creativity starters: a resource
This is an essay first published on my Substack, ‘artist notes’. To subscribe and have future newsletters delivered straight to your inbox, please click here.
This week I'm offering up a list of suggestions for creativity starters: prompts to aid the artistic process when ideas, motivation or both are lacking. The list is a prompt in itself (or at least I’m hoping it will prove to be) — I currently find myself heading into the second month of a period that has seen me lacking in both inspiration and motivation, and my hope is that recording these as a resource for myself, as well as others, will kickstart me back into action! Although I know this is normal for me (weeks of pretty intense productivity, followed by weeks when I just seem to have painted myself all out), I do wonder, too, if it has to be this way. I was also inspired to draw up this list when I realised how often I totally forget about even obvious techniques for getting ideas flowing, generating creative activity; even just simply recording or playing around with inspiration. So maybe my first suggestion, before I get to the list proper, is to create a document or get a notebook where you can record all your ideas on this subject. If I've learned anything from doing this newsletter, it's that writing things down is the absolute best way to gain clarity and/or hammer the message home.
I’ve drawn here on my own practice as a, mostly abstract, painter — things that have had good results for me in the past, habits I've developed — and ideas I’ve come across in my reading about other people's creative processes. Some of these suggestions are simple, but I’m working on the assumption that it’s not just me who overlooks the obvious when in panic mode and feeling overwhelmed. Some may not appeal or feel relevant, each person's practice being personal to them, but I hope at least a few of these tips will prove interesting or useful, and you might give them a try when you’re feeling a bit stuck. As ever, I’d love to hear from you, so if you do try any and find them helpful, or if you have some of your own you'd like to share, please leave in the comments!
On to the list!
Cut and Stick
vase on a shelf, holly horton
Collage! My vase collages are some of my favourite pieces of mine, and they make very pleasing use of random patterns, shapes I've experimented with and small pictures I've drawn at various times in the past with no particular purpose in mind. If you have old projects tucked away you've never been entirely happy with, or don't know what to do with, cut them up and mix them together. You're not having to come up with new ideas totally from scratch, and it's so nice to feel like that work your former self did is finally getting some play.
When cutting out for my collages, I love seeing the cool shapes formed from the pieces of paper that get left behind. If it’s remotely interesting, I save it (also applies to packaging… you get some amazing paper in parcel boxes!) My favourite way to do this is to Blu Tack each shape onto a large sheet of paper; A3 is my preference. I used to do this all the time when I had a studio, and it is best suited to those who are lucky enough to have wall space to display the sheets. But it also works if you have a nice big portfolio to store them in, or you can just use a scrapbook, of course. The beauty of sticking them to the wall, though, is that they are always there in front of you, ready to catch your eye; still, it is lovely to be able to flick through a book and browse them, also. Definitely use Blu Tack rather than glue or tape, though; this way you can move them about, detach them to draw round, or glue them into a collage at a future date. It is so much fun to draw patterns on these offcuts, or be guided by what the shapes themselves suggest to you.
3. Those big sheets of scrapbook paper you’re using as mounts? Also perfect for getting around the problem of being intimidated by your sketchbook. Maybe the most blindingly obvious tip on the list LOL, but one I genuinely forget about -worryingly often. There’s zero pressure with a piece of cheap scrapbook paper. And even if you don’t like what you create on the page as a whole…
4. There might be a small detail, even just a pleasing line where two colours meet, a satisfying curve, a sexy texture… Cut this piece out and Blu Tack it onto your sheet of shapes.
5. I find it almost impossible to throw old magazines away but there does come a time when it has to be done (I don’t need a Vogue from 2011. In fact, I feel a lot better about myself now I don’t read Vogue at all, but that’s a totally different newsletter). Before I put them in the recycling, it’s fun (feels like a good mix of productivity and procrastinating) to cut out any good images and stick them in a notebook. I particularly like cutting paintings out of interiors magazines.
