Introduction
When we’re immersed in our arting, when we’re really in the thick of it, it’s easy to veer off track and into the weeds. It happens to the best of us! It’s normal and natural, just a part of arting, especially when we’re beginners or learning a new skillset or media. But since it so easily happens, how do we know when it’s happened? And then after that, how do we get back on track? Heck, how do we know we even have everything right in the first place?
These are very good questions that have some pretty big answers, but boil it all down and it comes down to our artistic gut instincts. What are those? Well, they’re our visceral creative inclinations and urges, our creative intuition that underlays everything we do. They’re literally what tells us when we have it right or wrong, when something looks off or spot on, and even guides our troubleshooting and explorations. So we may think we’re creating with our heads and knowledge base know-how, with our clinical Eye and savvy skills, but nope — it’s always our artistic instincts that operate as the overriding subroutine. Everything else we ever do creatively is built on them and fueled by them. So quite literally, those artists more in tune with their gut instincts tend to create better work for two main reasons. First, their arting is kept in better check because that creative intuition is usually always on the mark. Then second, they're driven down avenues of discovery that ring more true to their Voice because those gut instincts are directly connected to it. So in a nutshell, if we plug into our artistic intuition, too, we'll automatically set ourselves up for more assured success and authentic work.
So if it’s our gut instincts that really shape our clay or smear around our pigments, how do we connect with them more effectively? Can we game this system in our favor? And the answer to that is — yes! So let’s explore all this in the spirit of helping you refine yours to kick your work up a notch or two with a lot more natural ease!
Our Guts
Creativity resides within everyone — it’s our genetic heritage. No? Well, think about every one of our ancestors from the distant past to the present and it’s beautifully clear that our bloodline is defined by creativity. As Elizabeth Gilbert puts it…
…all of your ancestors were creative — all of them. You and I and everybody we know were descended from tens of thousands of years of makers. The entire world, for better or for worse, has been altered by the human hand, by human beings doing this weird and irrational thing that only we do, amongst all our peers in the animal world, which is to waste our time making things that nobody needs, making things a little more beautiful than they have to be, altering things, changing things, building things, composing things, shaping things. This is what we do. We’re the making ape. And no one is left out of the inheritance of that — that’s our shared human inheritance.
But too many people don’t know how to tap into their latent, instinctive creativity, or as Brené Brown observes…
There’s no such thing as creative people and non-creative people. There are only people who use their creativity and people who don’t. Unused creativity doesn’t just disappear. It lives within us until it’s expressed, neglected to death, or suffocated by resentment and fear.
As such, we may seek external influences for inspiration, and often with failure not far behind. This is because we’re overlooking the very powerful internal inspiration-generator that won’t only spark creativity, but elevate it to surprising heights — our artistic intuition. This deep-seated knowing comes from within us, reliably guiding us to effective problem-solving and innovative artistic directions.
So what exactly is this gut instinct feeling? Some would call it style and aesthetic, our Eye and perception, our themes and narrative, our Voice, our creative drive and desire to create, but really, our artistic guts instincts are much deeper than that. Truly, they aren’t some nebulous feeling or touchy-feely faux experience — they’re a very real response to a very real situation. They are actual and inexplicably tangible, you can even feel them…in your guts. Indeed, our gut has as complex a neural network, the enteric nervous system, and in fact, it’s believed that our “gut brain” was the first one in evolution. Science has even found powerful connection between mood and our gut brain, among other critical connections. Indeed, the gut is the producer and storage area of about 90-95% of our serotonin! We also have a lifetime of experiences stored in our noggin as well as a subconscious radar that picks up on cues and clues from the situation unconsciously. Pair all of that with our pattern recognition response, and we have something that science claims is our gut instincts. Perhaps that’s true, but I would argue that it goes even deeper than that, into something more unexplainable and mysterious.
