Finally Finito: When To Call Done

 

Introduction

The point an artist decides a piece is done is an absolutely mysterious moment. In fact, it’s as mysterious as the moment of inspiration in the first place. Think about it — the artist can work on that piece ad nauseam for the rest of their lives, so what compels them to believe that they’ve finished it? At what point does that happen? And why? Indeed, it’s very strange. But it’s a tremendously important moment, too. It marks the moment when the artist has decided they cannot contribute any more to the piece, but what does that even mean?

How ever it happens, calling “done” is just as important an act as starting the piece. Why? Because when we call done, that’s the moment when we’ve decided to trust our instincts and our skills and, more importantly, we trust our inspiration that birthed it from the start. It’s the moment when we honor that inspiration by saying, “I have fulfilled you to the best of my ability with love and good faith,” and that’s monumental in so many ways!

So let’s talk about calling done. It seems quite a few artists have a hard time with it, deciding when it should happen, either calling done prematurely or not calling done soon enough. It’s truly a tricky balance, but we can find it with practice and wisdom. The thing to remember though is this: There’s never a single clear answer. There’s only the answer that works for you, and everyone is different. So in that spirit, let’s just get right to it!

We Should Like It

While this may seem obvious, it should still be stated: We should like our piece as-is, in entirety, to call it done. Yet that’s a mysterious, instinctive, intuitive call all the same, granted. However, it should be emphasized that “done” isn’t about attaining perfection. That’s fundamentally impossible as only Nature can make a perfect equine and we’re fallible human beings. Don’t go chasing windmills! In truth, there may be some portions you wished were a little different, but you can still accept them anyway — that happens. So instead, calling done should be more about trusting yourself and your skills, and allowing yourself to stop because you truly like the piece as it is. And if you’re very lucky, you’ll absolutely love your piece! Now there’s a gem of an accomplishment! Embrace it!

Know The Limit

We should call done when we’ve reached the limit on the piece. What does that mean? Well, every piece has a finite point after which you’re faced with diminishing returns with every new tool stroke. Yes, every piece has one. Indeed, at that point every aspect should work and harmonize together in a way that no aspect could be further improved by more fiddling, when adding anything more would not make it any better, where just one more tool stroke would detract from it rather than support it, where nothing more needs fixing. It marks the point where you believe your finished work is as good as it’s ever going to get at that moment, when you’ve gone as far as you want to go, as you can go, with every inch of it. Now stop. No—seriously…stop. Just stop. Put the paintbrush or sculpting tool down, and let go. Stop.

Because overworking is a very real thing! What is overworking? It’s when you’ve gone past that critical limit and into the realm of ruining it. How do you ruin it? Well, you erase all the happy accidents that serendipitously happened. You squelch many of its best points in “perfecting” them, or not even recognizing them as already perfect. And you can indeed kill a piece by overworking it! It just snuffs out that inexplicable energy every piece of great art has. Energy? Yes! It’s real! See, an unquantifiable, mysterious energy got injected into the piece in the initial stages of its creation, and it’s now your job as the artist to preserve and protect that energy in its pure form to completion — that’s your prime directive. So be painfully mindful of the piece’s limit! It’s real! Because you’ll ruin your piece, kill it outright, in your pursuit of perfection if you aren’t painfully aware of that very real limitation point. If you have this tendency then or you’re just unsure, think of your piece as done when 90% of the meaning or intention is already in there. Why 90%? Because the viewers aren’t going to notice the remaining 10% you want to agonize over and potentially sabotage yourself with. Or stop twenty minutes before you actually feel the need to finish, that works too. When it comes to art, even equine realism, less can truly be more. Without a doubt, overworking can sap the piece of its spontaneity and life and “organic chaos,” making it instead cold, dull, too clinical, too “tight”…overworked…dead. But when we preserve that transcendent energy, the piece will have an ease and immediacy, a freshness and life to it attainable no other way than through preservation. Because make no mistake: Once that energy is gone—it’s gone forever! So err on the side of stopping a snidge too early than too late. Preserving that energy should be your top priority that overrides everything else because, honestly, there's no point of perfection worth destroying it. It's far far better that your piece be “imperfect” and full of that energy in its pure, potent form than “perfect” and bereft of it, lifeless and overworked.