Give Up Control
according to the laws of chance, Jean Arp, 1933
I think I am probably a bit of a control freak in some ways. I’ve talked a lot here before about my issues around uncertainty. But when it comes to idea generation, or, probably more significantly, overcoming fear of the blank canvas, I like to embrace the laws of chance. Jean Arp is a key inspiration for me here, with his works such as the one called literally According to the Laws of Chance. Arp would cut out pieces of paper and then just let them drop, sticking them where they happened to land.
This has been an inspiration for the way I sometimes use paint. I choose a few colours, squeeze out a small amount and then just make random marks on a piece of paper with one of them (you could even do this with your eyes closed if you're feeling really paralyzed or prone to second-guessing yourself). When one paint has run out, I move on to the next, naturally being guided by what’s now on the page - following the curves, adding details to any suggestive shapes . If there’s a little bit of each colour still clinging to the palette, I mix them all together to create some new, probably noxious shade and smear that on the paper. The idea here isn’t to make anything in particular. It’s simply to overcome those blank-page nerves, get a rusty hand used to holding a paintbrush again; basically, it helps you to be completely uninhibited, because you don’t have to make any decisions once you’ve put a blob of paint on the palette (best to just pick the colours at random), the materials kind of dictate to you. I just find it frees my overthinking mind a bit.
Once you’ve made your marks, put the paper away for a day or two. Come back to it. Is there anything pleasing there? Doesn’t really matter. Pick a few more colours. At this stage, I would select ones I think will actually work rather than at random, but you could do either. Start filling in any gaps. Don’t overthink it. Let the existing marks dictate the new ones. Not just in terms of shapes and colour, but the style of the stroke. That thin white space down the edge of the paper might demand a light touch; the bigger space in the middle might be calling out for a loose scrawl. The pale wash of paint near the top might want a thick black line across the middle to give contrast. That weird murky bit might suddenly sing with a punchy pink dotted over the top of it. I refer to paint because it's my medium, but I'm sure you could do this with other materials — do something random, step away for at least a day or two, come back and see what suggests itself, or do something else random to it. As to what that something might be, see tip no 3 under Experiment below.
this sketchbook page was originally just swatches of paint from a cheap pack of primary colours that i had. i didn’t like them (i’m going to give them to my niece), but i went back to the page and added some colours that i had left over on my palette from something else. Whilst this isn’t something i want to try and reproduce in its entirety, there are small areas that i legit love
i particularly like this area
Experiment
We do not always create ‘works of art’ but rather experiments; it is not our intention to fill museums: we are gathering experience ~ Josef Albers
The above tips are basically a call to experimentation, and experiment is a word I feel I should have stuck somewhere prominent, to be reminded of on a daily basis. Not just when I’m working, but for day-to-day life generally. I recently completed my second course of CBT (hurrah!), and something that both my therapists have encouraged me to do is view challenging activities as experiments. Whether it’s going to a party, asserting myself in my relationships, or taking public transport (all of these things have been hard for me at various points in my life), when you view it as an experiment, it offers you a whole new perspective. What will happen if I try this — sending a text, going to London on my own, saying no, I don’t want to do that? Not loading the outcome with emotion, just being interested… Being fascinated by what happens when you try X instead of Y. I’m a naturally curious person, and so this really works for me. I’d love to know the answer to what happens if I do this in that situation! (Obviously, this isn't always appropriate, you have to feel reasonably safe!) And the same applies so perfectly to creativity. There’s no right or wrong. Just what ifs. If I try to paint a picture of a cat what will it look like? If I mix this colour with that one what do I get?
