Hello, fellow crafter! Today is a big day because it’s the day I launch a new blog series called Creative Clarity. As a lifelong creative, I know there are a wide variety of barriers, blocks, and struggles in the life of an artist, and whether you are a hobbyist or a career creative, they can stop you from being your best creative self. On the first Monday of each month, the Creative Clarity series will share knowledge, tips, and know-how to help you overcome these obstacles and deepen your creative practice.
Creative Clarity is not written specifically for crochet artists; rather, it will benefit any type of creator who is looking to cultivate a thriving creative practice. But, we all know that I’m a crochet blanket designer, so for my crochet peeps, each post in this series has a relevant free crochet pattern released in the same month, so you can channel the energy of the Creative Clarity series into a fresh project. I am super excited to share this with you, and my goal is for you to have at least one ah-ha moment in every post.
3 Easy Shifts to Help You Fall Back in Love with Your Art
This post is for you if you:
- Get frustrated during your art-making process
- Have generally fallen out of love with your art
- Feel like you have lost your way in your creative practice
If this is you, let’s dive in!
1. Answer All Questions Before You Create
The first shift is to move the entire procedural and technical setup to the front end of your artistic process. This means you need to answer all questions before you create, or simply put, plan ahead.
When you go to an art exhibit, and marvel over all of the beautiful works, what you are looking at is merely the output of a long process. You are seeing the artist’s baby without knowing all of the labor that went into the birth of that artwork. But we all know that creating a body of work is quite labor intensive! Conceiving art out of thin air can only happen after a lot of very dull and boring questions have been answered.
Uninterrupted Flow State
When you ask yourself a question about what you are working on, you are inherently doubting that you know the answer, which knocks down your confidence. Constantly having to course correct while navigating these logical processes pulls you out of the creative headspace, leaving you feeling frustrated and insecure about your art.
Common artistic doubts:
- Is this even fun anymore?
- I have no idea what I’m doing.
- I’m feeling overwhelmed.
- Why do I even make art?
Every time you are yanked out of your flow state to pivot or change course, you risk losing the possibility to make your best work. To solve this problem, plan everything ahead of time – doubts, constraints, systems, and parameters – so that all of your questions are answered, and you can just have pure creative play.
Action Item
Make an Artwork Checklist.
Before you start creating, make a list of everything you need to know about the art piece you will start. You can view the sample Artwork Checklist below and add some more that are specific to your art. Make sure to add information about parts in the process that you know regularly trip you up while you create. The more questions you can answer, the better, but starting small with 5-10 questions is better than just starting without any thought. answer all of these questions before you get started.
Artwork Checklist – Here are some examples of technical aspects that an artist might ponder:
- How large to make the piece
- What materials to use and how to use them
- What techniques to employ
- What shapes and textures to use
- In what direction to take the content and composition
- What color harmony, tone, value, and brightness levels to use
- What message or feeling the piece should convey
- Have you mastered the techniques that you will use
- What is your artistic cycle workflow
- How long should the piece take – do you have a deadline?
Before you put paint brush to canvas or hook to yarn, you must nail down all of this boring, procedural setup beforehand. Answer all of those questions and any other relevant ones, and then move forward to the creation process.
2. Turn Your Life into a Work of Art
The second shift is to add more art into your everyday life by intentionally surrounding yourself with artistic inspiration. If you live with a sense of intentionally creating a life of inspiration, you can turn your life into a work of art.
Being curious about the art that exists around you can reignite your creative fire so that you fall back in love with making art. Art opens our mind and enriches our life. It gives our life meaning. Think about when you have created something that served a purpose for someone you love. Whether it was a practical object that they use, like a blanket, a book cover, or a necklace, or whether it was a decorative element to admire, like a painting or wall-hanging, you brought joy into their life with your art.
You want to do that for yourself by adding inspiration to your surroundings.
Action Item
Consume More Art.
Intentionally incorporating art into each day will improve your quality of life and put you in the headspace to create. With an artful purpose and meaning, your creative process will elevate your mood and open your mind to new ideas. This way, when you decide to set aside time to create, you can be sure it will be a positive experience, and you’re more likely to feel in love with your art.
Each day, we consume things like television, music, clothing, phone apps, nature walks, books, and even food. All of these can be looked at with an artist’s eyes. Invest thought and time into making sure as many of your decisions as possible are geared toward artistic expression in some way.
Here are some ways to bring more art into your life:
- Cut out 15 minutes of phone time to take a walk and be inspired by nature
- Collect art books from thrift shops or second-hand bookstores
- Take a trip to your local museum – usually they have free admission times
- Look for art events in your community
- Play music in the background that gets you in a creative mood
- Follow a wide variety of artists on social media
- Discover more artists both inside and outside of your own art form
- Make a folder in your camera photo app for interesting and inspiring photos
- Add more art to your home and wardrobe
Choose one of those suggestions to focus on each week. If you struggle to find the time or the financial means to bring more art into your life, what will also work is to look at your current surroundings with a new child-like wonderment as if you were seeing everything for the first time. This is a great way to feel creative and get inspired.
