This is so common among artists that it has a name – Artist’s Block. It happens to us all, and it’s almost physically painful, like having your arm cut off. No matter how much you want to, you just can’t paint, your seeing is all off, your lines, colours, and materials just won’t do anything you want them to. Inspiration dries up and the more you try to create something, the worse things get. Just when you really NEED your art to help get some crisis out of your system, it packs its bags and goes on holiday. You wallow like a beached whale and it feels as though you’ll NEVER paint again.
A massive life lessons hit me when my marriage broke down many years ago; my art, instead of being a vehicle to help me process my emotions, dried up and left me completely. I knew that art therapy could be helpful for making problems visual and therefore shifting our viewpoint, but drawing was the very last thing I felt like doing. Another of my personal theories is that art therapy can be less helpful for those who have been trained to draw academically. It didn’t help me, anyway. I began to collect driftwood and found objects during my walks on the beach. As they piled up I saw how some pieces could be put together to create interesting shapes and textures. I had inherited my ex’s toolbox, complete with drill and electric saw, and soon I was hammering, chopping and gluing the heartbreak and fury out of my system. I called my creations great names like “I Can Never Forgive You” and “How Could You?”
I think this is the key – whether the block is big or small, long or short, try using materials you have not used before. Instead of watercolours, try pastels, if you use oils, try inks. Instead of pencils and brushes, see what happens with lollipop sticks, twigs, sponges, feathers. Use powdered graphite and your hands. Experiment with oil pastels and turps (or Zest-It, it smells better) to thin them. Treat all this as a huge experiment – you can’t get an experiment wrong, can you? Make messes, see what happens. Mix different things together. Forget about making pictures that other people might like. Try not to judge yourself or what you are doing – enjoy the fact that it doesn’t matter what you produce, because you’re not even trying to make Art anyway. You’ll probably be very surprised at what happens.  This is 'Improvise', the series I made just before Christmas - see my archived blog for December '14 for the process - all the same but all unique! Different people have different ways of working and that’s just the way it should be. When you are blocked though, the only way out is through, so blast paper with paint, throw inks, drop oil into watercolour........ Remember that this is a creative process, not a left brained logical one and it’s up to you to take an idea and run with it. Take it somewhere new. I have also found that a really helpful way to look at an Artist’s Block is that art and creativity are like breathing – you take in experiences and information from the world around you, hold them a little, and then pour them out through your personal filters of ability, feelings and emotions. When you feel blocked and nothing much is coming out, think of it as a good time to take more IN. Nurture all your senses, read, sing, dance, go to talks and exhibitions..... Stop trying to make art and feed your soul instead. Some people pour raw emotion into their art every time, others create perfectly acceptable pictures that express very little that’s personal. Finding a new way of working, or expanding your creative boundaries can be a beautiful gift that arrives out of an Artist’s Block if you are ready to receive it. And here's a new feature of my blogs - my Picture of The Week!  This gouache drawing on paper measures 36 x 27 cms and is 65 euro.
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 The world around us is filled to overflowing with interesting looking people and places; you don’t need to be an artist to try drawing them. You don’t even need to be good at sketching to enjoy trying. A few simple lines, even if they are more like doodles or cartoons, will help you notice and remember the interesting things around you. By keeping a small book with blank pages in your bag or back pocket at all times, plus a pencil, pen or biro, you have everything you need to add adventure to your life. Every time the bus is late, or the waiting room is full, or you have 10 spare minutes, get your book out and draw something in it. Keep your book private – you don’t have to show it to anyone, ever, if you don’t want to.
There are so many ways that you can enjoy drawing and sketching. We are constantly bombarded with things flooding our senses that we are rarely able to notice them, let alone stop and look at them. It’s quite frightening to realise how little attention we pay to anything. Our busy left-brained lives dismiss anything that isn’t strictly necessary or relevant to what we need to know or where we want to go. If you notice the light hitting your coffee cup in an unusual way, draw it! Usually, we see a cup, and that’s it. Cup. Drink the coffee and go. Your right brain would love to notice the colour reflecting up from the table, the sunlight hitting it at an angle, making blue-toned shadows. The shining spoon making spirals in the hot liquid...... This doesn’t take any more time, but cultivating and encouraging our visual senses makes life so much richer and endlessly fascinating.  You may or may not become an ‘Artist’ (whatever that is) but the ability to tap into and express your natural creative resources is hugely beneficial. Meditation has been scientifically proven to enhance our lives on many levels. Drawing and sketching is a quick and simple way to access a similar state of mind; a deeper sense of being alive and connected to the world. It helps you to engage with the precious passing moments of life. It freezes Time and keeps your memories safe until you need them again. It’s surprising how many things you will remember when you look back at your drawings, whether or not they are any ‘good’, and by studying things around you, your drawing will become more realistic as your skills improve.
