Strategies for Getting Out of an Art Slump

Recently, I’ve felt like I’ve gotten into an art slump. I’m not making art as often as I used to, even though I want to. Mostly, this is an issue of time, but I find that I procrastinate on starting to do art even when I do find time! What’s up with that? I like it. I want to do it. Yet, I struggle to get back in. What’s up with that?

I’m trying these strategies to help, though, be warned, I don’t have a “tried and true” answer to this question.

Art droughts can be self-perpetuating. When your art routines are disrupted, it’s hard to find your way back in, especially if they’ve gotten displaced by other routines. You can get out of the habit of being inspired. The longer you go, the more intimidating it can feel to get started again. So how do you break out of that cycle?

Strategies

I’ve categorized my strategies based on your primary reason for being in the funk.

• I don’t know what to paint: Increase inspiration
• I’m intimidated! It’s too hard!: Decrease difficulty
• I don’t have space/time: Make room
• I dunno man, I just kinda don’t want to: Take a break

Let’s look at what each of these looks like.

Strategy #1: Increase inspiration

Basically, this method increases your exposure to the stimuli that inspire you in order to raise your motivation to do art. 

Not all forms of motivation are inspiring

Not all forms of motivation are equal. I intentionally used the word “inspiration” for this section and not the more general “motivation” because I find many traditional forms of motivation to be counterproductive to creativity. Here are some forms of motivation I find do not work:

• Negative emotions like guilt, fear, and shame
• A sense of duty or obligation, e.g. a promise to someone else
• Most forms of extrinsic motivation (e.g. money)
• Desire to improve/level up
• Investment in a particular outcome (e.g. wanting art to hang in the house)
• Deadlines

These forms of motivation can have a chilling effect on my actual desire to do art, causing me to freeze up instead of get to work. 

Inspiration = curiosity

So what does work? The main emotion that actually gets me to pick up a paintbrush is curiosity. 

• How could such-and-such effect be achieved in watercolor?
• How could I mix that color?
• What would happen if I tried…?
• Is it possible to…
• What if…

Working backwards, the way to engage curiosity is to put myself in situations where those types of questions arise. For example:

• Observing my favorite subjects in real life
• Consuming art
• Explicit learning

Specific actions to increase inspiration

• Browse art books or leaf through an art magazine
• Take a walk in nature
• Create a mood board or otherwise organize your reference photos (hello, Camera Roll posts)
• Increase consumption of other art, even art that doesn’t seem directly related (like watching great movies and shows, reading novels and poetry, and listening to new music)
• Dabble in other art forms, such as doing photography or trying a new medium
• Take an interesting class or workshop
• Join an online challenge where multiple artists take on the same prompt
• Add constraints
• Try something difficult

I find I am most receptive to inspiration if I engage in these activities with a sense of open-mindedness and no expectations, not with a singleminded white-knuckle sense of purpose like “I better find an idea in this art museum!!!” Even if I don’t make any art as a result, it’s a benefit to my life to intentionally surround myself with sources inspiration, and mindfully try to really notice them. That’s kind of a big part of why I do art in the first place.

Strategy #2: Decrease Difficulty

For me, one of the biggest demotivators is the feeling that I need to produce something wonderful, complex, or difficult. This creates intimidation and makes me freeze up. That’s why this is my favorite avenue. Here, I give myself permission to be lazy.

The idea here is to lower the barrier to entry. The aim is not to create a masterpiece, but just pick up a paintbrush.

Mantras for decreasing difficulty

• Only do what is easy and fun. 
• Only do the first step. I’m just organizing my supplies, taping my paper, or choosing a reference. If I choose to continue, great, but if that’s all I do today, also fine. Next time, I’ll do the next step.
• Only fifteen minutes. I often find myself in the trap of thinking I need hours and hours of free time available, or there’s no point in starting art. Or, I’ll have free time, but I will procrastinate or continually do “just one thing” before starting. Setting a short time limit can make it seem more approachable to begin. 

Just do swatches

One way to decreasing difficulty is to set aside the idea of doing “a painting” and instead just do swatches, exercises, or nature spots. Just try to enjoy the feel of the brush or the look of the paint without trying to make it be anything. In other words, activities that Kolbie Blume calls “creative rest.” 

Using your creativity for rest can look like incorporating mindfulness into your watercolor practice, doing slow, easy drills back and forth with your paintbrush, or even abandoning your desk altogether and living your life outside the studio for a while. Here, you’re allowing ideas and feelings to flow through you with a curious embrace and zero expectation, letting them roam in complete and unconditional acceptance.

Kolbie Blume

Remove pressure

Often, I find that the frozen, art-slump, “the yips” feeling comes from too much pressure and perfectionism. I hold myself to an unrealistic standard and I’m disappointed when I can’t meet it. To avoid that feeling of disappointment, I stop trying. That’s no good for anyone, so a counterstrategy is to try to dismantle or circumvent those unrealistic standards.