Regardless, all together then, our creative intuition is our ability to comprehend or deeply know something instinctively without needing conscious and clinical reasoning or analysis, or even other people’s opinion. It’s that ineffable inner sense that guides our most effective decisions and troubleshooting. Being so, it can appear as sudden revelations, hunches, nagging inclinations, or an abiding sense of just knowing and, as such, has a tremendous, even overriding influence on the creative process. Indeed, our gut instincts can instantly take our piece, even our work, in entirely new directions! This is because our best creativity relies on finding fresh solutions to conundrums as well as making keen connections between seemingly unrelated aspects, or finding new esoteric patterns to improve the technicality or artistry of our work. For that then, our gut instincts cultivate the flow of all this, inspiring our mind to make novel associations that challenge convention and dogma. That’s to say, many people think that inspiration strikes out of the blue, and can even be so ethereal, it can vanish just as fast. And yes, this is true to a point. But we can game the system with this key idea: Tap into our artistic gut instincts and inspiration will often flow out like a river! Indeed, it’s in our creative intuition where inspiration actually derives, it’s the wellspring, so if we can access that at will, we’ll never be at a loss for that creative drive.
Truly, for artists, our artistic guts can be the momentum driving their work, providing a strong sense of purpose, clarity, and direction. It can also help them access their unconscious mind to pull out innovations, fresh ideas, and novel perspectives that spice up their portfolio. It’s also our creative intuition that busts past convention, especially our own, as well as fueling our leaps off plateaus or even helps to cure burn out. What’s more, our creative guts prepare us for any artistic challenge by allowing us to access that part of our being that naturally conjures up effective troubleshooting and new directions plus the courage to tackle them. Honestly, by trusting more in our creative instincts and releasing our grip on our overthinking analytical mind, we can often bust through a roadblock, whether it’s a lingering problem with a piece or our own artist block.
Regardless of what our guts instincts are though, we should know what they aren’t. They aren’t our thinking, our mind, our intellect, our analytical interpretation of what we create, in this case, equine realism. They aren’t even our mind’s eye. They exist beyond rational thinking and clinical knowledge bases, yet drive them forwards into new pathways of discovery even so. Yet the mind is easily swayed by error, bias, knowledge gaps, prejudices, and a flawed perception filter. So if we trust too much in our mind, we’re going to run into trouble often in the form of habitual, stale, and formulaic work, entrenched conventions, and artistic plateaus.
Likewise, our guts aren’t our heart and soul, either. They exist beyond our emotions in that way, that’s more in the realm of our creative joy-circuit. Nevertheless, our gut instincts inform our emotions, sometimes profoundly so, though they exist even deeper than that. In that light then, if we lean too much into our heart’s desires we risk a lot. For instance, we can end up validating things contrary to our convictions if we get too caught up in such feelings. Or we can veer into anthropomorphism or touches that are stylistically unrealistic as we’re swept up too much in the feels as we create.
Our artistic guts aren’t an impulse either. Impulses are an immediate response to a stimulus driven by strong emotions which can lead to impulsive directions that aren’t so well thought out. Our guts, on the other hand, are much more sophisticated, thoughtful, and informed, much more of a knowing than an impulse. In short then, an impulse is a reaction whereas our intuition is an understanding deep in our guts.
Our creative intuition isn’t the voices in our head either, being more of a deep feeling rather than the overthinking mental chatter in our noggin. We feel our creative guts deep down. Like some folks will actually feel an actual resistance or tension if their inner self is saying, “no.” Then when it’s a “yes,” they’ll feel an inherent lightness and elation with the direction they’re going. It’s simply a knowing, a deep down knowing that’s a bit mysterious.
Most of all, our creative intuition has little to do with our fear. Indeed, our fears can be noisy and pushy, but our intuition is calm, clear, and persistent. So we need to recognize the distinction between self-doubt and a real gut feeling.
So while our mind can lead us astray with biases, our heart with unrealistic excursions, our impulses down problematic paths, and our fears right into a block — our gut instincts? Curiously, they rarely — if ever — are wrong. Always follow your creative guts! On the flip side though, sometimes our guts can conflict with our mind, our heart, our impulses, and our fear, which can be confusing. However, lean into that intuition more! It’s typically always the one with the right answer, the one with all the correct clues for the direction we need to go.
So if it’s either an illuminating a-ha moment or a nagging sense that’s something wrong, the key is to stay closely attached to our artistic guts to guide our work along the routes it's supposed to evolve.
