Starting (or rekindling) the creative process – your creative inventory

Today I want to talk about the creative process and how to get it going, what a creative inventory is and why it’s important to have one and regularly fill it.

Here’s a video version of this post where I do a bit of sketching while I talk about this topic:

Starting or rekindling the creative process: Your creative inventory

Watch this video on YouTube.

Starting or rekindling the creative process: Your creative inventory

Maybe you know this feeling of being uninspired or tired of the things you do, and everything is the same old routine. It feels like you’ve lost your creative drive. Making art can feel frustrating and slow, and you might not be motivated.

For professional artists, this doesn’t mean you drop the paintbrush and wait for inspiration, but you simply rely on your skills to do the work. If you’re in a professional setting, you can’t simply say “I don’t feel inspired”, you have to learn how to start the creative process even if you don’t feel like it. So you show up and do the work. This is normal, although it can be hard. And fortunately, there are a few things that can help you overcome this feeling, whether you’re a professional or if you’re making art just for yourself.

If you happen to be in such a low-motivation state and your creative output is also low, you’ve probably haven’t put anything into your creative inventory lately.

This term creative inventory isn’t exactly new, I’ve heard it first from artist Jake Parker, who calls it a “creative bank account”, and artist Matt Urbanowicz decided to call it a creative refrigerator.

I like to think of it a big inventory box. The point is not what the metaphor looks like, but what it means. So the theory behind this is that in order to make creative work, you have to consume some amount of creative work by others, surround yourself with ideas and concepts and start your own thinking process. You need to fill up on ideas, because every time you draw something, you use a bit of your inventory, just like you use up physical art supplies. If you don’t know what you want to make art about, then it will become really hard after a while. Now the brain doesn’t work like a mechanical thing that you fill and use up again, it works in jumps and associations and sudden ideas from which you can go deep into a topic, so it’s always best to offer yourself a lot of these ideas.

The good thing is that in theory we all know how to get ideas – humans love new ideas. But you have to be a bit careful to guide yourself into the right direction. So stocking up your creative inventory doesn’t mean browsing the internet all day (we’re all good at this but it rarely sparks action), but it could mean looking at books by your favorite artists, or going to a museum, or being in nature. I prefer sources that don’t bombard me with new choices every minute – monotasking devices so to speak. I’d rather look at a real book than at a digital copy, where wandering off to another app is just a tap away.

Your source could be about art or anything non-art-related. The importance is getting input for your brain, and surrounding yourself with new concepts or revisiting things that you find yourself thinking about. We aren’t closed-off systems as humans, we need ideas to strive and come up with new views (or even just the wish to try out what another person did – I often encounter this when I look at artwork or watch someone make art).

So the good news here is that you’re allowed to browse, look and research. Surround yourself with the things you’d like to try out. You can also take a page of your sketchbook, or notebook, and write (or draw) these ideas. You could go to see a movie, read a book, try a new technique, or make a list of things in nature you want to investigate. Meet people and talk with them, or go on a walk together if that’s possible right now. Learn something new. Be curious like Leonardo da Vinci. Ironically, it could also mean to remove yourself from too much input for a while. I sometimes get my best ideas under the shower or when I’m taking a walk alone.

Note I haven’t used the word „inspiration“ here. I find it is used too often these days, preferably in combination with browsing Pinterest boards or buying decorative stuff for your home to get „inspired“. You don’t need this to activate your curiosity. It’s far more interesting to come up with things to draw (or collect outside, or decorate) yourself. Rely on your own good taste – what do you find interesting?

Now, the important step in starting up your creative process is to not stop at collecting all of the impressions – that’s good, but it’s just the first step. The real challenge is to start moving and start doing things, no matter how competent you might feel about the topic. Think of it as an experiment where you’re allowed to fail, not as a super-important art project that only allows your best work (these usually don’t exist anyway).

A word about the internet as a source: many people connect looking for new ideas, and then sharing them, with social media, or with art challenges. As you know, I’m not a fan of social media (I’ve quit my accounts). I’ve made the experience that these online challenges can produce a lot of pressure, and even just browsing through a lot of other people’s work can be overwhelming, because it gives the impression that other have great ideas all the time every day. This is usually not motivating, but stifling and depressing. You cannot hear your own voice when you’re surrounded by noise. I much prefer books, where I can follow a single artist over his lifetime, or at least put it away when I have enough ideas – this doesn’t work as well with online sources. An exception might be sites or videos that go in-depth on one topic. But even then you’ll have to find the moment to unplug and get started yourself. I usually feel happier and find better things to try out when I reduce the amount of input to a select few sources, and I’ve had to learn that I need to stop looking at other artwork before I feel bad or incompetent about my own work. Try to stay curious, not intimidated.

All in all, filling up your creative inventory – with new ideas, themes and techniques – is one of the most important things as an artist. You can’t create new things if you don’t have an idea. Nature or art journaling is usually a great way to keep looking at ordinary things from all kinds of angles, and you can do it every day. Still, you have to actively fill up your creative inventory from time to time. I was reminded of this and have relaxed a bit about the feeling of not feeling creative – it’s perfectly normal if I don’t put in enough into my creative inventory.

What’s your experience with finding new input? How do you fill up your creative inventory? How do you handle all the input that’s available online? I’d love to hear about it.