Sometimes it just happens, you hit a creative road block! A creative road block can be a significant life change, even the pandemic counts! It can be that it’s hard to find the time in your life for creativity. It could be from several combined factors or it could just be that you are not producing the work that you want. You go to start creating, you actually carved out the time but when your pencil hits the paper, there’s no magic, there’s no spark…it’s just nothing! Many people say never throw out anything, there’s no such thing as a mistake when it comes to making art! Well, I am not so sure! I have thrown out entire canvas paintings in the dumpster before! I probably should have recycled them and painted over them but when I am not happy with something I create, I feel compelled to rip it up out of fear of embarrassment. For me, not everything is beautiful that I create. I think it is that yin and yang relationship that is part of life. You have the highs and lows, the successes and the failures. It is all part of the journey. The most important thing is to never give up and to keep making your art.
“There’s something very free in knowing that you don’t have to share it, you don’t have to sell it, you just have to do it.”
Pattern Babe
Nobody sells their mistakes, no one celebrates their failures, so we give up when we hit that creative road block, we just stop and our art comes to a screeching halt! At least that’s what I did. It took me nearly a decade to start creating art again. Now I have learned, if I ever hit a creative road block again, not to give up, but to take a short break. I think a creative break can be excellent for a creative road block. It also doesn’t have to be an actual break in creating, but maybe it is a break in showing or exhibiting your art.
I read an article today that inspired me to write this post about creative road blocks. There was a creative activity shared in the article that stood out to me. The activity was to journal what comes to mind and then painting over the words so no one sees it. This also seems like a great creative activity you can replicate with your art. You can just paint over your art instead of tossing it away like I had and maybe then the painting becomes the art or maybe it doesn’t! The goal is not to focus on creating something good or bad, it’s just to create. I always thought of writing or art as something permanent. I always believed that the last step in the creative process was to show your work. But naturally as human beings, there are parts of us that are public and private. Not every piece of art has to be shown. There’s something very free in knowing that you don’t have to share it, you don’t have to sell it, you just have to do it. I also think of photographers. They love to take so many photos because they say they are trying to get that one perfect shot! They know that a majority of them will just not work out. What if we looked at our art in the same way, and tell ourselves that the majority will just not work out. That is why we can’t rely on any one piece of work to be magic, it may not even be a creative road block like we think. It is just a natural part of the creative process that every artist goes through. So keep making the bad and the good art and share all of it or share what you want. The choice is yours. Now I know why they say, there are no mistakes in art making. It is not a mistake, it is a creative path towards taking that right shot. So get out there, get out your paint brushes, pencils or markers/crayons, needle and thread and create past your next creative road block!
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