No More Nagging

Another way to determine “done” is when you look at your piece from every angle and nothing is nagging you about it. You just can’t find anything you dislike about it any longer, no portion of it unpleasantly catches the eye or catches it too much. Even when you come at it with a fresh eye later, still…nothing leaps out at you. At that point, your piece is most likely done.

Try Some Rules

Some artist employ some rules to call done. For example, once they’ve signed the work, that’s it. It’s officially finished and any remaining flaws simply become part of the work. Or, for instance, some artists simply quit while they’re having fun. The moment it becomes frustrating or a grind is the moment they call “done” and walk away. For others, they don’t try to fix every little flaw but ignore most of them to instead allow themselves only a certain number of flaws per piece, making a mental note of what to avoid in the next work. In fact, you can measure your progression this way in a more quantifiable approach. Yet other artists have a rule never to work from a photograph as that just sets you up for inevitable disappointment. Rather, they just envision what they want to portray and once the piece has attained that, it’s done, mission accomplished. And other artists establish planned mission objectives for a piece, required criteria to meet, to help them decide when it's finished. 

And yet others employ a system that looks like this:

Step 1: Fresh eye the work after not looking at it for a few days, even a few weeks. 

Step 2: Look at some of your favorite works you consider masterful and cogitate what makes them feel complete to you. Does the piece you’re working on now contain those elements, too?

Step 3: Focus on structure, expression, organic chaos, and composition — are they feeling finished or do they have more to say?

Step 4: Ask these hard questions with fruitful results:

• Have you accomplished your goals for the piece in terms of what you wanted to portray or express?
• Does your piece keep the eye engaged? Is the composition balanced and harmonized?
• Are your anatomical and biomechanical points correct? How about breed type, age type, and gender type? What about the points of conformation? How about color genetics? Does you piece read with “organic chaos” or is it too regimented? Check all of that again.
• Are there any hard lines that shouldn’t be there? Areas that are unsmoothed or unblended that should be? Or conversely, are there areas that are too blended or too smoothed that need more definition? Check your textures and intensities again.
• Are areas that need cleanliness and precision actually clean and precise? Does anything need tidying up?
• Does the sculpture or paintwork look great from a distance and up close? 
• Does your piece have an eye-catching “wow factor” to it? Does it have a visual hook?

Let The Piece Speak

This may sound weird, but the piece is like a living thing — it will speak to you very clearly if you listen. As such, it will tell you when it’s done, even before you think it’s finished. But listen to it — always always always listen to the piece first and foremost. It knows what it needs. And, hey, you can listen to it and have a lovely relationship, a nice conversation, as it brings itself to life, or you can fight it and work it to death and kill it. It’s up to you. But just know that all great art is alive, not dead. But you are the sole means in all the universe by which the piece can create itself, so stay open to it so it can direct you to the satisfactory completion of its vessel. It will say done when it’s truly happy with it, when it’s truly all it could ever be, and then kicks you out of the process to fly on its own. That’s a beautiful, poignant, bittersweet moment when it does this…when it says “enough” and goes into the world on its own terms, like a child leaving home to live their own life. So stay open and listen. Indeed, it’s when you stop listening and shut down down conversation with your piece that you tend to lose sight of when to call done and end up spinning your wheels or overworking it. Keep your work alive and thriving by always listening.

The Process Determines Done

On the other hand, sometimes our own process calls done for us out of necessity. It could be that the process has hard points of “stop” that cannot be worked around. For instance, this is common in ceramics or bronze casting. Once that piece is fixed, that’s it.

Or because we can become blind to our work, finding ourselves analyzing rather than arting, hoping that by dissecting our decisions into smaller and smaller pieces we’ll find clarity and real answers when, in truth, by parsing them thusly we actually lose clarity and certainty to become ever more lost in our process. At this point, we no longer trust ourselves and by sheer necessity, we need to call “done” and let go. So when we find that our correction of smaller and smaller areas reaches a point where they’re ineffective or worse, harmful, we’ve reached a terrible point that needs to have an immediate stop. Put the piece down and walk away. You can come back to it much later if you wish, but at that point — stop.

Likewise, maybe our skillset has reached its limit with a piece and we need to develop further to manifest it according to our expectations. So call “done for now” and put the piece on a shelf while your skillset percolates to come back to it later. The point is — yes — you did do your best, but it wasn’t good enough, and that’s okay. It happens. Just call it a day, no biggie. Every artist has had to do that with some piece, at some point. It’s normal. The trick is to realize that this has happened to avoid overworking it and killing the piece outright, to stop before that happens. There’s absolutely no shame in admitting your skillset needs work, ever! In fact, that’s a great point to do some pro-active study and research, to take classes and workshops, and to do some artistic exercises to jumpstart beefing it up.

