Posts Tagged: artist’s block

Life and Tips: Art Challenges

Lately I’ve been feeling… less than inspired in my art. It happens to everyone at some point. While I’ve been working on (and completing!) pieces, they’ve frequently been pretty slow going. So I got to thinking about how I can shake things up a bit and get myself back into my enthusiastic, inspired art mindset.

Back in December I wrote a blog post about ways to make time for your art during the holidays and in it, one of the suggestions I made was joining an art challenge. Now, I’ve never actually participated in an art challenge before and I still didn’t really feel like joining an established, current art challenge. I guess I didn’t want the pressure of following what I perceived to be a rigid, predefined challenge (sure, I realize they’re probably Not actually rigid and intimidating—it’s art, after all!).

But when I was digging around in my studio, I ran across a small leather sketchbook that I had forgotten about.  It’s about 3”x4” with a cute, tooled leaf pattern on the cover. So I thought, why not make up my own art challenge?

leaf-patterned leather sketchbook
Tiny little sketchbook, lost and lonely in my studio

I confess, I’m not actually fond of sketching and drawing (I’m pretty sure that’s some sort of art sacrilege!). I do have a sketchbook, but I primarily use it to jot down/sketch out rough ideas for future pieces or to work out details of composition. But my sketchbook is definitely not like the ones you see everywhere that are full of gorgeous artwork! And that’s okay—there’s no rule that says you need to draw intricately detailed artwork in your sketchbook.

So, in need of a bit of a change and looking at this cute little leather sketchbook, I decided that I would actually use the sketchbook to… (*gasp*) sketch! It’s tiny, so it’s not intimidating—there are no large, blank pages staring at me, taunting me to put pencil to paper. And I decided that I would use one page per day—just one. If I feel some crazy desire to do more drawing, I’ve always got my regular sketchbook, with its sad, empty pages just waiting for me to show it some love. 

Oreo cookie sketch by Tamara Jaeger
Because sometimes you’ve just gotta have an Oreo!

To keep myself accountable, I also decided to post each day’s page on my Instagram account, regardless of whether or not I actually like how the sketch turned out. I’ve included a few of my pages here. Go ahead and follow me on Instagram if you’re curious to see how it progresses (@tamarajaegerfineart).

Paphiopedilum orchid sketch by Tamara Jaeger
A cool orchid I have at home, that’s finally blooming

We’ll see how it goes, and hopefully the challenge of working in a medium I don’t particularly enjoy will help me to look at things in a different way.

Swirly, sparkly rock sketch by Tamara Jaeger
A rock. It’s a neat rock, sparkly on one side and with fun swirly ring patterns on the other.

What about you? Have you ever joined or invented your own art challenge? How did it go? What other methods do you use to keep or renew your enthusiasm for your art?

10 Art Inspiration Ideas

Sometimes it’s hard to get inspired. You get in a rut and the ideas just aren’t flowing. You could, of course, just sit around waiting for inspiration to strike out of the blue, but I’ve never found that to be particularly helpful, myself! Sometimes it helps to have a few go-to ideas to get things moving again. To help you get unstuck, here are a few things you can try:

  1. Try out an art material or method you’ve never used before
  2. Choose a color you normally avoid and create a piece using it
  3. Create a piece of art based on a song
  4. Use packing materials to create a piece of art
  5. Create a series of pieces based on a quote that inspires you
  6. Join an art challenge. A Google search should bring up plenty of options. Here are a few I found: www.deviantart.com/alwaysforeverhailey/journal/Art-Challenges-Mega-List-638643796
    www.kickinthecreatives.com/all-creative-challenges/
  7. Recreate an earlier piece of your own artwork.
  8. Fill a piece of paper with random lines and marks, then see what you can create with it
  9. Visit a museum/zoo/aquarium/park
  10. Try out an online art idea generator. Here are a few you can try: http://artprompts.org/ https://www.magatsu.net/generators/art/ http://drawingprompt.com/
“Somebody That I Used to Know” by Tamara Jaeger

Have you tried any of these suggestions? What methods do you use for finding inspiration?