Breaking out of the Creative Rut

"Lennui" (Boredom) by Gaston de La Touche, 1893

A friend sent me a message last month abut what to do to get out of a creative rut. It was a timely question, as I was just then trying to pull myself out of a 5 month dearth of creation.

She wrote, "My hubby says YOU SHOULD DO SOME PAINTING... I know, I know... I don't know what to do to inspire me... What methods would you use to get yourself out of a rut?"

I replied:
GOOD QUESTION! Especially now when I'm kind of in a painting drought myself. However, mine (or so my excuse goes) is not a creative rut, but a lack of time. Weeks ago there were other variables involved, but now it's become an unfortunate habit to fill in the days with 'necessary life functions', previously-ignored household and business chores, and newly-developing family obligations. Couple that with getting older and moving slower and the days seem like they're each about 2 and a half hours long! Before I know it another month is gone.

But I'm not helping much in that last paragraph! Sorry!

When I'm in a creative rut, the best thing to do is something different. When I was tired of painting cows etc one summer I did a little series of road sketches from photos out the windshield on vacations.

If you're having difficulty actually getting started, then start with a list. Over wine (or coffee, or your favorite refreshment, or bubble bath) have a little relaxation time and let your mind wander. Think about "what ifs..." what would you like to paint/draw if there were no obstacles, scheduling conflicts or painters block. This is easy to imagine because you can let it be a fantasy... When you're not actually in front of your blank canvas there's no pressure! Just imagine.

Now, write down all your ideas and go to bed.

If you're lucky you'll dream about actualizing your art ideas, and the next day you'll be excited about getting into some of them!

If you still can't just jump in, let your list of ideas brew for a few more days while you make a schedule of 'drawing/painting time' and put it on your calendar (put it in all the empty places after all your immovable priority necessary life stuff is written in). Then go back to your list and start planning. Visualize. Set goals.

Then, when it's time to jump in, you'll be a little bit more prepared. It still might be difficult but the starting is the hardest, as you probably know is true of so many things in life. Once you start the rest is easy and you'll wonder what took you so long!

A favorite quote from James Wyeth: "I do more painting when I'm not painting; it's in the subconscious."

Some other anti-rut ideas:
Visit a museum, walk in a park, browse art magazines, see a ballet or symphony, visit a zoo (my favorite!), take a road trip, watch a demo, take a workshop, browse youtube art videos, join a plein air group, enter a theme-specific art show, browse through your 300+ gigabytes of photo files (my other favorite!)

Well, sorry for the book here. But thanks for giving me an excuse to exercise my creative art-writing brain! (And I might actually use this as a blog post... multi-tasking, yea!)

Good luck, hope this helped!
Rita

PS: this post might have some helpful info also: http://ritakirkmanjournal.blogspot.com/2013/01/what-inspires.html