The past year of living through the pandemic has taken a toll on everyone. People are tired, bored and burned out. So, what better time than now to enlighten yourself on ways to become more creative and artistic every single day?
Arts and crafts are a great way to clear the fog from your mind. Art can also be the perfect hobby to acquire — one that you can do in-between classes or work.
Whether you’re a beginner artist who likes to doodle or an advanced painter selling portraits for a living, you will need inspiration and passion to allow you to create beautiful arts and crafts. Here are six ways to practice your creativity daily:
Keep an inspiration journal or folder
Any time you see something that inspires you on social media, in a magazine or even on a billboard driving to work, snap a photo of it to reference later.
Collecting design work and art over time can stimulate the creative juices inside of you. After building a decent collection of inspiration, this is a great place to turn to when experiencing artist block or boredom.
The art you have collected can give you inspiration to make your own adaptations of specific art styles.
Browse Pinterest and TikTok
All social media, Pinterest and TikTok, specifically, are fantastic resources to find skills to add to your creative tool belt.
These platforms are an asset to those in creative life. Pinterest and TikTok are terrific resources to add to your inspiration folder as well. The benefit of using these platforms to get inspiration is that it’s easy to find work from people in all different skill levels, giving you a wide variety of art to be exposed to.
Invest in a creative aid book
Many artists and crafters in the world have made books, specifically for artists who need a push in the right direction when it comes to finding inspiration and exercising the right side of their brain. Having these books on hand is a huge tool for any artist because the tips never go out of date. Any time you are feeling in need of some advice or inspiration, these books are waiting for you.
There are hundreds of books out there waiting for you to explore. Some of the best creative aid books are 365 Days of Art: A Creative Exercise for Every Day of the Year by Lorna Scobie, Piccadilly’s 500 Drawing Prompts Notebook and Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative by Austin Kleon.
Take an art class
Sign up for an art class! Whether in person through school, a local art studio hosted class or an online course, it could be an amazing way to practice your creativity and skills every day as well as having a schedule to hold yourself accountable. It is amazing what you can learn over the span of a couple of weeks and how evident your skills will show in your work.
Some of the best art classes available online are on Skillshare.com and Creativebug.com.
Skillshare.com is an excellent resource on a variety of topics including design work, animation and painting. Each Skillshare class is taught by esteemed artists or professors all over the world, making it a legitimate resource for your creative side.
Creativebug.com is another incredible website with classes more focused on crafts, sewing and embroidery projects. JOANN Fabric and Craft Stores run Creativebug.com, making it guaranteed to have some cool, unique crafts and skills to offer.
Try an artistic warm-up exercise
Artist block warm-up exercises are honestly some of the greatest ways to spark the creativity in your brain. These activities are short art ideas that can be altered and repeated millions of times with different results after each. These activities are open to interpretation and adaptation, so go into these with an open mind, and go crazy.
Commit yourself to a daily art challenge
Daily art challenges are a great way to hold yourself accountable for working on art everyday. Art challenges can differ. But, by getting the gist of them each day, you can create art in a short time span, such as 15 or 30 minutes. The challenges are meant to get you to practice your skills every day to get into the habit of making beautiful content. Part of the fun of these challenges is to post it all on social media, using a specific hashtag so all creators of the challenge can see each other’s work every day.
One popular challenge to try could be the 20 Art Styles challenge. In this challenge, the prompt is to redraw yourself every day in a different style. One day, you could draw yourself as a character from Bob’s Burgers, another day as a character from The Fairly OddParents and so on. This one is tagged with #20stylechallenge or #20styles.
Of course, there will be days when you are not beaming with creativity, but trying these resources above will hopefully give you the jumpstart you need to create something wonderful.
