What to do when you've lost your creative mojo
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What can you do when you’ve lost our creative mojo? Here are some ideas and exercises to help get you back to your creativity again
Sometimes we can struggle to find our creativity and the more we struggle the harder it seems to be to get it back. Luckily there are some ways to reignite your creative spark.
There’s a lot of research that shows that unstructured play is great for children and their creativity and it’s great for us as adults too, we just need to find the time to do it. Often when we have a hobby or work in a creative field we focus our creative imagination on that, for example, our jewellery. But if you are feeling blocked at the moment then do try some of these exercises.
simple creativity exercises
Sometimes some very simple exercises that are nothing to do with your jewellery making can be really helpful. They can be fun to do and help loosen you up like stretching before exercising.
Here are some simple exercises you can do with paper and pen.
Circles exercise
Draw 30 circles on an A4 piece of paper or print out the copy on the button below.
Set a timer for 4 minutes and draw as many circular things as you can in the circles e.g. a plate, the sun etc
Alternatively, just fill the circles with whatever comes to mind
Draw upside down
Look around you and find something to draw. Draw it upside down!
Write yourself a note
Write yourself a note with your non-dominant hand
Doodle without taking your pen off the paper
Draw a picture wearing a blindfold!
Or draw not looking at the paper
Complete a doodle
Either one that you’ve done or one that someone else has. Can you turn the doodle into something?
These exercises help you move away from striving for perfection and get your creative brain thinking
2. get making
Physically making or creating something that isn’t jewellery can also be a fun creativity challenge
Make a banner with cut out shapes
Make your own banner or bunting with cut out paper shapes
3. morning pages
You may have heard of The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. In it she suggests a number of great ways that artists can help their creativity. One of these is through morning pages.
Each morning as soon as you can write three pages of longhand. Write whatever comes into your mind. It helps to clear your thoughts so you are ready for the day.
4. Artist date
Julia Cameron also suggests taking yourself on an artist date once a week. You take this date on your own and choose somewhere to go that is just for you and your creativity.
It could be on a new walk, to a museum, to a gallery, a shop - think about where you could find inspiration.
Some ideas if you’re indoors
The Crafts Council is offering free access to its Crafts Magazine digital archive until end of April 2020 bit.ly/Craftsarchive
You can access digital tours and resources from museums like the Ufizzi, Musee d'Orsay, MoMa and the Tate via Google Arts & Culture >
The Royal Academy are also doing some virtual tours on their Facebook page
These tips come from jeweller Elin Horgan who did an online talk as part of our Jewellers Retreat in April 2020 on Creativity without Purpose. You can watch the recording on the button below