7 Ways to Crank Up Your Creativity in 2022

Ruts, they happen. We all sometimes hit autopilot and become rote in our life and work. It often just takes a little prompting to get you going after a hiatus or derail you off the same-same track. Here are a few things that might spark some juice when you need it.

1. Love what you love. Own it.
Notice what you notice. Take more interest in the general things that stand out in your world - an interesting manhole cover, funky old doors, the texture of the paving stones under your feet - and draw easy thumbnails or make notes as a reminder. You will see repeated images, colors or shapes emerge. Then choose one thing and intentionally use it as the basis of your next painting.

A peeling door found in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. ©Amy Guion Clay 2022

2. Color: Break it down.
Go through your photos or clippings from the past week or month. Choose 1 of your favorites based on color. Mix those colors as best you can, and do 10 paintings in that color way. Or if you use Photoshop or Illustrator you can color pick areas of the image digitally and create color swatches as I did below in Illustrator. This can help you see the colors more clearly before mixing them in paint.

Choose a photo you love and mix color swatches. You can start digitally like I did here in Illustrator. ©Amy Guion Clay

3. Subjects - Go for a walk and take photos or sketch the shapes and motifs you see around you. When you get home, choose one image and do 10 paintings using that composition or motif as the inspiration. Anything goes, the more mundane the better because it won’t become too precious.

Bernd and Hilla Becher are famous for their images of industrial structures created in repeated series as shown above.

4. Residency:
Going to a residency in a far off country is fabulous, but If you can’t travel beyond your home right now, create a self-residency nearby where you live. Choose a project that interests you and find a place that will support that vision. For example if you love to do detailed botanical drawings, ask a local greenhouse and see if you can go there every day for a month to paint their orchids.

Or contact the city about some aspect of it’s history and work a project around that subject, maybe diving into their archives every day for 2 weeks. I did this at a residency in a very small village in Italy, and found a treasure trove of photos that told a personal story of the town. I then combined them with paintings and drawings and mounted them on an old piece of wood that was found nearby.

Images of Noepoli, Italy. ©Amy Guion Clay

5. GO 3D, MIXED MEDIA:
Wander through a junk shop, garage sale, or flea market - create some 3D assemblages from other people’s refuse. Collect things in nature or on the street. Bits of rusty metal or natural objects like leaves. Explore ways to use them. The piece below was created using various found objects including a piece of a cardboard box as the base.

6. Journal it!
So for all of the above, create an inspiration journal (read more about that in my other post HERE) of all things that inspire you. Collect these journals to inspire you any time you get stuck. Digital photo files don’t count. Make it physical. Write how the images or colors make you FEEL. Let your completed journals pile up over the years and pass them on to your kids and grandkids (if you have them). You’ll find there is a story of your life in those pages that could not be expressed in any other way.

7. Scale:
The size of the work you do affects so many things about the process. If you work large, try buying some small canvases and do a small series. If you usually work small, do the opposite - find some large canvases or stretch your own. Or buy a large roll of kraft paper and charcoal and have at it. Expand beyond what you know. Below are three small paintings on small wooden squares I found at a Chinese shop in Spain. Each one is only 1.5” square, but when mounted in groups have a much larger impact.

Do you have any other tricks that help you move past your own private ruts? Share below and spread the creative joy for others in 2022!