3. Get Back to Your Creative Roots
The third shift is to move back in time and get back to your creative roots.
If you have fallen out of love with your art, you undoubtedly feel as though you’ve lost your way. The good news is, getting lost is an integral part of the creative process, because it challenges you to check the map and figure out how to get back on course. Checking your creative map is a great way to remind yourself of where you came from, artistically. Go back to the beginning. What made you fall in love with your art in the first place? Why did you start creating?
In the pursuit of life as an artist, your work will evolve and change many times, with each step in this evolution being informed by all of the previous steps. If you walk far enough down the creative path, you will reach a point where your current works look nothing like the artwork you created at the beginning of your journey.
Josie Lewis defines creative flow as “the brain state in which past experience and data (intelligence) can freely mingle with alternate solutions (creativity).” In other words, our past experiences and knowledge subconsciously and fluidly inform our creative selves when we are in a flow state.
To reignite that creative spark, go back to the beginning.
Creative Beginnings
Here are 7 pieces of advice I would give a budding artist:
- Experiment with lots of mediums until you fall in love with one
- Get inspired by a wide variety of art forms
- Sharpen your technical skills by learning as much as you can
- Go through your artistic endeavors to pick some for a portfolio
- Explore and transform your ideas so that they evolve into a personal style
- Discover the ways that creating art will help improve your mental state
- Imitate the artists that you admire so that you can focus on your technique
If you feel like you have lost your way, and your artwork and mental state are suffering because of it, then pretend you are a budding artist and go back to the drawing board. Choose something from that list and follow your map back to where you started.
Action Item
Move Forward by First Looking Back.
How to get back in touch with your creative roots:
- Go back to the basics and revisit the first techniques you ever learned
- Test out a new technique every day, learning only the bare minimum about it
- Start simple and broad before you try to deep dive
- Try looking at your first makes with a childlike wonder and curiosity
- Take a course or watch YouTube videos about the artists who first inspired you
- Remember why you first started to create follow that impulse.
If you take a break from your current body of work, and act as though you are a beginning artist, you can reorient yourself on your artistic journey. We need to be reminded more than we need to be taught, and sometimes that means being reminded of where you came from.
Putting it All Together
If you are frustrated during the art-making process, use a project checklist to answer all questions before you begin creating.
If you feel like you’ve fallen out of love with your art, consume more art in your life to find deeper artistic meaning.
If you are feeling helplessly lost in your creative practice, get back to your creative roots by pretending to be a beginner artist,
With these 3 shifts, you should be falling back in love with your artwork, and getting back to creating happily. Now let’s take a look at the accompanying free crochet project!
Time Travel Through Art: A New Look at My First Crochet Design
Have you ever thought it would be incredible to travel back in time with the knowledge and experiences you have now, and see what you’d do differently? Well you have the power to do that in your creative practice. Go back to the first project you ever created and make it again, with the knowledge you have now.
I’m a crochet designer, so for me the Gumball Blanket, a cute and fast circle-to-square design, is the first design I every published. If you know a little about my story, you know that this was the first crochet project that I made where someone requested the pattern. I took the weekend to figure out how to write a pattern, and sold my first ever crochet pattern PDF!
Over 100 blanket designs later, I find myself traveling back in time to that first piece, with all of the design experience I have now… Would I change anything? Of course I would! With this thought in mind of reconnecting to the beginning of my creative journey, I printed my Gumball Blanket pattern and pulled yarn from my stash. My yarn choice is reflective of falling in love with my art again – an array of gorgeous fiery reds and romantic deep purples. Starting the blanket, right away I noticed things that would improve the design, and made those changes. I’ll make a separate blog post with a deep dive into those technical bits for the crochet artists.
The energy you will receive from picking up one of the first pieces that you made – something you loved is best – and remaking it, and the nostalgia and comfort that you’ll feel. It’s like getting in touch with an old friend, very warm and cozy, and sure to have you falling back in love with your art.
Want more?
If you would like to take a deeper dive, I have some more content for you!
Free Crochet Pattern
If you crochet or know someone who does, check out the accompanying free pattern, the updated Gumball Blanket, coming soon. Finished photos and links to the paid PDF will be released in a blog post on February 10th here on the blog, and the free pattern will release on Valentine’s Day – yay!
Creative Art Blanket Course
If you want to enroll in my Creative Art Blanket Course, it is designed for crafters who are struggling with their creative journey. In the course, I tackle such problems as, “too many WIPs”, “lost my crojo”, “analysis paralysis” and much more. Along the way, I’ll guide you through the layout and construction of a beautiful art blanket with yarn from your stash.
Creative Clarity Series
Click here to read all of the posts in my Creative Clarity series.
Thank you for reading and I hope it helped!
As always, happy crafting!
Rachele C.
The Art of Crochet Blankets (my book on Amazon)
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