Tips for Juicing Up Your Creativity

Summarized from an article with quotes from Erin Lee Gafill

1. Take a risk.
Being prepared to take a risk is a big part of doing something creative. Painting a blank canvas red is one way. No drawing skills required. No expectation. No stress. It will serve, later, as the underpainting of your “real” painting.

2. Give yourself an assignment.
Settling in to do the assignment is a way of tricking yourself into working on getting to work without actually realizing you are now, actually, working.

3. Start a ritual.
I light a candle as a way of stating that now I am working on this (painting) and not that (you name it). Carving out this period of time doesn’t  always mean I put paint on canvas or that if I do it adds up to much of anything; but it does mean that I have set aside the the time and don’t allow myself the other usual distractions. Sometimes it is only at the end of this self-appointed time that the idea begins to gel.