On Track
When our intuition is on track, it acts as a guiding inner compass to help creatives bypass blocks, fears, and overthinking to breakthroughs and fresh, innovative ideas. Know it or not then, this inner knowing is the very nexus of our creativity, the sum of everything we do and the generator of it all at the same time. In fact, there are clear indicators of an intuition that’s humming along, such as:
- Avoiding block and burnout: Want to bust through block or burnout? Dive into that artistic gut instinct to bust out new perspectives and directions. Indeed, any effective strategy designed to knock us out of that speaks directly to our creative intuition since that’s where inspiration derives, where our artistic drives are spawned and fueled, and where our intuitive decisions take us in our work.
- Mental library: If we’re practicing our observational skills properly, our mind stores all sorts of data we can access later as we work. So when a gut feeling pops up, it can draw on that mental library to better guide us.
- Busting convention: Even our equine realism art form needs a good shake down from time to time in order to come closer to that brass ring. Being so, it’s our gut instincts that push us to chase after hunches and a-ha moments rather than always falling back onto stale habits and safe conventions.
- In the groove: When we learn to trust our creative intuition, all that inner noise, negative self-talk, and fear quiets which helps to generate that “in the groove” focus where our best, even our most innovative work emerges from. That zone comes much more naturally, too, where our creativity becomes effortless and second-nature, allowing our intuition to become that much more effectively potent.
- Greater economy: Our creative guts inspire us to circumvent overthinking and overworking to make stronger and more economical decisions and strokes. We simply are able to do more doing less and more confidently without second-guessing ourselves so much.
- Originality wellspring: When we follow our creative intuition, original work is a natural by-product. This is because our artistic intuition derives from our subconscious which can inspire unexpected breakthroughs, novel inspirations, new ideas and directions, and surprise innovations with so many spontaneous associations.
- Our Voice: Best of all, when we derive our work from our artistic guts, our Voiceful authenticity purifies and intensifies, leading not only to novel work but also more artistic authority and potency. Indeed, our Voice is to be found in our creative intuition, so once that flows, a stronger Voice naturally comes.
Clearly then, attending to and tapping into our creative guts is monumentally important! So how do we do that in practical, effective ways? Well, consider these many tactics…
- Quiet the mind: If we aren’t hearing our artistic instincts, our mind may be too busy. So apply quiet time, meditation, or listen to music to dampen that. Also put down those devices, that’s a big first step. Consider, too, nature walks, playing with pets, or doing something completely different for a time. Truly, in our noisy, fast-paced world today, distraction abounds making it challenging to listen to our artistic intuition’s voice. So to cultivate and amplify those gut feelings, create some space every day for some inner quietude and solitude, some mental silence to allow those intuitive thoughts to seep through.
- Art without judgment: Do some free-form, no-expectation sketching or doodling for about twenty minutes each day as this relaxes the mind and allows it to make novel associations. Even journaling, art or written, can do wonders for this effect.
- Record ideas: Start a notebook full of any creative idea that pops up in our head, no matter how fantastic or unlikely. Also record any hunches, a-ha moments, inspirations, or intuitive insights…just get it down so it’s not lost. This allows us to not only find patterns and inclinations better over time, which helps us to better decipher the language of our gut instincts more, but it also lets us step back and analyze them through our mental lens. For instance, what about a specific inspiration excites us? Scares us? Draws us into it? Or causes us to hesitate? These are all clues that can help us amplify our gut feelings and so our creativity.
- Be present: Fully practice the philosophy of wabi-sabi, of being truly present in the process, in the creative moment, without a care for the outcome. Often in doing this, our intuition will take over and lead us into a creative groove and through to a much more successful and joyful result.
- Celebrate mistakes: Similarly, we should embrace imperfections in our work. Dump perfectionism. You see, intuitive work usually involves trail and error, experimentation and exploration. So quit with the negative self-talk and appreciate the joy of the learning experience and that newb energy. Above all, trust that our creative guts will guide us into our next form with growth and metamorphosis.
- Let it lead: Once we tap into our creative guts, let it lead the start of a new project and drive it forward. Then apply rationality and logic later to shape, refine, and correct the work because trusting our creative instincts doesn’t replace our need for craft. Indeed, the initial stages of blocking in often have a special magic to them for precisely this reason.
- Engage intuition: Studies have found a relationship between the brain’s alpha waves and creativity. These alpha waves happen when we’re awake and relaxed, with a soft focus and a wandering mind. So if we find ourselves in those soft mental moments, why not simply ask our gut instincts what to do? Really, the more we learn to listen to it, the stronger it becomes.
