How to Deal With Art Block

As an aspiring artist, drawing is something I do a lot. I enjoy it as well. But what happens when you suddenly have a burn out? That’s called art block. It’s the state of feeling like you cannot think of creative/interesting ideas that you can make into artwork. Unfortunately I’ve been struggling with art block on and off for a few months. For anyone else struggling with art block, or wanting to start drawing but not knowing how, here’s a list that could help! (Even though I literally don’t do a thing on this list)

1: DTIYS 

DTIYS stands for “Draw This In Your Own Style”. It’s pretty straight forward: find a DTIYS post on a social or even Google one. It’s a good way to get your creativity flowing and perhaps try something new (perspectives).

2: YouTube Tutorials 

Quite simply, you can just find tutorials on YouTube. They can branch from working with markers, sketching, realism and even digital art! There’s many YouTube videos that dive into these different mediums. 

3: Try A New Perspective/Medium

If you’re someone like me who mostly likes to draw cartoons, try something new! This could be from creating complex backgrounds or doing realism. Personally, I would work on different character side views since that’s something I struggle with. Mediums are a term for different types of artwork (clay, paint, etc.) . If you try something new and enjoy it, it can become a hobby!

4: Draw Your Surroundings

Something I did a few years back was I would draw what was right in front of me, usually in a free class period. Try different angles and spaces to really get creativity moving. For more of a challenge, ask someone in the room to do something, so you can draw that as well. 

5: Redraws/Redo’s

Redrawing artwork doesn’t have to just be an art block situation, but it can definitely help to see how much you improved over the years. It’s good to redo something after a long period of time has gone by. You have new perspectives and improved more. This could also make you feel a lot better with your work!

I hope this helps other artists dealing with art block like me. The month of March has been insane so far with Rock Rivalry, the Musical, and Drivers Ed and Badminton starting up next Monday.  so I haven’t been able to draw what I’ve wanted to as much. Because of all that, my creativity has run dry. Hopefully after all of this mayhem I can get back into my (almost) constant art flow.