4d • General Chat
Hello again, new and existing friends!
First, apologies for not being active here. My life has been crazy busy and hectic, lots going on and less than optimal motivation to show up here for my community. I had a lot of requests to join to community in my absence and as I was just going through and approving new members, I notice a consistent theme that I think affects all of us as artist and creatives.
The motivation to start, the will to complete a project fully once reaching the end, and the confidence to let our whole selves show through in our work. All things that I have been struggling with as well lately so here’s some tips I can share on these topics and I hope everyone can jump into the comments and share what works for them as well!
First, the beginning stages of art can be definitely the most challenging, sometimes we have all the ideas and don’t know which one to begin with, other times we feel blank and unmotivated but have that urge to create. When I have too many ideas I tend to take a few minutes to meditate on what I’m feeling internally first. Have the paints and supplies set up and ready to go, put on your favorite music and breathe deeply while feeling into what is asking to be released. A lot of times this brings me just enough clarity to get started and see what emerges from an initial inspiration. If you have a photo to work from or something more realistic or detailed in mind, having that photo out with a few minutes to reflect on what it means to you and why you want to replicate it sometimes helps open to space for a starting place. I always start with sketching out some details with a neutral or opposite color very lightly to get some things on the canvas that will add to the finish later.
When I’m feeling more blank and uninspired I lean into that process more heavily and focus on releasing expectations of what I want my art to look like. I really focus on the emotions that are begging to escape my body and the colors associated with them. For example I regard anger as red and orange, yellow can represent electricity or high energy, green for love and connection, blues and purples for hard emotions like sadness and despair or sometimes even clarity and focus. I think of the colors as they relate to chakras and focus on the most powerful emotion I feel first, release expectation and just start making marks on the canvas however my hand needs to move that emotion out.
My ideal way of being in great service and value to others is to help explore this process in a way that feels freeing and motivating to continue creating as we grow through life. There’s alway emotions that can and need to be expressed. I’ve always been big into creating peaceful and calming artwork but I have experienced many times where this focus alone holds me back from truly expressing my whole creative self and my world. I’ve been leaning into a more abstract and emotional spewing on canvas lately to get some of those pent up emotions out on canvas and I offer this invitation for you to do the same if you’re feeling stuck in your creativity.
As for completing projects an conquering that perfectionism we all tend to hold ourselves to tightly, try this emotional puke process first on an old recycled canvas or something then see how you feel when you return to your regularly scheduled masterpiece. You may be surprised at the results when you allow the freedom to just puke color on canvas with no expectation other than to see what comes out.
When you do get to those final stages of a painting, when the fear creeps in of “I’m going to mess this up if I touch it again” or “there’s just a few small details left until it’s perfect but I can’t find the motivation to just do it. I suggest again, the quiet pause with all the things set up, just allow your mind to wander a moment and let it analyze what needs to be done, and use the five minute rule to get started. The five minute rule is, start for just five minutes, if after that it still feels awful then go ahead and stop, find another activity and try again a couple hours later. More likely than not though, if you just set the bar low to just five minutes to be able to start, once you do start you get into that flow and it becomes easy to keep going and get that piece dialed in and finished up.
I speak here from experience as I just finished these two portraits below that I could have done in under a month had I followed my own advice, but the busy life, kids and other priorities kept feeling more important and my motivation to get these done declined more the longer I waited. I was asked to show my work at a local restaurant I had shown at last year and that kick in the butt got me to complete the final details I was putting off for a couple months in just a couple days.
If you have any more questions or comments regarding these situations please drop them below and let’s all find more solutions together so we can all feel more confident about our creative power in 2026! 😇💚🙏
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Hello again, new and existing friends!
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I teach people with trauma how to alchemize their pain into beauty and Trust the Process to create intuitive, passionate Art that speaks for itself.
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