Almost every artist has experienced a creative block at some point in their life, and different people have various ways of dealing with it. Today, I’m going to share how I beat creative block. I discovered this method by accident, and it has been my go-to trick ever since.

Whenever I feel down and have no ideas to draw, I turn to my sketchbooks for inspirations. I have several tiny sketchbooks full of silly, memorable, or just practice sketches. Some of them remind me of places I visited, others of feeling I had. And then there are some, that are pure imagination spilling out on the paper. Those are the works that remind me of who I am and what I should do. Funny enough, I usually don’t recognize a brilliant idea when I sketch it. It’s always way down the road, when I revisit it, I stop and think… Hey, that’s not bad!

This is one of the reasons I post my daily sketches in this blog. This way, I have easy access to all my little thoughts on paper anywhere in the world. I also always carry a pocket-size sketchbook with me, so that I can document my fleeting thoughts. If it isn’t documented, it hasn’t happened!

Therefore, whenever you feel creative block sneaking up on you, don’t go on social media and doom-scroll for inspiration. Instead, flip through your old sketchbook and inspire yourself! Anyway, that’s my way to beat creative block, what’s yours?

Depicted in this photograph is a small three by five sketchbook. It is open on a page with a drawing of a coffee cup with an ear instead of the handle. The drawing is done in sepia ink. On top of the sketchbook there is a brush pen and a water brush arranged in an artistic way.

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