Here are some examples:

• Make bad art. Go to extremes. Be garish, have wrong composition, etc. It’s not a mistake if you did it intentionally.
• Use worse supplies. I generally suggest you use the best supplies you can because it’s easier to achieve the results you want when you’re not fighting your supplies. On the other hand, blaming your tools gives you a great excuse to be a poor workman. Sometimes I weirdly find myself released creatively when I’m “just” using student grade supplies, kid’s crafting supplies, or ordinary office supplies.
• Use smaller paper. Just tiny paper. You’ll be done in five minutes.
• Make a craft. Instead of making art for art’s sake, meant to be framed etc., switch to a craftperson’s pragmatic outlook and make a label or a bookmark or a dozen cards with the same simple image on them.

Choose to be a beginner

I’ve been painting for four years, and I still find it relaxing to read beginner books and do beginner tutorials. Doing a tutorial can remove the guesswork of “what should I paint?” And choosing one that’s simple and approachable means I spend more time with feelings of relaxation and accomplishment, and less time with my shoulders up around my ears.

Look: You can choose to be a beginner all over again. You can choose it whenever you want! People are always trying to recapture the “beginner’s mind”, that openness and lack of ego that allows you to experience wonder without expectation in a new art form. Perhaps an art slump can be seen, positively, as an opportunity to be a beginner again.

 (On the other hand, if “too easy” feels boring, maybe it’s time to switch to the “increase inspiration” avenue!) 

Create Space

Sometimes even with “easy” painting you run into logistical obstacles, especially lacking needed space or time. The trouble is that the answers here are obvious (set aside dedicated space and time), but there are unique, individual answers for why you’re not doing that already. And they are probably good reasons! So you may need to backwards from your “why”s and trying to figure out exactly where the barriers are and if/how you can address them. 

Here are some of my examples:

• I don’t have a place to paint.
  Why? I’m staying in a furnished sublet, and I can’t add any furniture, and they don’t have a studio. I’m also worried about getting their furniture dirty.
  What I did. Create a temporary studio area on the dining table, using newspapers (then later upgrading to a silicone mat) to protect the furniture. (Now solved because I moved and got furniture and set up a nice studio corner!)
  
• I don’t have time to paint.
  Why? I started a new job, and the morning routine is pretty tight. In the evening, I have chores to complete, and the day always seems to slip away, so that it’s practically bedtime before I have a moment to myself.
  What I’m trying. I’m working on two: one is to paint outside at lunch. Another is to try that “only fifteen minutes” strategy which allows me to start painting even if I don’t really feel I “have time.”

Specifying your exact problem can help you to find practical solutions. Talking it through with someone can help; I often find problems that seem insurmountable are actually solveable when I put them into words for someone else, and that other person may also point out a solution.

Sometimes there may not be one weird trick. You simply don’t have enough space or time in the day to do everything you want. In this case it may come down to a matter of prioritizing. If art is a priority, what are you currently filling your space or time with that’s lower priority? For example I initially felt when looking at my apartment’s floor plan that I didn’t have room for studio space, but my partner and I decided to dedicate the dining room to an office/art space and simply not have a dining room.

On the other hand, maybe art isn’t a priority right now. Maybe you are acting exactly within your current priorities. Maybe it’s not a matter of matching your schedule to your priorities, but acknowledging what your priorities are at the moment.

This brings me to… 

Take a break

This is in some ways the hardest “strategy”, because it isn’t one. It requires practicing acceptance.

Some times or seasons of your life are not for doing art. At least, maybe not for doing a lot of art, or doing it in the same way or at the same intensity that you’ve enjoyed before. Sometimes you have your hands full with something else, or you just need rest.

You do not need to make stuff. Creativity is often about making stuff, but it can also be about being in the moment you are in, and experiencing it. You can have thoughts, ideas, feelings, and observations without turning them into a product.

My anxiety can easy catch me in black-or-white thinking – I haven’t painted in weeks so I’ll never paint again! – but that’s not accurate. The way it is now is not necessarily the way it always will be (for good or ill). Everything is temporary.

I find that artistic productivity is cyclical, like the tide. All my life I have experienced alternating times of great creative growth and output, and times where I simply… don’t. So far, creativity has always come back, even when it seems to have left. But sometimes I might need to wait longer than I would like.

What to do when you’re back on again

Enough philosophy! Back to very practical strategies.

Here are some very practical things my past self did which I really appreciate as I make my way tentatively back toward my art desk:

• Establish routines so that some things are second nature and don’t require much thinking.
• Make lists of things to do and try, including easy swatching exercises (e.g. colors to try together).
• Create caches of inspo/reference photos/tutorials/books so there is a well to go to when I want a quick hit of inspiration.
• Start ongoing series (e.g. every bird I’ve seen) so I have a “next logical thing” to do in lieu of a new idea.

If you’re in the middle of a productive art period, consider ways of leaving a paper trail for your less-inspired future self to follow!