousands of environment ideas.

I also have a game I play with my friends.
The first person draws the head, folds the paper and hands it over, the next person draws the neck and torso, until you work your way down tp the feet.
While the end result is usually out of proportion, you can achieve some weird designs..

I also believe creativity comes after experience. When you have light, rendering and form down pat, you can go anywhere.

my 2cs

M.C.Barrett

January 2nd, 2007, 02:53 AM

Regarding being interested in things as fuel for creativity, once exercise I've found that really gets me in a curious mood, leading me to things I hadn't predicted, is the good ol' Wikipedia Crawl. I might start off with one idea, looking for reference for, say, a shark. I get to the shark portal and boy oh boy I start clicking down the links (hooray for tabbed browsing). Before I know it, something deep down in that stack of tabs has pulled me off into ancient fish, the ordovician period, the tree of life, and then by some wiki-miracle, traditional western Mongolian wrestling. This is wonderful exercise for the curious mind, good training for following creative urges however subtle, however divergent. All the while, my brain is getting filled with random images, but unlike random images in other contexts, these are following a thread of interest, and so I'm inherently interested in each one. Things stick when that happens, and then you have a library of images to inspire and provide solutions and materials for creative endeavours.

DavePalumbo

January 2nd, 2007, 03:17 AM

but when you lack creativity, the problem is that you can't think of anything at all in the first place isn't it?

when people say that they can't think of anything to draw, I don't think that this is actually the problem they are facing. I mean, I can't really say what goes on in other people's heads, but it seems to me far more likely that they can't decide on anything to draw.

For example: When you get to that point where you feel like you're ready to start putting together a portfolio and you want to get busy on that first painting, many people find themselves in the "first I need an amazing idea" mindset, and that's death to creativity right there. They can't commit to an idea because they either keep changing it, or they keep thinking of other ideas and can't decide. This might sound productive, but it's quite the opposite. It's paralyzing. Instead of working on a good idea and then moving on to the next, you never get off the ground. You stall, you get hyper critical of every idea you come up with, and eventually you decide that you have no ideas at all, or at least no good ones.

This is a more dramatic example of "nothing to draw". Feeling like you don't know what to draw seems to me mostly a lack of commitment to an idea. Not that every idea is wirth committing to, but you need to get your ball rolling. If you're halfway through and you think of something better, great. Jot it down and come back to it when you finish the first thing. Keep your ball rolling. Don't worry about the "best" idea, just try to keep doing "good" ideas.

NoSeRider

January 2nd, 2007, 07:58 AM

is creativity a learnable skill

I think so. I come from the most culturally deprived area when it comes to concept designing. It's only recently when Jim Lee moved to La Jolla and a couple of local schools moved to Encinitas that I finally believe it's possible to make a living do this.....keep in mind this is the past 10 years....I got history.

Before then, people would actually discourage me, yet I pretty much learned what I know on my own....I've only been going to school for the past 2 years to get new insights and break old habits.

Now I just got to shake off all this negative crap people fed me while growing up about 'not' being able to make a living doing art.......you can 'learn' uncreative shit too.

My family, and my local community, knows as much about art as you'd know about astro physics....nada.......they don't know nothing about astro physics either.

I've also looked at concept art from 10 to 20 years ago as well. It seemed more niave then. So, apparently creativity is a skill that is still being learned by everyone.

entdroid

January 2nd, 2007, 08:47 AM

There you go:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creativity_techniques

Dile_

January 2nd, 2007, 08:49 AM

but when you lack creativity, the problem is that you can't think of anything at all in the first place isn't it?

Well, what Dave said was an exellent answer, also, what you talk about
is inspiration, or motivation to draw , creativity is something different.
If you being very creative your probably being more original.
If you being less creative , you probably doing the same shit
every body else would have done in the first place ;)

Edit* Thanks Entroid!

~Dile

Summer Pudding

January 2nd, 2007, 09:16 AM

going slightly off topic here,

In costume and set design, I think an interest in history is especially useful, to a concept artist at any rate. Research into the fashion and architecture of the past will trigger a wealth of new ideas. Familiarise yourself with the trends and archetypal imagery of the era you're working with.

