How to kickstart your creativity after a break

The struggle of starting again, and tips for how to do it gracefully

“It hasn’t even been a week and I already feel out of practice,” one of my friends declared. She’s a professional singer and has stopped teaching for the summer holidays. In just one week of not singing she could already feel a loss of flexibility in her voice. Something that others might not notice when listening to her, but she can feel that it takes more effort to do something that she could do effortlessly just a week ago, what would it feel like after the six week long holiday?!

This, to me, is one of the most frustrating aspects of being an artist. That loss and often regression you experience from not practicing your art for a few days. A lot of it is muscular and muscles that don’t get used lose their strength. This goes for all varieties of arts I can think of, music, dance, painting, writing etc.

I have had to restart various creative endeavours many times in my life. I pretty much stopped playing piano in my teens in favour of playing drums and guitar. Starting up my piano muscles again once in University was not fun, but I did it and am glad for it. After each of my pregnancies I had to start up my singing muscles again. And after focussing on a music career for most of my twenties I started making art again in my early thirties. By now I know what to expect from that restart and how to avoid unnecessary frustration.

Although it is ideal to always keep on practicing, in reality it is unrealistic. Life happens, be it other work, sickness, family, pregnancy, holidays or a variety of other things that can keep you from practising your art daily. I remember when I started making art again - the frustration at first. Trying to do something that I could do well earlier on, yet now struggle with. At some point it felt easier to just give up, and I did a few times in my twenties. However, if you have grace with yourself and know what to expect of the first few weeks back, you can stand up to that nagging voice and tell it to go sit in a corner and watch you get back to the level you were before you paused. A bit of determination, grit and grace is all that you need.

Some tricks that I have learnt for starting again

Coming back to making art after a time off isn’t easy. Sometimes just knowing where to start can be daunting. However there are a few things that experience has taught me will help with the process. (Most of these tips are focussed on painting and drawing, however the principles can be applied to other art forms as well.)

1. Go back to the basics

For a musician this would be practising scales and rudiments. For visual artists I can suggest doing:

• Single line drawings to get your hands moving

• Negative space drawings to get your eyes “working” again

• Practise composition by doing thumbnails of the subjects that you are interested in

2. Do exercises and studies

• Do quick 1 to 10 minute timed drawings

• Do quick observational studies of things in your vicinity

• Practise value by doing black & white or greyscale studies of your chosen subject

A quick B&W study I did recently using an Art Graf Viarco tailor shape block, which I can now say is an incredibly messy medium if the weather is hot and your hands are sweaty from a hike.

3. Experiment and play with your materials

The most important thing here is to play and make a mess while you reacquaint yourself with your materials. You can:

• Do colour swatches

• Play around with colour mixing

• Use different tools to apply your materials

4. Use the tools that others have made available for you

This can take many forms for instance you can:

• Work through a workbook on an art subject that you want to get better at, for instance, a book about composition.

• Join an online drawing session. For example, Beth Spencer hosts the Introvert Drawing Club with regular online drawing sessions in a supportive environment.

• Do a workshop, whether in person or online.

I recently did this online workshop by Emily Powell with apples as the subject and enjoyed it so much.

The most important thing: Be gracious with yourself

Know that it will take time to get back to where you were, the length of time will mostly correlate with how long you paused. And don’t be dismayed, it will go faster than learning from scratch, you just need to get those muscles back into shape. Remember to rest and gradually work up the amount of time you put into a creative session.

See this goat…? He’s here to remind you to be gracious with yourself on your creative journey. (Painted him during an online drawing session with

Emma Carlisle

this morning.)

I’m pretty sure that almost everyone reading this will have had to restart doing something at some point in their life. What was it like? And how did you deal with it? What are you doing to get back to creating?

I didn’t draw as much as I wanted to during the summer holidays, and I must admit that it felt a bit daunting jumping back into things. But I have been taking my own advice this week. Thus far it has worked and I feel excited about creating things when I wake up in the morning, something that has always been a good sign for me.

So with this I would like to send you off to go and create something and enjoy doing it no matter the outcome.

May creating give you sparks of joy this week!

Nino