Keeping Creativity Flowing

Overcoming creative block and tips to stay inspired.

Creating artwork for clients is usually the most challenging work for me but I think collaborating with other artists and companies has resulted in some of my best work. I studied Design at university so the process is familiar to me. There is a client. a brief, parameters, a timeline of due dates and feedback along the way until the delivery of the final artwork. And while it comes with more pressure when you feel responsible for the outcome and sales of the final product, there are also people to provide direction and suggestions, to share ideas with and to provide feedback and guidance along the way. During this time I am completely focused on making the best work I can but I also imagine all the personal projects I would love to work on when the client’s project is finished.

And then that time comes when I am free to work on whatever I want and suddenly I feel stuck, a little drained and perhaps a touch burnt out. It’s not that I don’t have any ideas but more that the ideas need to be sorted and prioritized and it’s not so much a creative block but more a state of creative procrastination. The brain starts to overthink everything and the questions crowd in until you become paralyzed and unable to make a start. Will anyone like the new idea? Will anyone buy it? This idea is very different to other work I have made - is it too different? Is it good enough? How could it be better? The list of questions goes on. I love the work I get to do every day but it is not without its challenges. I am writing this journal entry as a sort of go-to guide for myself but hope that it might also help anyone else in a creative field who might be feeling a bit lost in direction or overwhelmed by the next step to take. These are some of the things I do that work to keep me inspired or to spark new ideas and enable me to stay creative.

1.Travel Somewhere

Most of us haven’t been doing too much of this in recent years but it is inspiring to see people’s travel photos popping up again. There is no doubt that traveling to a different city or, if you are lucky enough a different country, fills you with inspiration as your senses are exposed to new sights and sounds, a different culture and different energy in the air. And if the travel is purely for holiday, then you are generally in a more relaxed state and ready to take it all in without the feeling of having to have results on a page at the end of the week. After working in the jewellery industry mostly designing engagement rings for a few years after university, I really didn’t want to look at jewellery anymore. I took a job teaching English in Japan for a chance to travel and then a good few years later on a holiday to Europe, I remember stumbling across a contemporary jewellery gallery in Frankfurt that reignited my desire to make jewellery and set me back on a creative pathway when I returned to Japan.

2 Take a Walk or go for a Drive

Of course travel is fantastic but not all of us have the time or funds to just take off at the moment so my next tip is just to physically leave the house (if you work from home) or studio. Sometimes just being a tourist in your own city feels uplifting or taking a drive to the beach or the hills feels like a mini holiday. I like to go for walks and just observe the changes in the gardens from season to season or visit the Botanic gardens and take photos of the flowers and plants that catch my eye. I’m not necessarily looking for anything in particular but I know that at least I will have new visual material in my brain to process and that just might lead to a new idea or new direction.

3 Be Inspired by other Creative Fields

I love to visit art galleries and of course I love to follow other artist’s work that I admire but often I feel inspired by reading stories about creative individuals in other fields like dancers or musicians or seeing interesting architecture, ceramics or interior design. Reading about other people’s commitment to their craft makes me feel motivated to work harder and explore other ideas in my own work.

4 Stop Scrolling and put your phone is a different room

This has been some of the best advice my hubby gave me and a more recent practice that I work at which has helped with productivity. My phone used to be the last thing I would see at night and the first thing I would look at in the morning when my alarm rang but for the last year or so I now use an old fashioned alarm clock and follow the rule that you shouldn’t look at your phone for the first hour in the morning and no longer have my phone in the bedroom overnight. If you look at the stats on how many hours you spend on each app and how many times you pick up your phone an hour you will likely be shocked. It’s a time vacuum! So I try to leave my phone is a different room while I work and only check in on messages when I’m on a break. And while I enjoy Instagram, I limit the amount of time I spend on there and have no other social media apps on my phone. There are thousands of creatives on Instagram who are way more talented and creative than me and it’s not helpful to overwhelm myself when I need to focus on what I want to contribute creatively to this world.

5 Chat with other Creatives

One of the things I enjoy about doing design markets, is the opportunity to catch up with other creatives and hear about their work and share our successes and struggles. This always leaves me feeling positive about future projects and keeps me inspired to generate new ideas. A shared studio space with a group of designers/makers probably wouldn’t work for me as I would spend too much time chatting and not get enough work done but it might be ideal for you. It definitely helps to have people around that understand what it’s like to run a small creative business and to be able to ask for advice and share tips or get feedback. And while I just advised spending less time on social media it can be a great place to connect with other designers and makers and also a way to have feedback from people who follow and buy your work.

6 Open a Book

Yes, a real book with pages! I have a collection of treasured books I have bought in gallery bookshops that often sit on my shelf unopened for months but in times where I feel stuck I like to flick through them and look at the pictures and remind myself of the feelings I had when I saw the original pieces.

7 Study Something

I wish I could prioritize more time for this. There is always something to learn and the older I get, the less I feel that I know. Formal courses can be expensive but there are so many options to learn and many people willing to share their knowledge with online tutorials or short, in person workshops. I enrolled in the Lila Rogers ‘Make Art that Sells’ course 4 or 5 years ago and while I didn’t complete every project, it did make me try new techniques and push myself to finish artwork by a certain date. It also provided a community of like minded souls to support and inspire each other. Learning a new skill just might lead to a whole new way of working or at least push you out of your comfort zone.

8 Go Back over Old Sketches

This one really helps me a lot. I keep pages and pages of sketches and colour roughs and keep them in boxes separated by themes for example patterns, Australian natives, client projects, imaginary flowers etc. Whenever I feel really stuck I just look through these and pull out the pages that I see something that I might be able to work with or develop further. It always leads me to the next step.

9 Just Begin

As I mentioned before I think we aren’t really creatively blocked, we just procrastinate and find it hard to begin. My solution for this is to draw on loose sheets of recycled A4 paper and just start doodling anything. I like the sheets of paper as I don’t feel precious about them and can also spread them out so if there is one idea on a page I can use it to develop on the next page and if I really don’t like anything on the page I can just remove that page from the collection and add the others to my box of sketches. It helps to just draw or doodle with no expectation and I find that eventually I discover something in a sketch that I can work with. I often like to doodle later in the evenings and since it’s not possible to go outdoors for inspiration in the dark, I sometimes search online for photos of rare flowers or photographs of native Australian plants that I may use as a starting point for a sketch.

10 Listen to Music

Music is incredibly motivating and inspiring and I find it helps me to stay focused for longer amounts of time while I am working. I also try to draw the sounds and shapes I visualize when I hear different instruments so this might work for you too as a starting point.

11 Take a Nap and Dream

It’s not something I often get a chance to do but sometimes a restful afternoon nap somewhere between wake and sleep is a lovely place where ideas can enter the mind freely. I also try to remember my dreams in the morning as sometimes I have seen whole jewellery collections and even designed fashion in my dream state which I think is fascinating.

I’m always interested to hear how other creator’s work. I know for some people the ideas flow freely and their problem is they don’t have enough hours in a day to get all their ideas out. I would love to hear what inspires you and sparks your creativity.

Claire Ishino23 July 2022Comment