Another Set Of Eyes

Some artists think about their piece with the viewer in mind. In this, they ask themselves if another person would really notice a fiddly tweak? If not, then stop. Or if the casual viewer would deem the work done, that’s sufficient to call done to avoid that perfectionist or overworking trap. And there’s this: People probably aren’t even going to notice the things you would consider flaws! They’ll just think they’re part of the work and be happy with it. Like my wedding cake — the baker dropped the box full of sugar flowers meant to be decorating it and stomped off in a huff, leaving the wedding manager with that hot potato. Bless her, she jammed some of the still-intact flowers upright in the cake, bursting out like hatching aliens, thinking that was sufficient. Boy was I shocked to see my wedding cake for the first time! But the fact is that my guests thought that the cake was supposed to be that way! They just thought it was supposed to be as eccentric as I am. And ultimately — they didn’t care! The cake was delicious and that’s what they cared about, not how it looked. And it’s that same way with our art. Ultimately, people will be more invested in how our art makes them feel and less concerned with how it looks insofar as the flaws we may see. They’ll just see the whole piece and fall in love with it regardless! So ease up on yourself and the flaws you perceive in your work as chances are, you’re the only one seeing them.

And remember that the you of today is going to notice the errors the you of yesterday made — you are ever-evolving in your artistic savvy. So show yourself some grace, give yourself some leeway. Look at your piece after putting it away for a few days, or from different angles, or backwards in a mirror for some new views. If you find yourself constantly wanting to futz with it without end, it’s time to stop outright.

Instinct

Learning to stop takes skill and practice, but most of all, it takes instinct. That innate intuition, that attunement to the piece, that tells you to stop when you’ve reached that limit. Indeed, most of what artists do with their work is instinctive and intuitive. Sure, there are artists who plan their works to the nth degree, but many just jump into head first and figure it out as they go, more or less, doing things that feel right to them. And they continue until their instinct tells them they can do no more, that all that could be done has been done, and it’s time to stop and let the work go. In this, it takes some emotional detachment from the piece to stop and let it go, and that comes easy to some, less easily for others. In this, some can be very adroit calling done whereas other aren’t so skilled at it, which can be a problem for them.

Truly, one of the biggest problems with arting is knowing instinctively when to stop! And see, if you simply strive for perfection, you’ll inevitably become your own worst critic so that all the great stuff about your work disappears in your eyes and only the errors leap out at you, giving you a skewed sense of your abilities and the nature of the work. But the best art comes not from the conscious mind, but from a deeper place, the soul. Now — yes — you need your conscious mind for motor control and coordination. Yet it is your conscious mind that obsesses over perfection, too, and stresses over every minute detail. In contrast, your soul knows the truth of things — it knows the true nature of the piece, where the real feeling is coming from, from where the piece was birthed, and from where your arting instincts arise. So at the end of the day, which would you rather satisfy? Your hyper-critical conscious mind that doesn’t quite tell you the truth? Or your soul that truly knows and beams with authenticity? Indeed, if your soul is happy with your piece — that’s enough. The piece may not be “perfect,” but if your soul loves it, it’s somehow completely perfect, isn’t it?

Ultimately then, calling “done” may just come down to an intuitive, instinctive feeling, something that can actually serve you better than intellect when it comes to arting because so much about art is done from the soul. And there’s something profoundly beautiful with that, isn’t there? And so stopping, calling done, can be an equally beautiful moment, too, yes?

The Click

Or perhaps the piece is done when everything simply “clicks” into place, when each portion is a series of perfect clicks adding up into one big click with the very last touch. What’s a “click”? It’s that nebulous moment when that portion seems just right. It’s hard to describe beyond that, but it just feels right. Like it was supposed to be that way all along — that the piece wanted it that way and you had to find the right configuration, the right combination to unlock that rightness. And you just know it in your guts, like the cosmos was dictating things. You become a vessel and the piece flows through you into clicked rightness in your hands. This is how I personally work, with this series of clicks, until the final moment, that final touch, that final click that locks it all into place together perfectly. That’s when I call “done.” 

