I know I’m in a good mood when I name my layers like this:

I just thought of a pretty damn accurate representation of motivation.

Motivation is like a wheel. it spins faster and slower. but there’s no driving force behind it, inspiration can make it easier to spin like oil on the axis but it doesn’t turn it. It’s up to you to keep turning it.

As an artist if you spend a few days getting caught up in games or something your motivation starts to spin down. If your wheel stops it can be really hard to start it going again. It’s heavy and cumbersome. When you try to draw, your ideas just don’t seem to want to come out and everything you draw just seems like it can’t escape your imagination and get onto the paper in the way you wanted it, and your body just tells you you’re too tired to do this.

But the way to get it spinning again is not to try and turn it all at once. Just little pushes, little victories. you build up the speed a little at a time and soon the momentum helps it spin by itself so long as you keep drawing and you can finally get your good ideas out.

Art blocks can form whenever you get into this slump and it can happen all the time but the best way to get out of it is to look at art, come up with an idea, just a little simple one, and do it. Just a quick little doodle. and then do lots of them. they don’t have to be good and you don’t have to even finish them, but if they start working and you start feeling happy about it like you’re enjoying working on it then keep doing so!

Finishing little simple pictures gets your creativity flowing again like scribbling a Biro pen on a piece of paper to get the ink flowing.

You just need to shake it loose.

and then once your wheel of motivation is spinning it will keep going the more you draw.

if you’re finding yourself struggling with a big picture you need to do for a commission or other duty, then take a break and draw some simpler pictures for yourself to speed up the wheel and take that momentum into your drawing and you can succeed!

Good luck artists!
- Xai