Back to the Basics

Revisiting my artistic drive

I am in a hold pattern – artistically speaking. Last week, I worked on another figure to my Breast Cancer, Female and Young collection. And for some reason, the series has been wearing me out emotionally and physically. As a breast cancer survivor, it takes some serious mental bandwidth to create breast cancer-related art right now.

I’m tired at this time and need to gather up more artistic energy for this series, as well as doing other types of paintings, such as still lifes and landscapes.

My headspace has been unfocused lately. I’ve been second guessing my abilities and am feeling artistically diminished. And I’ve been viewing other artists’ work online and through webinars and feeling a tad inadequate because I’ve been comparing my work to theirs. I know, a big no-no. As I’ve stated in a previous post, the comparison game leads nowhere.

Frankly, I am temporarily burned out.

But recently I’ve watched an artist on YouTube discuss how to handle falling into an artistic slump. The timing of this video was perfect. It felt as if the artist were directly talking to me. She reassured her viewers that all artists run into low artistic energy from time to time.

Then she recommended that, when the creative energy is low, it might be beneficial to take a break, but still do art-related activities. For example, instead of creating new art pieces, artists can organize their digital photos of their artwork or do other administrative tasks such as taking inventory. Other great activities to get the creative juices flowing is to practice an aspect of art each day, such as doodling or pencil drawings.

This is also an aspect of self-care, as it is providing a way toward no-pressure relaxation.

Knowing that I was at a low point artistically, I went back to the basics. A few months ago, I went to a dog and cat show to take photos of these animals with the express purpose of featuring them in future artwork. Plus, I love animals, so I enjoyed the creatures’ antics and marveled at their beauty.

This week, I decided to practice something I haven’t done in many years: a graphite sketch of one of the animals I saw at the show. As I sketched, I felt rusty but nurtured and relaxed. I enjoyed this activity immensely. I don’t even know why I stopped doing these, as creating graphite sketches brings me great joy. Rather than give up oil painting, I will include such sketches in my art practice from now on.