But this is intuitive and instinctive and mysterious because it often goes beyond being what is barebones necessary to be correct and into a realm of “what is needed.” See, there’s a difference between what is required and what is needed, and the click operates in the latter layer. So how I work is first attain what is required—check. Then beyond that, I work to attain what the piece needs, what it wants and needs on its own terms, and that’s found through the click. And how do I know when I’ve attained that click? I just know in my guts, and it’s instantaneous and immediate, too. There’s no waffling — you just know. It’s like falling in love — you just know.

No, Not The Final Say — The Only Say

Calling “done” is a highly personal determination by the artist predicated on their Eye, their inspiration, their motivations, and their skill level. And everyone is different! Someone else could walk in the door and make suggestions of what to alter to “improve” the piece but the fact is that their determination is based on their own Eye, inspirations, motivations, and skill level, right? Likewise, a thousand people could walk through that door with their own baggage and each will have their own opinion about if the piece is truly done or not, too. It can get truly ridiculous. So the important point here is: Only the artist gets to call done, no one else. Really, if this moment is as important as the moment of inspiration, it’s an equally creative moment, isn’t it? It’s part of the art process, part of the creation of the piece, right? That being the case, only one person gets to take part in that moment: The artist themselves. That’s it, that’s all. No one else. Everything else is just noise. Never forget that. Only you get to call done with your piece — remember that, always.

Conclusion

The fact of the matter is that you improve faster the more works you finish imperfectly rather than spinning your wheels on one piece to get it “perfect.” So volume counts, and counts big time. That’s the smart long game. That in mind then, it’s better to call “done” and take what you’ve learned to the next piece rather than grind away at one indefinitely. Rehashing hardly ever generates evolution! We need new pieces, new opportunities to learn and apply our upgraded skills to feed our advancement. “Each piece is practice for the next,” said Ed Gonzales, and he is absolutely right.

And there’s a timing to a work, much like music. It has a rhythm, a pace to it and it has that limit, that end, and we must be instinctively sensitive to it to know when to stop. Just know that a “divine dissatisfaction,” as Martha Graham phrased it, will plague you with each piece you create, but that’s okay. In its own way, it keeps us hungry and advancing, challenging ourselves to improve and stretch. If we were always self-satisfied, we’d wouldn’t grow, would we?

But even so, for some it can be really challenging to know when to stop. In fact, it can take a great deal of strength for them to call “done.” Honestly, after investing all the time and energy and passion into a piece, they find it can be quite hard to stop and let go. And that’s okay, too. Nevertheless, call done we must. One way or ‘nuther, we must. In fact, our piece is depending on us to call done at some point! I wants to join the world on its own terms and it can only do that when we stop and let it go. So close your eyes, take a deep breath, muster your gumption and say, “I have done my level best and gone as far as I can go; I have fulfilled my inspiration in good faith and love and it’s time to let go.” Then open your heart, loosen your grasp…and let it go. And it will get easier over time. The more works you complete, the easier it’ll become to find that critical limit and recognize it for what it is. Learning to call done may be instinctive, but it can be honed and sensitized with practice. So this is a great opportunity to do some artistic exercises to put it to work, isn’t it? Do some sketching, some small works, and maybe some maquettes and quick studies to sensitize your ability to call done. Your art will thank you for it.

“Great is the art of beginning; but greater is the art of ending.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Finally Finito: When To Call Done

Priming The Pump: Inspiring Your Inspiration

 

Introduction

Many artists struggle with their inspiration, or their motivation to get arting at all. Muse-less, directionless, demotivated, uninspired — whatever you want to call it, it plagues many creatives from time to time, sometimes for a long time. Likewise, some artists experience a distinct ebb and flow to their drives, riding high when that drive is revved up but suffering a low when that drive is stalled. And it’s no fun. Indeed, it can be frustrating and maddening, making a creative anxious, even despairing, desperate to get to work but totally lacking the impulsion to move forwards. 

So how do we jolt ourselves into forward motion? How do we transform our desire to work into actual work? How do we dampen our lack of motivation and replace it with pro-active enthusiasm? The answers to that can be as personal as the artist themselves. In fact, many artists tormented by this situation often have their own coping mechanisms born from a lifetime of this private battle. But in an effort to tease out some steps forwards still, let’s talk about some ways we can fire up our inspirations to hopefully get going, or maybe even avoid this downspiral altogether.

