My Creativity's dun gone. i wanna paint , but Im stalled

Negative space interpsersed with moments of thoughts in vivid colour, without a conclusion.

Just my thoughts. Visual art is in no way my strong suit.

farmerman--

You feel tempted by triteness? Turn what you feel might be a standard seascape into a fantasy seascape--mess around with alien colors, stretch the law of gravity, introduce some peculiar shapes in the foreground....


Sometimes the unreal makes reality more attractive.

mmmm - if the view seems trite you could maybe try one or more of these?

take a close up detail from an unusual angle and ignore the main view for the time being

hold a 'mood' word in your mind - enhance that feeling in the painting - loneliness, fierceness (wild weather?), amorphous (fog) .... you come up with the word or pick one at random

deliberately compose the painting in an unbalanced way - and they make it work with the use of marks and tone

change the scale that you normally work at and maybe work very large or very small

I think you need a challenge?

where you are painting sounds a long way from home- is it familiar territory? I find i need to 'tune in' to a new place by looking at details, doing rough rapid sketches etc until i feel i know enough about it and understand the place.

just some thoughts ...I hope something helps because it is miserable having painters block ... been there

Something with dogs playing poker??

farmerman

What a good thread. I've thoroughly enjoyed the exchange of ideas ....
My thoughts: Why not write, rather than paint for a while? Or experiment with some printing? Or do a Picasso! = branch out/try different mediums.

I agree with msolga... sometimes the best thing to do is nothing. Get away from it from awhile and try something else. I find it always comes back when I am least expecting it.

Re: My Creativity's dun gone. i wanna paint , but Im stalled


I used to be constantly worried that my creativity would leave me. But then I realized that (being that I don't believe in g-ds or muses) my creativity is within me, and it can never go away. The problem seems to occur when I haven't been creative in a long time and am a. afraid and out of practice, or when I have had too much creativity demanded of me in a short period of time and I am b. tired.

So, the way to fix being a. afraid and b. tired is to do something fulfilling (for example, a nice wonderful hike) and then draw and try not to criticize myself. Sure, the first couple works might be terrible, the first 20 might be terrible, but once I hit something really good it gives me my confidence back. (Of course, then there's the challenge of living up to it!)

So I completely suspect, Farmerman, if you are like me, that once you kick your own butt and get started, it will all flow easily from there.

Or, as Msolga said, you could wait for an impulse. But I find it's best to be in practice so that when those creative impulses come you can be technically prepared for them. Sometimes working is what leads to new ideas and creates those impulses.

A very good thread indeed...

If painting's not working maybe you could work on the art of sea kayaking for a few more days? After spending a few days with sea-wrinkled hands you may find yourself dying to paint...and if not, at least you'll be a lot better kayaker

I know exactly what you're going through, farmerman. I have not painted in a long time. Having forums like this doesn't help either, I can tell you that. The only way to get back into the spirit I have found is to have it forced upon you. If you sign up for a class, ANY kind of art class, you will be forced to do things for assignments...and after a couple assignments you'll find yourself thinking about it outside of class and voluntarily doing more about the subjects, which will catch your eye. It also helps to look at other artists who are doing stuff. If they're bad, you'll imagine how you would make the strokes, and yearn to make them. If they're good, you'll remember how they did it, and want to try it out. And of course, looking at inspiring paintings from people like Sargent will always help. I suggest you follow a tactic similar to what Asherman suggested, or just using regular blocking techniques when actually painting once you get the motivatino up to try.

sorry about my tardiness but Ive seen a lot of wisdom here. Yesterday we went sea kayaking and I know what Jer is saying aboiut the blue wrinklrd hands of hypothermia. Not nice. I was ready to build a fire in my kayak. We didnt make it as far as wed planned. But we did pull into Leanordtown on Deer Island and had to go through friggin customs. I wanted a cup of coffee at the take-out and we were being held for closer scrutiny.
WHAT A COUP FOR A BUNCH OF INTERNATIONAL BRIGANDS> WE ATTACK CANADA IN KAYAKS. CMON GUYS. GET A DONUT AND RELAX.

Anyway, we thought wed have a lot of stories to tell back at the dock as we returned to our distant shores

SO THE AMERICANS GIVE US A SIMILAR HOST OF ****. There must be a trrorist profile into which a middle aged family and friends, half of whome were light haired women, sitting in a fleet of war kayaks, fit comfortably.

QANYWAY, today, after breakfast, I went down to the docks and painted a dissaray of kayaks. They just sat comfortably askew. 5 kayaks in 2 vibrant shades.
Im gonna make it ok. I think that my own personal creativity is closely linked to my own sense of incredulity. To Be creative,I need to be in a constant state of face that Jon STewart makes , which is followed by an upspeak version of WHAAAT?

Gus is right
Gus's advice was on the right track.

Farmerman, you're feeling uninspired because you're a fish out of water. Or you're a farmerman too close to the water when you should be near your fields.

Even though those dern cows are difficult to sketch, it is their comforting presence that inspires you. Think of those fat, tasty cows in your pasture and paint them from memory!

Edit: I was just overwhelmed by a brilliant force of psychic power! I foresee a Bovine Masterpiece in your future!

farmerman, ever been to Elora, ON?

For anyone who hasn't followed farmerman over time, he is an accomplished painter, just presently dealing with adjustments. Glad to hear your pissy self talkin', farmer.

Do anything counter-intuitive.

Paint the pink petals blue and the sea pink. The shadows are pale green. The walls of the houses are translucent. You can see the yellow mountains in the distance

Find the wrong angle for your subject, the backside of the house.
Screw up the angles so everything is out of focus, out of balance, out of time. No two shadows are the same length nor the same direction.

Play.

Seriousness is for when their is blood somehow involved.

If you've been painting landscapes, paint a close-up of your left ear. If you have been painting portraits, leave pieces of the faces out. One nostril. No left eye. A lip that only goes half way across.

Look at one of your old paintings through a three by three inch square, paint everything in that square in perfect detail. Then look at that painting through a three by three inch square. Continue to the subatomic level

Lay on your back and sketch cloud shapes.... hurry.... on a wind swept day the shapes last about three minutes. concentrate on how the clouds look, not what they look like. Draw only the ones that look like clouds. Paint them in blue on a white sky, on a green sky, on a black, star-filled sky.

Paint the waterfall pumping the sky full of stars

Sketch the outline for a new piece. Turn the canvas sideways and paint.
Or turn the canvas a quarter turn every fifteen minutes and continue to paint.

Stop seeing what you see.

Feel what you see.

Joe

Joe,I used to pay hard earned money to get the way youve described. I seem to be a bit better and now Im stressing the discipline. Also, Im looking closer at subjects. I think I was temporarily overwhelmed with these nautical scenes. Now Im taking the scenes apart and focusing on components. I know Ill be ok when I can start freely watercoloring moments of lightand shadow..

Cav, I dont remember the name of Elora. Whaats it got?

farmerman, Elora has a giant, beautiful gorge complete with waterfall, and a strong Mennonite community, as it happens, complete with places to tie yer horses and all. It's very picturesque, and a great place to live. Friends of ours live there now, and we're considering it as a relocation.

http://www.eic.elora.on.ca/
http://www.grandriver.ca/index/document.cfm?Sec=27&Sub1=124&sub2=0

I was happy to find out that Elora is only twenty minutes north of Guelph.



What is this? Some kind of Canadi-indi-annie-ee-eye-oh-ian joke?

Joe

No joke, it really exists.

It was a destination spot for the family in my youth.