How to Find Artistic Inspiration

All artists have days when they feel uncreative or uninspired. Sometimes the days become weeks, or even months.

Period of lack of artistic inspiration are to consider common phases for every artist, however all of us that love to be creative, suffer quite a bit from these stages. We feel like we’ll never be able to create anything good in our life, ever again.

When that happens to me, I would like it to end immediately, but at the same time I’m afraid to go back to my easel and face a potential failure.

I have developed some special “go to” activities that help get over the temporary impasse and go back to my art with renewed passion. Here are my 8 tricks to shake away the creativity burnout.

If in order to do your art you have to dig into closets, rearrange furniture, move lights, and whatnot before you are ready to start, it takes a strong determination each time you want to work on it.

During a lower inspiration phase that willpower may not come easily.

Keeping your supplies in one location and organized can make start and cleanup effortless.

Go to your art station and start organizing your materials and tools. Often this will be enough to stimulate your creativity.

Even better, say to yourself “I’ll work on my art for just 30 minutes”. Often you enjoy it so much that a couple of hours go by and you don't even notice it.

Throughout the year, clip out and save any pictures that you like and that somehow inspire you. Store them in an organized way, like a binder.

When you are lacking inspiration and ideas for new artwork, go through your photos and focus for what made you save them in the first place; maybe you enjoyed the subject matter, maybe you loved the colors, or the composition/structure.

Looking at the photos and their features, you may find the spark that lights the missing artistic flame and find the productive energy once again.

Start doodling. Sit down with pencil and a sketch book, and draw, make sketches of what surrounds you, make plans for your next project, take visual notes, sketch from your reference photos.

When you are out of inspiration for your creations, drawing can be an effective ice breaker, and it is a great exercise anyway.

Networking with other artists and meeting to create together is a great source of positive energy.

Fellow artists are the best to understand your lack of inspiration, we all go through that in phases, and the advice and ideas you can get from other artists are priceless when it comes to get out of a dull period.

Some groups are project driven; in that case seeing how others approach a certain problem, or simplify a difficult aspect can really give you the push you were looking for.

Get out, meet other artists, go to galleries, talk art, and breathe art. Each conversation will give you food for thought, and stimulate your creativity in some way.

Attend local Arts and Crafts fairs. Seeing what other artists are doing and chatting with the vendors can be great sources of inspiration.

You can also meet other artists online, visiting art blogs, leaving comments, signing up for their newsletters.

Sometimes online relationship can grow into real artistic mutual support, especially if you find someone with whom you have a lot in common, artistically and/or personally.

There are several online web sites that have monthly or weekly art challenges. This is particularly true for painting and drawing.

If you google for it, you will find a lot of artists posting reference pictures or themes, and inviting other artists to make a representation within a certain deadline.

Once you have completed your artwork you need to take a good quality picture of it and submit it. It will be posted on the web site, often with the opportunity for artists to write reciprocal comments and constructive