Get Creative — With Anything

Start doing anything creative. Beading, crocheting, playing an instrument, gardening, cooking, scrapbooking, calligraphy, mosaics, embroidery, or just tinkering with art materials can do a lot to get our drives primed. And keep it no-pressure fun with no expectations. Just play around, futz and fiddle and putter. The point is to just get creative in any direction, doing something artsy in some measure. And it doesn’t even have to produce anything — you can walk away at any time and throw out whatever you’ve made. Remember, no pressure.

See, a lot of demotivation can come from a pressure from our expectations we place on ourselves with our art. We have these glorious visions in our heads and want to realize them as perfect as they are in our mind’s eye. Yet when they don’t measure up — because the vision is always more perfect in our head that in our hands — some artists find this discrepancy a personal defeat and so become paralyzed with a catastrophic loss of confidence and self-esteem. But if we do something creative with zero expectation — we create something simply for the frivolous joy of creativity — maybe we can short circuit this switch and get our creative gears gearing again. It’s worth a try, isn’t it?

Turn On The Tune-age

Listening to music can be a powerful inspirer of our creative drives. Absolutely, music moves us, gets us jamming to the beat or with the spirit of the song, stirring our emotions and thoughts in powerful directions. In fact, music triggers special parts of the brain accessible no other way. Indeed, marching music can get people with Parkinson’s to walk again and music can get those with dementia to “come back” for a time. It’s even believed in some scientific circles that music came before language, that our brains are naturally more attuned to music than to language, which could explain music’s strong triggering powers. Point is, tune in if you’d like to reinvigorate your Muse. Classical, rock, surf, folk, punk, new age, metal, alternative, world music, reggae, pop, country…whatever trips your trigger, immerse yourself in it and see what happens. And just listen. Again, have no expectations for a no pressure experience. Just sit back and enjoy and let the music take you to those special places in your psyche where only it can take you.

So see if music can stir your mood and spark memories, cause you to make novel associations and connections, and maybe even get your Muse’s interest piqued. Let it calm you and reduce stress and anxiety, creating a more fertile ground for creativity. Also contemplate how certain atmospheres created by music and the beats and rhythms can impact your art and even be infused into your work as colors, tool strokes, compositions, or narratives. 

Studies have also shown that music has a positive impact on creativity, cognitive function, and well-being, also increasing brain activity and learning. In particular, classical music has been shown to have a strong positive impact on productivity, memory retention, and cognitive function, all of which could help your Muse along. In fact, research has also found that music with a faster tempo can get the brain to release dopamine, a brain chemical associated with motivation and gumption. So you never know until you try, right? Pop on those tunes and jam out and let the music take you where it will — I bet at the very least, you have some lovely moments of enriching immersion and meditation, and that usually sets the stage for creative thinking.

Get Back Into The Classroom

Classes and workshops are a tremendous way to get creatively invigorated! The structure of the classroom, the goal-oriented agenda, the learning environment that entices the brain, the experiences with the instructor and the other students, being fascinated by the creations of others, and most of all, the exciting environment that stimulates our curiosity all work together to really get our Muse’s attention. A classroom setting with its built-in support system also boosts our confidence and mojo, making us feel more buoyant and engaged in our creativity. 

There are few things the brain likes more than learning something new, that sense of thrilling discovery and revelation that can be so fun. Learning and happily surprising ourselves can truly become joyful addictions and when we apply them to arting, that combination is a potent brew to feed our starving inspiration. So try a new medium! Learn about a new process or technique! And it doesn’t even have to be related to horses — try a class on any arty subject that gets your attention. The point is to get the brain energized again, your confidence built up once more, and your motivations moving you forwards. Where the brain goes, the body will follow. Likewise, where our interests lead, the rest will follow so chase after what seems terribly interesting and just let the rest fall into place. Give it a whirl! There’s nothing to lose, is there?

