Aaah yes, a creators quandary. You wanna make something, but your brain sez nah. ‘Why, brain? Why are you being like this right now? I’ve been in lockdown for 3 fucking weeks. I have more time on my hands then I’ve ever had, why can’t you help me out here?’ You plead.

Here’s the thing, I’m going a little mad too. I’m an introvert at heart and I LOVE solitude but this has gotten a little ridiculous. Also, I adore my husband but honestly, I need a little variety in my human interaction - and this extends to my art time.

When your gym, therapist lounge, yoga studio, rumpus room, kitchen and office is all the EXACT SAME SPACE, you are going to be crawling up the walls and maybe even speaking to your plants a little more than usual.

There is absolutely nothing less inspiring than the exact same 4 walls of your house every single damn day (unless you live in a mansion, in which case good for you pal). So, give your poor brain a break and let’s try a few things to get us thinking outside our living room.

Below I’ve made a list of 5 actionable and simple ways to spice up yo art lyf and get your pencil gliding across the page as gracefully as a vinyasa flow when you’re feeling extra flexy.

Shut your eyes and draw a shape you know well, maybe a flower or your fur baby, and just bloody go to town. Get scribbly, exaggerate the ears or petals and let loose. No peaking!! I 100% guarantee it will look nothing like you thought it did in your head, probably a bit lopsided, which is always a fun little surprise. Don’t worry about it being good - not the point here. I call this a warm-up technique, because after a long day of emails, spreadsheets and generally staring at a screen for too long, you’ll need to stretch your analogue art muscles a little before creating anything aMaZiNg or dEceNT.
Blindly choose a random pencil colour, think of a basic shape and purposely created BAD ART. The worse, the better. Go on, get awful with it. When there's zero expectation for it to be any good, then usually it's better than you expect.
Choose paper that's unusual or different to your standard choice. I like to reach for my hot pink paper because I gotta think more about what colours will work with that hue. Also it's a good chance to use white pencil/chalk to add that extra element of highlights!
Draw your subject upside down. A technique I swear by when teaching realistic work; when you're observing your reference upside down, you don't try to draw the object how you think it should look, but instead you see the arbitrary shapes and squiggles that form it. It's a way to unlearn how you see things, and re-learn how to interpret something into a realistic drawing.
It is time to remove the packaging. Maybe you have a new set of brushes lying around or a tube of gouache you haven’t used yet - unwrap that new medium you haven’t had time to play with and FINALLY PLAY WITH IT. Come on, it’s been ages - now is the time. No, you will have no idea what you’re doing… but what artist knows what they are doing before they do it? It doesn’t matter. I still have no idea if I’m using Prismacolor’s correctly but it just so happens to be my most used tool for client work. For some reason my go-to shape for playing with new mediums is to draw a 5-leaf flower. What’s the first thing that comes to your head? Draw that.

The idea here is to jazz things up and go against whatever feels natural to you. You already know what you naturally want to do - but that’s not what experimentation is about. It’s about giving something a go, because until you try it, you’ll never know what you can create and how much inspiration it’ll reverberate back to you.

Since you’ve read this for, I can’t end this list without suggesting my free weekly creative newsletter: Lockdown Art Club. It encompasses all of the above points, promising to challenge you on a regular basis and get you creating art in a way that you haven’t before. Inspired by our current situation, it’s a little dose of inspiration to continue growing your art practice and enjoy your time indoors - and just generally having a whale of a time. Just add wine.

Thanks for reading! Have a fab rest of your month and hit me up on IG if you’ve given any of the above a try!! Love when you guys go rogue ;)

Bye!!

P.s. If you like what you’ve read - show us some love and send me a little hearty! (Tap the heart at the bottom right). Hearts make me happy.

5 break-thru steps for forging creativity when you're not feelin' it.