The Magic of the Creative Block
Recently, I hit one of my lovely creative blocks. This tends to happen to me when I’ve been grinding too hard, pushing myself too much, or the usual, I have underlying stress that I’m ignoring and hoping will just go away.
Closeup of “April Forest” Original Watercolor
The first time I encountered a creative block, I had a full-blown panic attack. I went into a downward spiral of catastrophic thinking.
“Is it over?”
“Did I lose my gift?”
“Is this it? I painted consistently for 6 months and now the well has run dry!?”
“Is this where artists go to die?!”
On and on it went…
What I didn’t realize at the time was that creative blocks happen, to everyone, it’s totally normal. So after wallowing and worrying and ripping up paintings and some tears, I realized something… Now was not the time to throw in the towel, now was the time to push through until I created something I liked.
So that’s exactly what I did. And you know what I realized? I had hit a block because I needed to try something different. It’s like my spirit got bored with the same old stuff and was asking me to level-up my craft. So I continued experimenting. I stopped viewing each crappy piece of art as a failure and started viewing it as data collection. I kept making stuff I hated until one day, the work that was sitting on my easel was something that made me so proud. The palette was totally different than what I’d been using, the composition was refreshing, and within 10 minutes of posting an image of it, it sold.
“April Forest” 12x9 Original Watercolor
I’ve since learned that when the well is running dry, it’s an invitation to my inner creative source to do something differently. And really, this happens in life, doesn’t it? We do something the same way over and over again until we start to drive ourselves crazy, wondering why we keep getting the same result. In reality, this madness is an invitation to change something in our process. When we do, marvelous and magical things can happen.
My message to you? Trying something new is merely an experiment, if it doesn’t turn out, you just have new data for the next time. It’s neither failure nor a reflection of your worth, merely an invitation to do something different.