Doodle and Sketch

Never underestimate the power of doodling. Undeniably, putzing around creatively can truly be a powerful key to unlocking your artistic drives and getting your creativity fired up. For starters, it can become a window into your subconscious mind and your unconscious artistry. This can let you tap into narratives and ideas you might have not considered before. Doodling is also thought to give certain parts of the brain a rest while gearing up other, more helpful areas related to memory and relaxation. Doodling has also been shown to increase creative thinking and problem-solving in a way that’s free of pressure or expectation, allowing for more creative associations to be made. It’s also been found that doodling helps you process emotions so if you’re feeling depressed, anxious, frustrated, or despairing, even desperate, doodle all that out to gain some moments of catharsis. In this way, doodling can reduce stress much like a coloring book can as it calms the amygdala, the portion of the brain responsible for the fight or flight response which is linked to anxiety and stress. Doodling has also been found to help us learn better. Indeed, studies have found that those students who are doodling during a lecture tend to retain more information and make better sense of complex ideas. Similarly, it’s also thought to reduce distraction and increase innovative thinking, priming the brain for stimulation by keeping it out of a default resting state, primed for action. In this way, doodling can help you Big Picture problems or challenges by stimulating both the conscious and unconscious mind, allowing you to make novel connections otherwise untapped. Most of all though, research has found that doodling can improve your mood, making you happier and more relaxed and decompressed, especially when doodling something you love like a pet, loved one, favorite activity, what have you.

Above all though, to reap the benefits of doodling, don’t worry about making mistakes. Nope. Doodling should be simply that — a moody, hypnotic, rhythmic motion on paper that captures your creative whims. It should also last for only about thirty minutes to reap the most brain benefits. Beyond thirty minutes, it’s been found to have diminishing returns. But put it altogether and it’s thought that doodling can boost your creativity and sharpen your productivity, mood, and, focus and sense of well-being. As such, it can also be a kind of safety value, releasing tension and anxiety, decompressing in a non-threatening way. So grab that sketchbook and doodle away! Indulging your whimsical, frivolous fancies is fun and allows your brain to play around with its ideas in novel new ways, and that almost always leads to sparked creativity! Why not try it?

Along those lines, get back to sketching. Like doodling, doing a bunch of loose, no pressure, exploratory sketches can do a lot for your brain’s relaxation and novel engagement. Sketching can also help you work out problems in your visualizations, helping you to problem-solve pesky areas in your sculpting or painting in a reduced-pressure way. Sketching can also become practice and artistic exercises that refine your Eye and skillset, and that can sometimes get the Muse energized to actually put what you’ve learned to the test. So sketch away, my friend! See where it takes you and how it gets your Sight refined and jazzed to See more and do more. Do that regularly and often the creative doldrums just cannot persist in that fertile environment. Give it a go!

Get Back To The Source

Sometimes our Muse is floundering because it needs a direct infusion of the real deal again, the living animal. Without a doubt, there is no more powerful inspiration than the actual living horse for an equine artist. So get out to horse shows to immerse in horsedom. And we can take our camera to shoot photos that inspire us for whatever reason. In fact, consider taking a field trip or engage in art travel to get back out there. And hey, simply signing up for a trail ride can do wonders to poke that Muse into action. And being around horses again is a thrilling and enchanting sensory overload that can certainly entice our Muse. Like the scent of horses, hay, and tack can stir our memories and our hearts, the sound of horses can sooth our souls, and seeing and touching the living animal in person is a potent medicine for the horse lover’s mind and soul.

Along those lines, if you have friends or family with horses, get out there as well to get up close and personal with them again. And we don’t even have to ride then but simply groom them or sit and sketch them in the pasture, just chillin’ out with them. 

How ever we engage horses once more, the point is to get ourselves involved in the equine experience again. Truly, for the equine artist, the living animal is almost always the ultimate medicine for an ailing inspiration. 

Treasure Hunting

What’s a reference library? Sure, on the surface it’s the reservoir of images we use to create our work. Deep down though, think about what it actually is. What is it really? Well, when you deconstruct it and see it for what it is, it’s really a treasure hunt based on happy discovery, isn’t it? It’s like foraging with a reward system, the reward being that one outstanding image that’s so tremendously useful and insightful or inspiring. So get to foraging! Have a goal in mind, a target, and then set out to find images or articles that hit that target. Just doing this can create an amazing feedback loop of action and reward, of discovery and engagement, that can be highly infectious when it comes to inspiring our artistic drives. We may even come across that one unique image that absolutely gets our inspirations revived and smokin’ along again like a chuggin’ freight train! You just never know what you’ll find out there if you don’t look, right? So surf online. Pore through your horse book library. Study the work of other artists. Above all, leave yourself open to discovery, surprise, and revelation as these are often critical ingredients for riling up our Muse into action.

