Overcoming creative blocks - Small steps

There is no doubt that we all suffer from creative blocks sometimes. For me I've had one for a long time. It's connected with grief, loss, illness and the covid lockdowns amongst other things. I think it's root is something buried in my sub-conscious. Possibly my inner critic has been getting busy and is also stopping me!

Things that are so far helping are to make a change to my internal thinking about it. Changing from  "I can't" to "I can try" and "I will try, even though it's hard". I've also been making myself do tiny amounts of painting, just a few minutes at a time. I know it bucks against the idea of waiting for inspiration but I think inspiration often comes through the process of making work. If I wait for it to come I may never overcome the block.

When I paint, it feels so hard, my hands hurt and it feels exhausting and the concentration needed feels impossible. I think that if I make a start though and do some painting, and it doesn't really matter what, as long as it's something to do with the work I'm blocked about. It almost feels like I've forgotten how to paint, however when I teach people and help them it flows effortlessly so it's still there but locked away. Hopefully I can find the key. Making this website helps as well as I am going through my work and seeing what I have made in the past. This reminds me of the person I was before.

I'm now working on a tiny painting. I chose to take an old painting that I originally painted en plein air, at the foot of Devil's Dyke at sunset. The painting was on board, in a frame but is  unresolved so I decided to re-use it panel to make a new painting of the same location but from the top of the hill. It is progressing slowly and I did go into the studio and got my paints out and sat down to look at my reference images and previous paintings. That's a start. Perhaps I'll take it up to the location and carry on working on it in location. It's a start and that's all I asked for as a first step.

So where did the block come from? Something started to happen to my outdoor practise at lockdown when we weren't allowed to go out. I followed the rules to the letter and stayed home. It would have been a great opportunity to get out and paint but I couldn't do it in the context of what we were being told. I also contracted Covid and long covid which also made it incredibly hard to concentrate on anything. However this hiatus has stuck with me and although I'm much better now, painting landscape has still been hard. It's strange. I've been able to make portraits and more experimental work but I've not been able to fully reengage with my landscape work and that's what my identity as an artist was before and it was going quite well. So I am trying to reconnect with the artist I was at that time and we will hopefully see some progress and it may get easier.

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