I've worked on projects where the use of historical reference was discouraged. This often leads to a confused, disjointed aesthetic, and should be avoided at all costs!

Pete

PS: don't confuse creativity with technical skill. Being able to draw an accurate, dynamic human is all very well and good, but if his/her costume is a derrivative clone of a clone, where's the creativity?

FabianV

January 2nd, 2007, 10:49 AM

An exercise I've done to try and improve creativity:
Do a thumbnail and then do 5 variations off the same idea. Then do 5 more off of each of those. Keep going until you get something you like, or just keep going until you can't think of anything else at all. Make each one distinctly different, and see where it carries you.

wil.whalen - Thanks man, I'll try this

A big part of creativity comes from being interested in stuff. For the longest time, I was really interested in characters and creatures, but not that interested in environments and vehicles. I liked them fine when other people did them, but didn't think I had much aptitude in that direction.

Lately I've done a whole lot of work on more techy and environment stuff. A whole world has opened up, let me tell you!

Tully - I've felt like this so many times, believing that characters and creatures is my direction and always loving environments but acknowledging that it is something I could never really do myself. You've encouraged me to try doing some enviros!

I've found that really gets me in a curious mood, leading me to things I hadn't predicted, is the good ol' Wikipedia Crawl.

M.C.Barrett - Wikipedia should be renamed to "Inspirator" lol.. It is funny how you stumble upon an article which eventually leads you to 10 or more other articles! The desire to learn is so great and fulfilling on Wikipedia! :rendered:

DavePalumbo - Everything you've said is so true.. how many times have I tried drawing a finished piece deliberately only to realise that its the WORST way of going about things.. most good ideas just come from exploring and not narrowing down your options.

NoSeRider - Yeah damn its so frustrating when you have family and friends that cant acknowledge or appreciate the field you're in because they simple have no grasp of it. There are times I feel like ripping my hair out when someone thinks im merely spending time infront of the pc or wasting my time infront of sketches. I feel your pain man.

All very good insights guys.. thanks for sharing.

Moai

January 2nd, 2007, 11:14 AM

Cthogua

January 2nd, 2007, 11:35 AM

I think alot of people are afriad of chaos when it comes to a source for inspiration, like somehow, since the idea didn't arrive fully formed in their head it's not "theirs" Chaos can be a powerful tool to pull you in directions you would have never conciously chosen. That doesn't make it not yours, it just means you had to be proded out of your comfortable creative niche. I'm specifically talking about "forced hallucination" type techniques where something is drawn from a large chaotic texture, or overlayed drawings. Obviously this is good for some things and not so hot for others, but if you're searching for something beyond the same crap you do everyday, you may find it there. There are also a multitude of other techniques for arriving at novel solutions for things, check out the book "Whack on the Side of the Head" It can be a little cheesey at times, but the information is gold

...and yeah to join the chorus I think creativitly is learnable, however I don't think it's so much a skill as a state of mind where conceptual barriers between ideas are removed and things can mingle freely without categories or "boxes." This is what hangs alot of people up. A skill requires physical effort and a certian amount of enthusiasm to improve, it gets muddier when you start talking about learning how to foster or create "states of mind." I find that alot of people have some severe blocks in their thought process that inhibit both their learning and their creativity. Simply keeping an open mind about everything will go a long way toward improving your creativity.

Sierra T. Rush

January 2nd, 2007, 03:49 PM

Someone said earlier, to get a partner, or dog to give you shapes on a page.

I've had someone draw a single line on a page, not straight, perfect(it can be..but generally that doesn't work out too well) and then i'd draw off of it, if it was nose shaped, I made it a face. If it was a line with straight angles in it I made it into something else.

You just have to push yourself to see things you aren't seeing.

JAG.