- Study reactions: When we’re trying our new ideas, what are our emotional reactions to it all? Study the emotional cues. Was it enthusiasm? Joy? Anxiety? Hesitation? Whatever our emotion response is could be our gut instinct speaking to us. Just remember this — it’s normal and natural to feel a snidge of anxiety trying something new, but if it’s an overriding level, that’s different. Regardless, embrace those emotions that stir a strong positive or negative response since they’re often derived from our deep self, our creative guts, and so have the potential to really shift our paradigm.
- Trusting ourselves: We need to not be afraid of being wrong! We’ve got to embrace error and imperfection if we ever hope to hear our intuition in it’s pure and most powerful form. So we need to trust ourselves and leave fears behind because second-guessing ourselves and overthinking inhibits the flow of our creative intuition. Instead then, consider going with first impressions, feelings, thoughts, and strokes to get into the groove, then let that intuition take over. Honestly, trusting our artistic instincts is critical for amplifying our creativity. Truly, we should believe that it’s a valuable and reliable inner voice, and have faith that our intuition will lead us down the right path.
- Build confidence: Recognize and celebrate any success, small or large, that resulted from using that creative gut! Absolutely, the more confidence we build with this, the more likely we’ll lean into it and use it.
- Embrace the unknown: Our artistic intuition will push us towards unknown, unproven, and maybe a little wild creative territory, maybe even down rabbit holes. In short, it will drive us to bust through convention and break from what’s safe and familiar…welcome it. Follow where it leads, like Alice chased the White Rabbit. This is the pathway to innovation and new directions in our creativity, and we should let our guts be our compass in this uncharted new journey.
- Trust little steps: If we need, we can start small when learning to trust our artistic guts. So perhaps choosing a straightforward narrative or tricky color is a doable first step, then follow where our intuition leads and voilá…we’ve learned to lean into confidence building more.
- Stay sensitive: We should try to stay in tune with our creative guts, remaining sensitive to its urges and voice. Do this often enough, and we’ll become more confident tapping into it as well as our aptitude to use it will improve.
- Recognize patterns: Studying our journey with a particular piece after it’s done is a nifty way to tease out the edges of our creative guts. When did we listen to our instincts? When did we not? How did that all turn out? What lead to breakthroughs and revelations and what led to the formulaic, stale choices? What else propelled or inhibited our progress on the piece, and how did that tie into our artistic drives? By considering all this, we not only gain an insight that leads to more trust and confidence, but also perhaps modes to open up our intuition even more to put it to work with new efficacy.
- Vet feedback: We can seek respected peers to get some positive-minded feedback to confirm if our instincts were on the money or not. This helps to build self-trust and confidence and to see that — yes — they were on the money.
- Lead with intuition: To really get those creative juices juicing, starting with our intuition first to follow with intellectual processes second allows us to best use both in balance. It also allows us to determine if our instincts are aligned with our skillset and goals so we can tweak whatever needs calibration. This is because our art form needs instinct to foster fresh ideas but also structure to make our work accurate, so find that balance and we’re well on our way. In short, follow our guts first, always, then follow up with reason.
- Conducive habitat: Playing music while we work can be a powerful inducer of our intuition by moving our emotions, inspiring visions, and triggering primordial subroutines in the brain keyed to music. Also, creating a studio environment that’s more of a sanctuary than a workspace with happy reminders of what makes us happy can also relax our mind and allow our intuition to emerge. Just as importantly, we should surround ourselves with positive like-minded peers with whom we can share our experiences, challenges, insights, and instincts for affirmation, inspiration, and camaraderie.
- Stay current: Stay in pace with the trends, techniques, innovations, evolving ideals and standards, and other developments in our art form given they align with our Voice and goals. Indeed, the more informed we are, the better our skillset and ideas, allowing us to refine our gut instincts and therefore our creativity to stay on that crest of innovation.
- Remain reasonable: We should stop overthinking our work so much all the time, and that includes a mania for perfectionism. All that noise and anxiety quells our artistic intuition when it’s exactly that which we need to guide us through our problems. We need to get “into the groove” with our gut instincts and overthinking simply prevents that.
- Validate as needed: If an intuition seems way out of left field — which can happen — step back and do some research or get feedback to validate it. Even a quick reality check can be helpful. Not only does this help us trust our intuition, in whatever direction it goes, but it often does well with some judgment in the mix from time to time.
