How to fight art block: THE ABC METHOD.
Hello and welcome to my second blog post!
This month I am going to talk about inspiration. Art block is one of artists’ biggest enemies. Especially artists who are on social media. Social media puts pressure on artists to produce content. To draw more and more and faster. It sucks. Just add art block to that pressure and it becomes hell. So I came up with a way to fight that art block, and not only that, you can also use this method if you want to spice up your art and experiment with drawing new things.
But before I get into that, I want to clarify that if you are an artist on social media and feel the pressure, you shouldn’t be drawing just for the algorithm. I don’t recommend doing that if you don’t want to burn yourself out. It’s ok to find a balance between what you like and what the algorithm likes because let’s be realistic, we have to make the algorithm happy if we want more people to see us on social media because that’s just how it’s built. But still, my advice: never draw just for the algorithm.
Now, if you are in the middle of art block right now or you want to find ways to add variety to your art, this is what I came up with: the ABC method.
Keep in mind that there are plenty of other already made prompt lists, art challenges, and techniques all over the internet that will help you with art block. For example, one prompt list that I recommend is Mimimoo Illustration’s printable prompt list. You can download it for free by clicking the button below.
But why is the ABC method worth a try? Well, it’s almost infinite, so you will most likely not run out of ideas.
There are three different ways you could use this method.
A) Create your own prompt list: You take each letter of the abecedary and choose 3 words that start with that letter. After that, randomly choose words from the final list and draw something with them.
B) Alphabetical order: Start with the first letter and choose however many words you want that start with that letter and draw something inspired by them (or literally draw the word). For example, if you choose the words “apple” and “armchair” for A you could draw a farmer sitting in an armchair with a view of a field of apple trees behind him or you could literally just draw the apple on top of the armchair. That’s up to you. You can also try to draw as many things that start with A as possible. Next time you feel like using this method, do it with the next letter and so on. You can grab a dictionary or come up with the words yourself.
C) The fast version: If you don’t want to spend time creating a prompt list of looking for words on the dictionary, you can also do the ABC method like this: Whenever you don’t know what to draw, look around and choose one item that you see. Then draw something different but that starts with the same letter. For example, if you see a desk, draw something that starts with D, like a dice.
Having to think of a word helps us start using our imagination when we are blocked, and you shouldn’t judge what comes to your mind, I mean, you can keep choosing words until you like one, but I feel like the trick here is using whatever word comes to mind even if we don’t like it that much. That word will help us start drawing something and most likely our imagination will come back and a better idea will pop on our head and there you go. The whole point of trying to draw with those words is to make the engines start running, it can change and evolve. Because I feel like when we are dealing with art block, we just don’t draw at all until we think of something cool, but with a little help and exercise our brain will become unstuck faster.
And that’s it for this blog post. How do you deal with art block? Did you find this idea helpful? Let me know! Remember you can follow me on Instagram and be a part of my art journey!
Until next month!