January 2nd, 2007, 04:27 PM

i believe creativity and imagination go hand in hand. cant really work well on one without the other.

for example: if i gave you a block of wood and said 'how many uses can you think of for this?' or 'how many indoor uses could you use this wood?'
this would exercise your creativity. even more so if i asked 'can you think of a way to use this block of wood that would make jumping easier? [or something]

creativity makes you think of things in new or different ways.

imagination, however, allows you to think of anything you want in any way you like.

if i give you an ice cream cone and said 'imagine if this ice cream cone could talk.. what would it say?' or 'imagine this ice cream cone going off to fight a dragon.. how do you think it would do it?'

so then combine the two.. imagine the situation and its elements.. then get creative to really bring them to the surface to display.. in art form or maybe a story.

as far as improving it as a skill.. id suggest doing what was just done: ask youreself ridiculous questions and come up with reasonable answers to them.. do this often and everywhere. thats a simple an exrcise as you can get i think - JAG

AdamDillabo

January 2nd, 2007, 08:02 PM

i think you really hit the nail on the head dave. ill definitely take that advise to heart.

yeah barrett i tend to look threw wikipedia a lot too. i love all those clickys. also still being in high school i look threw my science and history books. being in marine-bio this semester i tend to draw a lot more sea monsters, manatee inspired is this weeks topic.

Tocace

October 21st, 2007, 05:51 PM

very interesting debate about the creative thinking process, i didn't realize that i can use some exercise to build up my creativity, i don't have problem with making creative stuff....but my problem is the one that DavePalumbo describes, and i can't seem to get out of that.....so any advice would be welcome :nohope:

Shadowwing

October 21st, 2007, 10:59 PM

well...I have met a lot of people who have absolutely no imagination or creativity. All they do is stare at blank space, hold menial jobs (like at post office or clerk). Can they learn to be creative? Hmmmm...maybe, but they would have to put an effort into doing and learning. Otherwise, no.

I just think some people are better at it than others, and get even better with practice.

chobomaster

October 22nd, 2007, 12:37 AM

I think there's many ways to increase your creativity. One of my favorites is something I learned from loomis in Fun With A Pencil (you can dl online of course). In the first few pages he shows how you can turn the most lopsided circle into a really good looking head.

You can take it a step further and just make random marks on a piece of paper and see what it transforms into. It's like making your own Rorschach blot, "what do I see in this weird ass scribble".

I read a tut by Bobby Chiu doing the same thing. Well any Bobby Chiu tutorial will help with your creativity for that matter.

Also, going with the thumbnail thing. Creativity isn't always on. You gotta warm up to it if you just woke up. Sometimes I sit down and make a bunch of thumbs/doodles for random things, the first 5 are crap but then they get better and better after you do 10 more.

KidApe

October 22nd, 2007, 01:23 AM

of course ya can, try to be more aware of the subtleties around you and be inspired by your environment=D

dbclemons

October 22nd, 2007, 09:21 AM

We're all born with an imagination, but creativity goes beyond that. The root of the word is create. Your concept is not going anywhere unless you put it to action and make something out of it, so don't get trapped by second guessing yourself to its value before you have a chance to work it out. Often, just going through the motions can loosen up your thought process to free up better ideas. If the engine has died, it may need a push to get it going. Some ideas will look weaker on the page than they did in your head, but you won't know it until you get there. Also, don't shy away from reworking an idea from different points of view, even if it looks okay as it is.

Lohan

October 22nd, 2007, 10:16 AM

I find the daily sketch activity here helps a lot with creativity. you're forced to come up with something in 1 day and it just gets your mind flowing and accustomed to producing something.

Vhan Juju

October 22nd, 2007, 11:19 AM

Ok, I didn't read any of the posts before this, because I'm on limited time, but here it is anyway.

Creatitivity isn't learned, its understood.

here is the deal, Ever met one of those "Logicical" people, who deny in any way of being creatitive because of countless excueses.

Well, to me, whenever someone says "I'm just not creatitive, I have to be logical I can't help it"

This is what they are really saying to me.

"Don't ask me to think for myself, give me facts that can't be argued, and a graph to go by, because I'M SCARED"

I think that some of you here would have to agree with me, being creatitve, takeing a stand on something that doesn't have a firm point to argue on, and everything that comes with it can be a very, very scary thing.

There a lots of people out there who simpley, don't want to, and are scared of thinking. about comeing to a deeper understanding of life, themselfs, outhers...

doeh, ran out of time, maybe a good thing I was kinda starting to ramble there...

Cookiedough

October 22nd, 2007, 11:34 AM

I read some posts. Creativity seems to have become some mish mash word to put art-stuff in. Creativity is a problemsolving ability. Everyone has that. It just is a li'l more apparent in art fields, cos usually it leads to 1 final result. Creative thinking is something that definitely can be learned, improved and applied to ALL fields.