A next step in this way of thinking is to take a class or workshop, either in something related to your normal field or something completely different. If your aim is to relax, free yourself from the pressure to be excellent and just create, I think something brand new is the way to go. You might fall in love with something you hadn’t considered before, but even if you don’t pursue it beyond one session, I think there’s a very good chance you’ll have generated ideas you can use in your regular practice, with the benefit of a fresh perspective. I recently attended a collage workshop run by my friend, artist Louise Frances Smith, and I did a sewing workshop once before run by another friend. I am dreadful at sewing and needed a lot of special help in that one (it was genuinely embarrassing 🤦🏼♀️), but I came away with fresh ideas about colour and patterns, and the collage workshop was perfect for me… doing something related to what I normally do but with very different materials.
Switch up materials! You don’t need to go to a workshop to do it, obvs. For example, it's so nice outside (at long f-ing last) that I desperately wanted to work outside today. This inspired me to grab my pastels, to save faffing about bringing my paints outside. I haven't used them for ages and I don't know why not, I love them. They started to melt in the heat pretty quickly! But I had enough time to use them on a page in my sketchbook that had some very bare bones paint marks, ala points 1 and 2 under Give Up Control above. It was fun and there's some good stuff starting to emerge. And it can really be as simple as switching to canvas if you normally work on paper and vice versa. Canvas is freeing for its ability to take lots of layers (easy to cover up mistakes), but the right paper (I love Khadi the most) is such a sensory pleasure.
Lou also introduced me to Richard Serra and his Verb List, 1967. A list of the infinitives of 84 verbs, it can be used as a launch pad for a new activity. (The link will take you to a list that's clearer to read.)
richard serra’s verb list
Use What Already Exists
In ‘artist note #2’ I wrote about my visit to a couple of exhibitions, and shared some close-up photos of details that caught my eye in works by Alice Neel and Peter Doig. Hard recommend doing this yourself. Go to a gallery and drink in the works up close. Zoom in on the shapes, lines, textures and juxtapositions that really speak to you, and photograph them. Here is one of my favourite details, from Picasso’s The Three Dancers.
the three dancers, picasso, 1925
2. Then zoom back out and think about how the painting makes you feel. What mood does it put you in and is it one you want to capture in your own work? This doesn’t have to come from a painting - it could be a song, an outfit, a place. This idea came from Monica Lee Rich, who writes The Smart Creative. The mood she wanted to evoke in her artwork was conjured by a photo, of Elizabeth Taylor lying on a beach. I have never thought to work towards capturing a feeling in this precise way before. Read Lee Rich's inspiring piece here.
3. Straight-up copy. Take a painting you love and recreate it. I have never done this myself but I fully intend to, and I think is the prompt I am going to personally use this week. Maybe as I go, my own artistic self will bleed through and I will learn more about me and how I paint, or maybe it will just be an interesting technical exercise. Rosa Roberts, an artist I admire very much, recently posted on Instagram:
I have a dog now and it’s changing the way that I work. I don’t have the freedom that I used to have right now and so I’m looking at other people’s work a lot at the moment for inspiration doing versions of bits of paintings that catch my eye. A lot from books in the studio. It has been surprising to me how much I’ve learnt from working in this way about my colour palette and other people and just seeing different ways of working and helping me realise habits that I have gotten into.
4. Read. Be inspired by other creatives not just by admiring beautiful reproductions of their work, but by learning about their lives and the challenges they had to overcome. The best books will make you feel connected to their subjects on a human level, and the one that has achieved that for me the most strikingly recently is Square Haunting: Five Women, Freedom and London Between the Wars by Francesca Wade. Not about painters, but as a woman ambitious to sustain an independent, creative life, I was inspired beyond words by this book.
Finally…
Keep a journal. This whole Substack was born out of my artist notebook. As mentioned at the beginning of this newsletter, it's incredibly useful to have a written record to refer back to that tells you what you’ve tried, what works for you, the factors that have played into the success or otherwise of your creative practice - both practical and emotional, those directly connected to your work and in life more generally. Of course, you can choose to record as much or as little as you like, in whatever format works for you. But I do highly recommend keeping some kind of written record.
And finally, finally, if all else fails, buy some gorgeous new materials. Jackson’s Art is my absolute downfall favourite.
