Goblin's Guide to Recovery: CREATIVITY

How to recover your creativity and push past the artist/writer blocks!

This week, it’s time to push past the creative blocks and the overwhelming stack of half finished or half started projects you said you were going to tackle a year ago.

Photo by Europeana on Unsplash

I don’t know about you, but I am feeling quite Zen these days. Although my body during this bodybuilding prep is really starting to hurt (as we are now under 4 weeks out!), I am so sure in myself and I have not been this positive and excited about my progress in a while! But more on that later.

Today, we’re getting artsy.

Hunt and gather

Inspiration is all around us. As I mentioned in Monday’s post, social media is seldom a place for inspiration — it’s a place for envy. Start consuming media that calls you to action! It doesn’t have to be Substack, although, there are incredible resources here! It can be a recipe book, the library, your old journals, a museum. If you don’t feel it move you, then it’s probably not contributing any spark to light your creative fire.

Pinterest is an odd in-between of sorts. It gives me tons of ideas and I can gather so many notes and tutorials and sketch references to refer to later. I even save color stories on there! But that’s the thing. It’s never-ending. And thus begins the cycle of doom scrolling Pinterest, saving ideas you’ll never revisit. And ooh look, a pretty recipe for early grey cookies that require way too many exotic ingredients! *save*

Unlessss you routinely pick up your art journal (or sketchbook or art book or however you wish to refer to it) to start studies and copying poses. It’s a fickle thing, Pinterest.

Treat your art journal as if Pinterest were to, God forbid, explode one day. All those ideas and references gone. Sketch, sketch, sketch, darling, goblins! Scribble! Copy! Scratch! Write!

The hardest part

…is starting.

Remember your friend, the art journal? Whatcha got in there?? Ideas, darling! IDEAS! I know you’ve got at least a handful of thumbnails that are worth revisiting. One of my favorite ways to transfer a sketch idea into a drawing is to literally take a photo of the sketch on my iPad, import it into ProCreate, and draw on top of it.

But maybe starting an actual “piece” isn’t where you are right now. Let’s start else where: set creative goals. Go into your Notes app in your phone and sort the small goals, the the big ones. Perhaps even do a bit of trimming of the goals that may not actually serve you in the end.

But perhaps your artist block is so blocked that you don’t even have goals right now. And that’s okay! Scribble, brain dump, light a candle, set the mood, empty the contents of your brilliant mind somewhere.

Don’t worry about making it organized or pretty. Just get it down. Just get that mental load out. There. Now things shouldn’t at least feel so overwhelming once you have something tangibly in front of you to work with.

The antidote

Boredom. Yes, you seething goblin. Lock your phone for an hour. And fill your time with something that will make you forget that you had your phone locked to begin with!

• Read fiction

• Take some watercolors or art supplies outside and do some Plein air studies

• Journal/brain dump

• Go on a hike (bring a pocketbook to catch fleeting thoughts or sketching faeries)

• Flip through a magazine

• Find at least 5 books to study from at the library

• Sketch

All of these activities require a bit of brain-on leisure (as opposed to more relaxing brain-off hobbies like playing a cozy game or coloring in a coloring book). This is because it will keep your brain stimulated just enough for you to produce the coveted idea.

Share what you’ve created! I want to seeee!

Until our next encounter, goblins! I wish you great rest, recovery, and an unclogged imagination.

Miss last week’s post on Recovery? Go back and get spiritual, lyrical, miracle…but still introverted:

Thanks for following along with this Goblin’s Guide to Recovery Series! This series will be added to every Wednesday for the next 6 weeks! If you subscribe for free, you will get these things with this challenge:

• Exercises to explore in your journal or sketchbook

• Product recommendations

• Tips and ways to physically, mentally, creatively and spiritually recover.

• Full access to community comments and support (Yes, even those are free!)