Tips for Overcoming Artists’ Block

Let’s get back to it.

Have you ever stared at the blank paper (or canvas, or lump of clay, or cradled panel) and felt a bit stuck?

It’s possible that you are having some worries with formulating your idea and the way you wish to express it. Perhaps you are overwhelmed with ideas and are concerned with how to narrow your focus for this latest project. Maybe you have so much on your mind that it’s difficult to clear the path for your creative energy to find its voice in your new project.

What’s an artist to do?

We posed that question to our Moon Over Water co-owners and artists Karen Rester and Sharen Chatterton and they shared their helpful suggestions.

Karen Rester, Fiber

I have spent my share of time staring at a canvas wondering where my imagination has gone. When I find myself in that situation, I will work in one of my art journals or just take a piece of mixed media paper and start painting colors. I might pick three colors, use different tools to apply them, but apply them I will, all over the page, from side to side and corner to corner. I work with no goal in mind, letting my mind rest, my imagination starts to wake up, I see something in the colors, I add another layer, just playing, relaxing, no timeline. This process gives me freedom, new ideas, new prospective, and it is fun!

Sharen Chatterton, Mixed Media

I think as an artist, we all get stuck sometimes, it's like our creative energy is at low tide. To raise my creative energy and bring in the tide of inspiration, I start each of my days with meditation and conversations with my Mom. I know that her soul whispers to me words of inspiration and guidance from above. I put paint to paper, hand to clay, allowing the energy of co-creation to flow through me; it’s my daily journey of soul time.