How Do You Create?
How do you create? 🎨 ✍🏼🖍💻
Do you draw on an iPad, or do you break out the pen and paper? Paint and canvas? Do you create digitally on the computer using Adobe software like Illustrator or Photoshop?
Do you have a desk you sit at, or do you create curled up on the couch? Are your walls decorated, do you listen to music?
Focusing on when and where we feel most creative, what activities inspire our creativity and just overall getting to know yourself are great ways to start developing your art style!
For me, I started out learning InDesign, and I moved on to Illustrator and honestly, Photoshop still scares me 😳
If you told me even just a year ago that I would have an Instagram account for my drawings, I wouldn’t believe you. Add on that I would be selling stickers with my drawings and putting designs on t-shirts -insanity! I never considered myself a person who could draw, and I never really tried to, usually getting pretty frustrated with it. I graduated last fall with my degree in Graphic Design, and throughout all of my classes, I created mostly with Illustrator, barely ever even doing pencil sketches. Looking back, I think taking the time to sketch out my ideas and nail down a concept before I jumped into Illustrator to create would have saved me a lot of time and made a lot of my projects go a lot smoother. After I graduated, I wanted to keep up with my design skills while I searched for a job and didn’t have assignments to work on anymore. I have a “professional” graphic design page and was doing logo challenges and thinking about freelance clients, but I found myself wanting to have a little more freedom with my creativity. I wanted to create things that I was into - aliens, weed and general weirdness like chicken strippers! Illustrator wasn’t doing it for me anymore, I wanted to draw and I just would get frustrated with the pen tool. I downloaded Procreate on my iPad and got an Apple Pencil. I embraced my cartoon-like style and odd humor and every time I start a new drawing, I can see improvements as I develop a style and habits.
Drawing is a skill, one I’ve worked on pretty much daily for the last several months. I don’t typically start off with sketches, and I think in part the reason is because I never really learned how to formally draw and because my illustrations are pretty simple. My style is cartoon-ish so I’m not trying to create a fine art piece, I embrace my wiggly lines and simple strokes. Most of the time, I am creating digitally with Procreate so I can easily “undo” and erase as needed, and because I create as I go, sketching it out beforehand just doesn’t make sense to me. Finding the process that works for you, is key. Some create with water colors, some create with acrylic paint and canvases, some creators don’t paint or draw and craft resin molds or jewelry, and the process to create those works would be considerably different than my process just drawing in Procreate. What works for one artist or creative may not work for the next, and that’s perfectly fine! Some people can’t focus with music, some people can’t focus without it. Don’t put pressure on yourself to create a certain way, and don’t be afraid to try new things to find what works for you. If you’re feeling stuck creatively, change things up and go sit somewhere else, take a break and decorate your space, turn off the music or turn it on and turn it up! Take note of when creativity hits you and I bet you’ll start to see patterns.
So, how do you create? Taking time to focus on your creativity can be just what you need to get out of your next creative rut.
I use the “Notes” app on my phone to jot down random ideas I have throughout the day, usually just fragments of a full idea, or a pun that I want to develop. Messy, half thought out ideas. This is the equivalent for me of sketching anything out. Probably doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to anyone but me, but I love going back to these thoughts later and making something of them once I’ve had time to develop a full thought or idea from them. Writing down anything and everything that comes to mind is a huge part of my creative process, whether I expand on the ideas or not. And these ideas are there for me when I’m not feeling particularly creative or I’m having trouble figuring out what to create, it’s kind of like a brainstorming library.
I don’t try to draw if I am feeling uninspired or unmotivated, and I don’t try to force a concept to come to life. Or, on the other hand, if I want to draw but have no ideas, I just sit and doodle, drawing whatever comes to mind (like a pizza slice, a skull, a frog, simple things) and just practicing my technique or just relaxing and coloring. Allowing myself to create as I go, accepting and embracing that the way I draw people and faces isn’t proportional, and not putting pressure on myself to create all are ways I have found that have taken a lot of the frustrations away for me. I’ve realized mistakes are easily erasable and I’ve stopped putting pressure on the outcome, because if it’s ‘bad’ no one ever has to see it or know about it.