- Adhere to boundaries: Following our artistic intuition doesn’t mean we can jettison deadlines, practicalities, or what not. Rather, use those precious instincts to amplify creativity but within the constraints of the schedule or the needs of the piece.
- Actively play: Experimentation, exploration, and creative play are vital components to coaxing out our creative instincts while also teaching us to trust them. Above all, practice this without judgment or rigid expectations, leaning instead into curiosity and a sense of discovery. This will help to work around our dogmatic filters to inspire more intuitive thinking and associations.
Off Track
So now that we now so much about being on track with our intuition, what’s it like when we’re off track? It’s a bit tricky, admittedly, since our intuition is such a primordial, unnameable quality, isn’t it? “I just know it in my guts,” right? It’s ineffable and indescribable. But the good news is, attend to it, and that’ll have a positive ripple effect in everything else we do. Indeed, if we know when we’re off-kilter with it, we can troubleshoot it. So what are these symptoms? What can inhibit our intuition?…
- Overthinking: Overthinking and overworking our work, the noise of our rational mind, drowns out the instinctive voice of our creative guts. Practice exercises and relaxation techniques to quiet that mind to allow that instinct to come through.
- Negative self-talk: When we don’t trust ourselves or our skills, we just won’t trust our guts to carry us through. We may not even hear our guts at that point. And it’s not a matter of having a ton of confidence either, it’s more of a willingness to make mistakes and to trust that we can learn and correct them on the fly.
- Anxiety or fatigue: A lot of stress or simply being exhausted will inhibit our emotional, intuitive, and rational clarity, making it far harder to tap into our creative guts. Find a way to chill out and get some rest. Never forget that our intuition needs sleep and a calm mind to come through. "I need to sleep on it" can be a literal requirement.
- Conventions and biases: Unchallenged prejudices and rigid expectations can inhibit or disrupt what our intuition is tell us, leading to decisions that are skewed, too stylized, even incorrect or heavily biased.
- Social media: Put down the devices! All that external noise and voices in our heads, with all those opinions, pressures, expectations, advice, blather, or vitriol won’t only drown out our intuition, but even make it difficult to distinguish it from these outside influences.
- Dampened emotions: If we’re prone to squishing down our emotions for whatever reason, we may also squish down our gut instincts as well or at least mute them into something that feels more unreliable. Artists need to be highly attuned to their emotions not only to convey strong narratives and artistic perspectives, but even more, to be closely connected to their creative guts.
- Unclear values: If we’re not sure of our creative ethics, values, and convictions, particularly with an animal at the mercy of human impositions, we won’t hear our artistic instincts calling out to us about the narratives and visuals we choose. Only what’s good for the equine is good for our art, but we’re one more step away from that if we don’t listen to our artistic intuition.
Conclusion
Creativity blooms with practice and devotion, yes, but also with the ability to conjure up novel inspirations and perspectives. So while our skills are honed with consistency and hard work, our creative intuition is our underlying ally that frees us from the hardline of logic and opens up vast new possibilities and observations. As such then, our creative guts will allow us to access more profound and authentic work as well as boosting our art joy by inducing us “into the groove” more often and naturally.
So adopt that wabi-sabi philosophy, seek quietude, and don’t fear the unfamiliar, and sooner that we think, our intuition will emerge to inspire our imagination to guide our hands in fresh, innovative ways. Being so, we’re going to discover more risk-taking moxie and that usually translates into one thing: Exciting new artistic metamorphosis. Because — yes — believe it or not, but even our highly technical art form benefits immeasurably from this transformation, taking our work to heightened degrees of realism and believability.
Ultimately though, embracing our creative instincts is a personal journey of self-discovery and evolution. We each have an innate artistic wisdom within us, waiting to be tapped, so do that and we’ll find that we won’t only stay on track with our artistic instincts, but also with our art joy. Spending more time “in the groove” isn’t only good for our work, it’s good for us, too, by improving our sense of well-being and balance, and with a renewed satisfaction in an art form we love so much. So deep dive into those creative guts for an intensified creative experience that won’t only improve our work, but our satisfaction with it, and I can’t think of better instincts than that!
"For me, intuition is the DNA of an artwork — its nature. Intellect then molds the work — its nurture.”
— Sheryl Humphrey