Artistic skill however, that's second. That's about other factors, like experience, technical understanding, material usage etc etc.. Art can be just as mechanical as working in some factory, but the view usually is that 'art' is more creative.

In short, i find creativity a bit of an overrated word.

Also, there are so many activities going on CA that can help you form a goal to do something with that 'creativity'. It's just a method. Overall, it just comes down to finding a goal > finding a way to work towards that goal> work on piece > finish.

Also check other boards, they often have their own activities, so there's variation (Illustration Friday is a weekly activity too). Music helps, so does tv/movies. But also real life situations, conversations and stupid pranks. The problem isn't that perhaps to find an inspirationmethod, but more... to find a proper goal and the energy to keep going.

Vhan Juju

October 22nd, 2007, 03:16 PM

I don't get why everyone seems to think that "Creative" is some sort of problem solveing method...

I don't have a websters with me, or I would look it up for myself, but if said that it was a problem solveing ability, I would still have to dissagree.

Look at the baseword "create" Its MAKEING something, Building it....

Cookiedough

October 22nd, 2007, 06:17 PM

steve kim

October 23rd, 2007, 06:02 AM

Hmm, i guess i meant creative thinking more specifically, english is not my first language. I still find problem solving accurate, you're still coming up with a method/creation that has a function/goal for a higher purpose.

yea but how does this good 'creation' come to be? you take a stab at it, it's not good. you 'fix the problems' until it is. hence problem solving if you wanna think of it that way. a gross simplification but a valid one.

a problem with creatives is that for a lot of people their nack for problem solving diminishes as they become more and more competent in their field. you can see this in 'established' artists who essentially do the same thing over and over once they feel good about what they do. they solved a lot of problems to get to the point where they are, but once at a certain plateau the 'problems' are seemingly not as important as they once were.

Liam Harvey

October 23rd, 2007, 07:36 AM

y'see i have agazillion sketchbooks of pages trying to accomplish that image in my head. The image itself is not very original, but it is mine, and thus a pool of multiple ideas and brainwaves written as picture, how that picture is completed is done through creativity.

after reviewing my old sketchbooks i feel inspired, i beleive that stevekim's theory has great merit.
looking for inspiration and creativity? i think concept art is one of my favourite places to be really because it is only inspiriation and creativity.

Thats enough crazy babble for now. go talk to a sane person now okay?

lumar

October 23rd, 2007, 09:58 AM

nature vs nurture isnt supposed to be a dichotomy. they are not mutually exclusive and both may contribute to a persons creativity.

i think that the more you stimulate yourself with creative things then the more naturally creative you will become. watch movies, buy sweet books of art, pixar art mmmm. be a wierdo - that helps

Vhan Juju

October 23rd, 2007, 12:08 PM

If it is the flower, it is hidden.
If it is not hidden, it is not the flower.

Creatitivety is gone the second you look for it, you have to learn to not seek IT, but to understand.

Azeltron

October 23rd, 2007, 05:52 PM

This is my way how I create, how I approach a art craft. IT work for writing, directing, drawing, animation ect ect. You cant create from nothing in your mind. You have to build up a library of images, idea and concept. When I mean concept is about a kind of philosophy and a way thing influence each other. A kind of a metaphysic structure how ideas interacting . Building this in your mind is a long process. But It is the key to create stuff.

How to do it. RESEARCH, RESEARCH, reading, thinking, and variety. Do not focus on somthing. Get interest in math, physic, art, history, mind disorder, philosophy, culture anything with no conection to each other. If you stay focus on one thing you gonna be restraint in your creation method.

So what then... After let say, six month of intense research and reading of various subject, you brain will start to create connection between stuff that ad no conection, now.... you creating something interesting, that is not just vulgar goblin or general cyborg.

Ok at this point dont touch your craft yet. You have to think. Make it clear what you want in your head. Go walk. Look around you. Comtemplate nature, people, building, cars, boat. Be one with your mind and feel what you gonna create.

After that, you are ready to start your craft. Writing, drawing ect.

So this is my way I do it. It help me to be very creative and save time on many projects, specialy on 300 ;)