 Add words if you like; things that cross your mind, overheard conversations, draw instead of write your shopping list! Stick in tickets and receipts, odd scraps, photos and inspiring quotes. This is more in the region of journalling, or posh scrapbooking, which is very popular in America now. See Google or Pinterest for ideas. The point is to relax and enjoy yourself, and to have fun with a free way of adding sparkle to your life.
Everyone has things that they know more about in a tactile sense. I can draw people, cats, Maltese farmhouses and a few others things reasonably well from imagination, but they don’t look ‘real’. They don’t have the subtle qualities of light and form unless I draw them from life. Even using photographs can be tricky (although tempting), as they don’t have that three dimensional real-life dynamism. Drawing from imagination can only bring up symbols stored in your visual memory. If you don’t replace your childish symbols with more sophisticated studies of the world as it really is, those symbols will not change.
Most people can draw one thing well. It will be something that they know, that they have a lot of sensory information about. Maybe they use it, touch it or smell it every day. It’s probably something they like, a feature of their hobby or pastime. A golfer, for example, could draw a pretty accurate number nine iron from memory – a chef might draw a good saucepan, or a cleaver. When we invest more than just superficial ‘looking’ into a subject it is more deeply seen and understood. It engages more than simply sight; we have a physical, visceral feeling for it too. This is the great gift of art, and why it can enrich our life. By practicing drawing everyday objects we begin to notice all sorts of subtle things that we would not have noticed otherwise. The more deeply we can focus on just copying exactly what is there in front of us we will begin to notice more and more in the ‘ordinary’ objects around us.
This is true on both a figurative and conceptual level. We might never notice the way colours reflect differently in china and metal until we see it in a painting. Or try painting it ourselves. The messages in abstract art, installations and video art etc also confront us with new and sometimes shocking ways of seeing ourselves and life around us. One of the basic functions of art, and artists, is to notice things that others don’t. Every time we work creatively, we are helping to breathe new life into the world. Even if we are faithfully copying an old master, or singing someone else’s song, or playing a great piece of music, our own nuance will be there, making it our own. Our skills grow every time we practice, and it is the tiny steps that move us onward.
This Friday, 13th February, I would like to invite you to a special Friday Gallery at my studio in Manikata. I will be showing the whole collection of 50 drawings and paintings in charcoal, acrylics and ink of male and female nudes......... There will be wine and light refreshments - I look forward to seeing you between 7 and 9pm. After Friday, please contact me to see the collection by appointment.
This form of meditation is unique in that you have an end product – the drawing. It will be a record of the precious time you have spent in an altered state of mind. It will record where you were distracted and where you were completely absorbed. When you were stuck and analysing too much, and when you were free. With practice your drawings will become a more and more accurate reflection of the subject, but that’s not the aim of the exercise. The only aim is to experience freedom.
It’s not common for a creative person to excel at business and marketing. One skill usually outweighs the other. Marketing the Arts is best done by those who are not directly involved in creating it. You can’t be over sensitive if you are good in business, and you can’t be insensitive if you are going to create meaningful pieces of art. Business people know how their world works; it is built on things that have worked in the past, proven methods and safe approaches. A good business model is a sound, logical left-brained piece of thinking, with steps to take to reach the goal.
One of the last things we may think of is a happy customer. Putting that into the mix often stifles the flow. That’s not good business, but it’s certainly good for us. We are feeding our own soul, helping it to grow and express itself in its own unique way. There are many innovative ways of running businesses now, of course, with the internet so easy to access and use. Creative people, like me, can really enjoy making websites and skimming through hundreds of inspirational images online. I like playing around with the way the pages on my website look, and editing my own paintings. But I know that I fall down when it comes to the promotional and marketing side of it all. I start and then retreat. It doesn’t feel right for me to put ‘BUY ME NOW!’ buttons under my pictures. Feeling isn’t part of most businesses though, is it. What to do??
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Jeni Caruana 
I love to paint - and draw - and help others to discover their creative side too..... Be the first to see my latest work and hear of new classes by adding your email address below. Thank you! Categories
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