After my creative block last week I thought I had to write something good about inpspiration again (since that was the original intent of this blog ;-)) . First of all, two lovely illustrators gave me some great and heartfelt advice: Elizabeth Stanton (please check out her work on her Penspaper Studio Blog, it is gorgeous) and TJ Lubrano (her illustrations on her blog A Look in a Creative Mind, are also lovely).
What they showed me is that you cannot force your creativity to come out. Elizabeth wrote "It will come back when it is ready" and I think that is very true. Sometimes it takes an hour, sometimes it takes a couple of days, but it will definitely come back. (Mine actually did, and then I felt like I was even more creative than before).
The second thing that happened to me was that my first gift from an artist arrived yesterday!!! It is a beautiful print by by Liam Stevens, an illustrator I interviewed a while ago. He makes amazing paper cuts, once he actually created an animation video completely made of papercuts, I think that took him about three months in total! The print he sent me is also amazing, I can't wait to frame it and put it up on my wall! I couldn't believe it when he asked me which of his prints I would like to have (I actually had a hard time deciding, they were both so pretty!!!)
I think I figured out what keeps creatives going: and that is the heartfelt and supportive advice from other creatives, who know 100 % what you are going through. That's what did it for me, I guess.
And lastly, something Vincent Van Gogh once said: "In spite of everything I shall rise again: I will take up my pencil, which I have forsaken in my great discouragement, and I will go on with my drawing."
Hey, thanks for the shout-out to my website. I appreciate it. Relative to some more talk about creativity and what we, as artists, go through--here's something that's been going around that seems to put all that "rings true" in one spot:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.austinkleon.com/2011/03/30/how-to-steal-like-an-artist-and-9-other-things-nobody-told-me/
Hope you find it helpful!
Thanks so much, the links you post are always great and refreshing. I had a look, Austin gives great advice, I love his black out idea! And he gave me a new idea: maybe I should read all the books my favorite authors read...that would be a real challenge. Could even make a blog about that ;-)
ReplyDeleteOooh I missed this! You're so sweet! Thanks for the shout out :D.
ReplyDeleteI shall browse around some of your links!
Ciao Xx