My senior year of college, one of my final projects was to create 100 drawings of a single object. The previous year I created 30 drawings of a blender. I almost lost my mind trying to get to 30 drawings. I ended that project hating the blender and my drawings too. I was not inspired or motivated. My work felt like an obligation and every pencil stroke showed my frustration.
I knew that when faced with the task of creating 100 drawings, I had to find a better technique to stay inspired during the months it would take me to finish this project. Any creative person, whether it be an artist, writer, designer, photographer, etc. has faced a creative block. Even in my experience as an educator, most of my adult students stare at the white sheet before them without blinking and are completely paralyzed. The first thing that comes out of their mouth is, "I'm not creative."
This statement is the largest creative block there is. Typically, our little internal judge doesn't stop there, it keeps insulting our work and us as well. “This is fightful, this is horrible! What is that supposed to be? I told you you were weren’t meant for this! " This little judge is cruel and kills creativity, imagination, and inspiration. It makes us feel insecure about our ideas and abilities. We all need a little help, but as the great Pablo Picasso said, "Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working." As if it were a muscle, creativity is something that has to be exercised so that imagination can flourish. To the non-artist and the artist with a creative block, here I share the technique that I developed to be able to create 100 drawings.
First of all, you need to fire the little judge. It sounds ridiculous, but before starting my work I sat in front of my materials without the slightest idea of how to start. Visualize this little judge packing his bags and walking out the door. From the same door, I imagine that a small version of myself entered. I imagined that it was her, and not me, who was sitting at the table with all those white pages and all those colors. Instead of feeling overwhelmed, she was thrilled with all the possibilities.
As children we all create without judgment, we experiment with everything that is at our disposal and we do not get attached to the result. I explained to the little me, that she could play and that I would not judge her. This was a ritual that helped me remind myself that my work was not really mine, it was in collaboration with creative wisdom to which I had promised complete freedom of expression. I would not question a single line nor a single color. The play element made the process fun rather than stressful.
If the outcome of creative experimentation was completely disastrous, it was important to remind myself that it was just paper and I had 100 others. Materials can be expensive, but in almost all cases there is always a remedy. Bob Ross, was an American painter and had a television show called, The Joy of Painting, one of my favorite quotes from him was, "happy little accidents." Ross transformed a black spot into a tree or a bird flying through the skies. Creativity has to have space to dictate what it wants to be, and you, as the vehicle that will help it reach fruition, have to let go of the reins of attachment.
Observation is paramount. Your muse or source of inspiration is extremely important. Picking a blender the first time was the worst mistake I could have made. So for the second project, I chose a little butterfly. It had an important meaning to me and it was something that I really admired and loved. I devoted a large part of my process to observation. As if it were a new species that I had discovered, I document what I saw through colors. I began to value my work as if I were a scientist doing research. I never assumed that I already knew everything and always found something new.
Finally, the most important thing was to just get started. I didn’t always have the motivation or an idea of what I was going to do. I simply started with a line. Apelles was a fourth-century Greek painter. One of his most famous quotes was, "Nulla dies sine linea," which translates to, "Not a day without a line." Similar to the quote I shared from Pablo Picasso, it all comes down to constancy. You can have the best materials or equipment, but without practice, the little judge becomes a bossy, hard-to-please giant. It doesn’t matter what your preferred artistic medium is, the important thing is to start, be it a photo, a word, or just a line.