How to Get Inspired as an Artist

It isn’t always easy to find the motivation to create great art, especially when you feel like you’ve hit a wall with your work. The pressure to conceptualize and produce work that is unique is part of the deal, but your ideas may not always reflect your impeccable taste in art. Motivation is often a skill rather than an event, and it can be generated with a few helpful habits. 

Seek Inspiration from Other Mediums

If you typically paint landscapes, try sculptures. If you’re musically inclined, sit down to draw. The secret to creativity is often more about investing in the process than the product. Inspiration can strike at any time, and it’s more likely to hit when you’re engaged in something creative, even if it’s not your typical medium. You never know when listening to La Mega on the radio could inspire you to create your next big art installment. 

Schedule Intentional Breaks

When you’ve stared at the same piece for hours, it’s easy to get lost in the details. As well, when you’ve worked on a piece for an extended period of time, it can become less and less enjoyable as time goes on, which isn’t an ideal headspace for creativity. In addition to taking breaks from your work to focus on other things, try to schedule time throughout the process to step away from your piece. The more intentional your breaks, the better you’ll be able to see your work with fresh eyes, and hopefully a fresh perspective. 

Keep a Positive Outlook

It’s discouraging to feel like an idea of yours just isn’t panning out the way you’d hoped. Everyone is their own worst critic, and artists know this all too well. Instead of considering a work a complete failure, or beating yourself up over a lack of fresh ideas, focus on your achievements. Even small things, like the discovery of a new favorite hue or composition, is a reason to celebrate your artistic talents. 

Switch Up Your Process

Every artist has their own unique procedures, but even the most solid of routines can become dull and tedious after a while. You don’t have to permanently alter the way you approach your work, but it can be helpful to recalibrate your methods once in a while. Try switching up the order of events, the time of day you work on a piece, the direction you face while at work or your techniques to try something a little bit new. 

Renovate Your Space

Your environment has a notable influence on how inspired or distracted you feel while laboring over a piece, and some elements of your space are more helpful to your process than others. If you’re motivated by inspirational sayings, consider hanging a few quotes up on the wall. If you are easily distracted, remove busy or attention-grabbing elements from the room. Display pieces of work you’re proud of, or fill your space with the works that inspired you to take up your craft in the first place. 

Participate in Artist Challenges

If you aren’t already involved in an artist community, you may want to reconsider. There’s a lot to be learned from your peers, and one great way to maximize the power of these connections is to engage in artist challenges. There are several online communities that host regular challenges in which you and other artists are tasked with the completion of a work based on a theme, idea or recreation of an existing work. Seeing everyone else’s final products can even inspire you to create something new and different the next time you sit down to complete your next project. 

Steal Like an Artist

To create great work, it isn’t always necessary to reinvent the wheel. Take some time to look to the work of great artists, as well as the great artists that are found all around you, for inspiration. Find a way to use your own voice as an artist to reshape or reconfigure something you really connect with. This way, you can revisit why a work moves you, and subsequently tap into that spirit in your own way.