art block is your brain telling you to do studies.
draw a still life. practice some poses. sketch some naked people. do a color study. try out a different technique on a basic shape.
art block doesnt stop you from drawing, it stops you from making your drawings look the way you want them to. and thats because you need to push your skills to the next level so you can preform at that standard
think of it as level grinding for your next work.
As a scientific illustrator- this is 100% true and going to review your basics will fix it every goddamn time. Not only does it keep your skills sharp, when you’re not emotionally invested in the final product of a piece, you relax and your brain makes more/better art juice for you. So, when you get back to that big/important piece? You’ll know what to do and how to do it.
Nothing in nature blooms all year round. Rest, and take care of yourself.
i want someone to put this into writer’s blocks now
Writer’s block means you need to relearn the whole alphabet. idiot.
From Experiance: DM/Storyteller block is actually a symptom of overplanning, taxing your creative reserves too much without absorbing new stories and life experiances to fill them back up.
Read a bad fantasy novel, Enjoy a comedy special, Take a tour around an art gallery, Watch a youtube video essay on a topic you don’t care about and try to form an opinion.
Regardless of Medium, art is about feelings, so the quickest way to break out of a rut is to go out and find yourself some new ones to feel.
take some time to notice your vision. see how easily you detect motion. focus on something in your peripheral (without moving your eyes to it). see how it works. look at your hands. pick something up with your fingers. appreciate how ridiculously specialized they are in fine motor skills (even if your personal motor skills are lackluster). think about how you have a body built to be an apex predator through use of tools. think about how the brain of your kind has created a digital hivemind uniting the whole world. now look back at the screen. look at the tab where you are in an argument about cartoons on tumblr. close the tab. open a new tab. google “tribute to anomalocaris”. watch the video that comes up. leave a like. subscribe even though the channel has been inactive for 8 years. you will need it in the coming times
they/she, mostly reblogs but I do plenty of art!! If you want to see my more active thoughts and most of my art follow me over on twitter! (@Dana_Magala).
