Hi again, Glenn.
Well, while I was reading your reply concerning creativity, I remembered that I had some relevant discussions with somebody else here before. I searched my communication history and found these threads:
I think you will perhaps understand what Mark is concerned about in his topic and you may find my ideas and suggestions to his concerns in my topic a bit helpful. It’s been two years since I shared my very personal ideas about creativity so I revisited it carefully, but looks like my stance has not changed since then. But I would like to add one thing to my ideas back then, because I myself have experienced something new during these years. The addition is “be as quick as possible for catching your inspiration because you actually cannot tell what will work as your inspiration sources.” For example, the following are the things which quite unexpectedly worked as my inspiration sources this year:
- A very simple facebook comment from my gallery manager.
Well, it is about this kitten drawing.
When I completed this work, I decided that it was a failure for some reasons. But I shared this anyway on my facebook page and my gallery manager really loved it, commenting “what a lovely BABY cat!!!”.
Well, she did not use the term “kitten”, but she wrote “BABY” instead. When I saw this comment, I found myself having a very weird feeling i.e. I took this as a failure, and she took it as a cute little baby. Then I thought that the term “baby” was absolutely incompatible with the term “failure”. All babies are so precious and no babies can be a failure. I felt that I was a bit sinful about having decided that the drawing was a failure. So I changed my mind and decided to celebrate the birth of this “baby cat” by surrounding her with mimosa wreath. Hence this work titled “mimosa celebration” was born.
And fortunately, one of my online shop followers immediately loved this piece, bought a copy, and very kindly, even posted a 5-star review comment.
- Exploration in framing setup.
I was thinking about my next gallery show and I wanted to find a better framing setup for my pen drawings. So I searched for some framing ideas on pinterest and found this photo, which I really liked.
I sent out this photo to some frame shops in Japan, but they did not have a framing mat of this colour. So I started looking for some possible alternatives, and found a mat of a colour named “iron”. I ran a framing simulation using photoshop and really loved the combination of mahogany frame with gold lining, and iron framing mat.
Then I started thinking what kind of artworks would be perfect for this setup. This is how I came up with “the classic garden drawing series”, which includes “at dusk” and “my life as a cat”.
So actually you cannot tell in advance what will work to motivate you to create something new and it is so important that you do not ignore it when something flashes in your mind. In my understanding, your art is not born only when you’re in your studio. Wherever you are, whenever it is, you just stay open and keep listening to your inner voice. Then you will find the seeds everywhere, the seeds which may blossom into your artworks in the future. Ideally, you should start working on them immediately, or at least take a quick note of your ideas if circumstances do not allow you to do it.
As to your first step to recover & enhance your creativity, by the way, I wonder if it might be interesting for you to think about an original drawing with a theme “water and woman”. Since you’ve already learned pretty much about how to draw a woman’s face and water with graphite, this is where you have overcome initial “technical” difficulties to some extent. Then it should make sense that you take advantage of it and next challenge yourself with “conceptual” difficulties in your next piece. You see, there are different types of difficulties in art; technical vs conceptual. Now you’re a bit confident with the “how to” part of drawing water and woman’s face, so you give yourself a new homework concerning “what to” part of a drawing of water and woman. If you don’t come up with any designs for this theme, just go google it, then you will find what other artists, including fashion/ad photographers have thought about this theme. These images will work as your “reference” photos, not technical reference this time, but reference for working out your own concept and original design.
I’m glad to know that you’ve already submitted your artwork to the Member’s Minute. I look forward to looking at the episode where your work is featured. Just for your information, these are the episodes covering my works:
https://thevirtualinstructor.com/members/members-minute-11-25-21/
https://thevirtualinstructor.com/members/members-minute-7-29-21/
https://thevirtualinstructor.com/members/members-minute-4-21-21/
https://thevirtualinstructor.com/members/members-minute-8-13-20/
https://thevirtualinstructor.com/members/members-minute-5-21-20-2/
https://thevirtualinstructor.com/members/members-minute-3-5-20/
https://thevirtualinstructor.com/members/members-minute-1-2-20/
https://thevirtualinstructor.com/members/members-minute-12-5-19/
https://thevirtualinstructor.com/members/members-minute-10-16-19/
https://thevirtualinstructor.com/members/members-minute-7-3-19/
Matt says something interesting in many of these episodes which he does not repeat in other episodes. So you may find these ones particularly interesting.
It has become so long again… 
Hope you’re not fed up with it.
Have a good time in your holiday! 
