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Get Unstuck: Concentrations


Twenty Degrees of Inspiration:
You're working on a body of work and, well, what started with so many ideas seems to be drying up. The ideas haven't dried up; you just need visual and intellectual stimulation and prompts! Remember that art often comes from our reaction to the world rather than simply from within. So here are some ideas:

1.

 Broaden your domain: Make a list of all the connections you can imagine to your theme (science, psychology, history, philosophy). Go get lost in the library and explore the possible connections and see what happens.

2.
 Limit your parameters: Sometimes the possibilities are too numerous. Put some arbitrary requirements on your piece (number of objects, color scheme, a particular kind of mark-making, one type of shape, one direction of brushstroke, everything starting with the letter "a."

3.

 Begin with the greats: Choose an old master's work (or new master) and use the work as a jumping off point. Appropriate the composition's structure; Use the color scheme; Use the subject matter; steal a figure, steal a sky; steal a brush or pencil technique.

4.
 Begin with the not-so greats, but oh so common: Look for images in magazines, old photo albums, coloring books, textbooks, newspapers, advertisements. Proceed as in number 3. Be careful of clichés, especially with magazines: if you use something cliché, make sure you engage with the cliché.

5.

 Begin with the banal: Look at incredibly boring image sources. Maybe a diagram for a molecule in your chemistry book will give you an idea. Find the corniest book about something banal but related to your topic.This can be a great way to make funny pieces!

6.
 Look it up!: use a big dictionary with etymologies (origin of words) to look up your topic or words related to your topic. Maybe you will make a discovery about how you can deepen your engagement or understanding. Alternatively, you could open the dictionary at random and find a word to somehow integrate into your next piece.

7.

 Take pictures: spend a day with a digital camera. Take pictures incessantly of you and the world around you to push yourself to experiment visually in a speedy fashion.Use the snapshots for sources directly or as composition ideas.

8.
 Google it! Do a google image search on words related to your topic. Warning: this can become a highly addictive procrastination tool, but sometimes yields the most wonderful surprises.

9.

 Watch a movie: Watch a movie that is somehow related to your topic. Choose something artsy or old if you want stronger visual ideas. Pause the movie at visually interesting moments and record the compositions, the figures, the landscape using a camera or your sketchbook.



10.
 Read a poem: A short poem may give you needed inspiration or use imagery that you can appropriate in your piece.

11.

 Look to far away lands: Look up non--western sources on the internet; wikipedia is good for a quick and general approach. Borrow a stylistic, decorative, compositional, spatial or color idea. This is great for breaking out of old habits.

12.
 Live it: Reflect on your daily, banal engagement with your subject matter. Think of your daily life: walking to school, the supermarket, the bus, the mess in your room, your school textbooks, for ideas of the more banal relationships to your theme.

13.

 Write, right, write: do regular free-writes about your concentration; you may want to make lists, write poems, stream-of-consciousness. Don't worry about what comes out, what matters is that you begin to free-associate and brainstorm AND have evidence of it.

14.
 Think big (or small): Play with scale in your work. You can change the size of your pieces, or the size of your subjects (work from models, magnifications, maps etc).

15.

 Do it again on top: Make a piece that consists of at least three layers. Let the layers and process remain visible.

16.
 Try a new medium: It's thrilling to try working on a new surface or with a new medium. It shakes things up and promises new discoveries and enthusiasms. Try vellum, working on a newspaper, on the pages of a book, on a photocopy, on wood, etc. draw/paint with housepaints, tea, sponges, crumpled paper towels, etc.

17.

 Look at other artists: look in books or online. Read interviews with them about their work. Personally, I think nothing is more inspiring that reading what dynamic artists think about art and their process.

18.
 Go to memory: look through old family albums, letters, journals, and sketchbooks. See how your thinking is related to your past. Surely there are ideas there.

19.

 Non-art visual sources: look at manuals, maps, textbooks, encyclopedias, graphs, diagrams.

20.
 Get texture and pattern: use a pattern or texture from a fabric, the sole of a shoe, a wallpaper, an advertisement, a biological source. Begin by making a rubbing of textured objects.