Are You Having Fun with Your Art?

Experiment with Spanish Homework

Is your work suffering because it’s lost its sparkle? Having fun with your art is a key ingredient in making great work. Here are four ways to make the process more delightful! …

Wearing a hot dog costume with furry leg warmers for no reason

Take time to screw off – Being playful in our everyday lives transfers to our spirit, and in turn to our work. If you’re getting tight in your art and the creativity doesn’t feel like it’s flowing, it probably means you’re not getting enough worry-free, goof off, giggle with friends time in your life. It sounds obvious, but sometimes we have to set aside intentional time to just go screw off for a while.

Don’t take your work too seriously – Are you putting pressure on yourself to be a “great” artist, or create “great” art. Remember that art is just an opportunity to move through a luscious process of expressing yourself. Period. An expression of the body, moved by the soul. What does that look like for you? For Jackson Pollock it was throwing paint. For some it’s stitching tiny, endless stitches in perfect unison. Are your brush strokes grand? Or small and meditative? Find the movement you love in your creative process, and enjoy the motion, without worrying about the outcome.

Break it up – Losing yourself in your work and exploring the nooks and crannies of your piece – without worrying about the whole – is a great way to feel relaxed in your creative process. Cover up all but one area of your painting, and just explore developing that section with no regard to the whole. Go section by section through your entire painting, and see what it looks like at the end of the day when you reveal the entire piece.

Sectioning off a larger flower painting to just focus on this area helps me not worry about the outcome

Be open to the ridiculous – Does that little voice inside your head ever suggest something silly while you’re creating? “Paint a giant orange splotch in the middle”… “Spray paint it” … “Paste letters all over it”. Have you shushed that voice? Trust it for once, and try the ridiculous. Have some fun for dog’s sake!

So don’t shush the voice, throw paint, trust the ridiculous, scratch, peel, drip, spray and try new things. Enjoy losing track of time. And most of all, don’t forget to take time to screw off in your own, personal life!

Thanks for tuning in… Let me know how you keep the fun alive in your art, in the comments section below….

Happy Painting!