My passion for creating art is not what it once was. It is only recently when I had some spare time on my hands that I found enough motivation to pick up a paintbrush again, for the first time in four years. The thought of taking out the art set had felt like a chore; creativity had lost its fun.
It was frustrating that, even during the lockdowns of the previous months, I had not felt able to put my creative ideas onto a canvas. Even worse, I had no clue why creativity had felt like such a bore. Much like writer’s block, a lack of inspiration or motivation to create art is a painful hurdle to overcome, but this hurdle was the height of a mountain. Picking up the paintbrush again gave me a ‘Eureka!’ moment, as I rediscovered why I enjoy being creative; or rather, why I had stopped enjoying it for years.
I had always enjoyed being creative since I was young. While I did not spend the majority of my free time creating art, I had always enjoyed art classes during my primary school years, and I would look forward to them every week. My preferred medium for creating art was always pencil drawings, but I enjoyed discovering new media such as clay or plasticine.
I continued to enjoy art as I continued through school, even after a few hiccups when projects had not gone to plan. A notable memory during an art class is of a farmscape painting I’d spent a lot of time on being ruined by a cup of water – it was a sad moment, but I was not undeterred. I still enjoyed art enough that when the time to choose subjects in secondary school came around, I fought to fit Art & Design into my timetable.
It was when studying art that my inspiration began to die. I enjoyed studying art, it lead me down many different avenues of creativity that I’d have never found if I had not chosen the course. I learned many different techniques, which only spawned more creative ideas. I chose to challenge myself with mediums I had less experience with, such as printmaking or watercolour. The subjects of my art were unconventional for me too, as I added more items to my paintings to fit my chosen themes.
An art course loaded with such benefits sounds like it would be an artist’s dream. For some it probably is, but unfortunately, it was not for me.
My inspiration for creating art had been poured into the course, and there was not a drop of it left. The first time I picked up a drawing pencil after I had finished my art course, I found that I was too concerned about the medium of the art, what subjects were included, whether it fits a theme, or whether I had used different techniques well enough. Put succinctly, I had been creating art for someone else.
I had been trying to fulfil the advice given to me in order to achieve a good grade. This is what had driven me to change my art over the years. After having studied the course, I struggled to escape the mindset of pleasing the marker, by ticking the learning objective boxes and finishing by the deadline. It is a struggle that I continue with to this day. I manage my desire to be creative by pursuing it in other (perhaps less conventional) mediums, such as building something beautiful on Minecraft, but I still see picking up a pencil to begin drawing as an arduous task.
My recent rediscovery is that when I’m creating art in my free time, that art is for me. It will take time for me to fully rediscover my artistic voice, but like anything, that comes with practice and perseverance. I don’t claim to be an artist, and I’ve never created a masterpiece, but I consider myself lucky I found my key to the tickbox where my creativity was locked up.
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Midway Magazine 