Board It Up

Similarly, think about constructing an inspiration board, using those references you found as fodder. Absolutely, many artists find this a very handy tool to stay inspired. It can simply be a corkboard to pin all those inspiring images and items onto, amassing them into a collective wad of fascination. In fact, this can become a handy storage depot to keep revisiting when your inspiration needs a recharge, needs just a bit of a boost. And let it evolve as your whimsies dictate. An inspiration board should be exactly that: Pure inspiration that charms your Muse, compelling you into action. Let it inspire novel associations and ideas, let it challenge your sensibilities, let it feed your curiosity, and above all, let it move your emotions in powerful ways. Indeed, our emotional landscape is fertile ground for our Muse to take root and grow — feed it!

That being said though, that’s the trick with inspiration boards, isn’t it? Don’t just gaze at them — do something with them! Let it fire you up into action to drive you forwards into your art, getting you creative again. So don’t stall out after making an inspiration board! Put it to work! Do that, and you might soon find a host of inspirations pop up and want out!

Make It A Habit

For just thirty minutes every day, or even every other day, set aside the time and energy to create some art. You don’t even have to finish it, and in fact, it could just be thirty minutes spent puttering on something. But just get your fingers in that clay or paint again. Make it a hard and fast rule, too, to play around with your art on a regular schedule. The goal is to create a habit, a routine, that’ll start to feel weird if you don’t create for those thirty minutes. Once that happens, tack on another thirty minutes and go from there if you’re feeling it. Just keep it up! Sooner than you think, you’ll have developed a taste for arting again as your pump is better primed for the flow of creativity welled up inside of you. Honestly, sometimes the hardest thing is just “getting out the door,” but once we’re out, it’s a breeze after that! Give it a try — see what just thirty minutes can do for your inspirations!

Take A Rest

Sometimes our inspiration is elusive simply because we’re exhausted. We’re just beaten down and fried by life — it happens. It takes a lot of energy to sustain our inspiration, but if that energy has been depleted by our situation, there’s nothing left over for arting. This is okay — this is normal. This is the nature of stress and compression and the subsequent exhaustion that follows in the wake. 

So consider positive, no-pressure ways to decompress and set aside thirty minutes a day for it, if you can. Have some “me time,” and make that a priority. Like consider reading, sketching, or creating quick maquettes. Watch some movies or TV shows. In fact, rewatching favorite ones on a loop has been shown to be a handy way to depressurize with comforting familiarity. Or just stare out of a window and let your mind wander in daydreaming. Don’t knock daydreaming! It can indeed be a curious way to make freer associations and novel connections as our mind simply wanders where it will in a more restive state.

Also think about possibly getting away from things. For instance, this might be a great time to take that artist retreat trip or travel to that workshop you’ve always wanted to take. There are loads of amazing artist getaways pretty much available everywhere. Or maybe simply take a trip to a dude ranch and take your sketchbook for kicks. Visit a sculpture garden, art gallery, museum, art fairs, or enjoy one of those open studio tours some cities offer. Go to conventions and expos and comicons. Go camping, take a hike, walk along the beach.

Any which way, the point is to pinpoint the area of stress, find ways to mediate it best you can, and tease out conduits that regenerate the precious energy needed to feed your motivations despite it all — and sometimes that looks like just getting away from it all. There’s this, too: Simply having something to look forward to can do tremendous good for your mood and motivations! Indeed, studies have shown that having that Big Thing as a happy anticipation can improve your sense of well-being and engagement almost immediately.

Conclusion

If you notice, all these things depend on one thing: You being pro-active. That’s the prerequisite — you have to make the effort to reclaim your creativity. It’s just highly unlikely that the pump can restart itself without priming. Inspiration has to find you working, not just thinking about it and definitely not sullen and resistant. Inspiration demands action by its very nature — it must be acted upon, right? Well, help that along by being the first one in that relationship to invest in some pro-active initiative.

Arting is good for you — its good for the mind, the heart, and the soul. For an artist to lack inspiration then is like a bike without wheels: You’re just not fulfilling your purpose it seems. You cannot move forwards in your creativity and that blockage feels wrong, deep down. It nags at you I’m sure. Well, doing something pro-active about it can actually feel pretty darned good and that can be a first spark, can’t it? Sometimes all we need to get one foot in front of the other is a little push, right? So recognize the need for you to get back to arting again and invest in yourself just enough to prime that pump of creativity. Believe you me, you and your art are worth the effort!

“Creativity doesn’t wait for that perfect moment. It fashions its own perfect moment out of ordinary ones.”

— Bruce Garrabrandt

Priming The Pump: Inspiring Your Inspiration