We Cultivate Creative Ideas Rather than Find Them

How do you find the creative ideas to do inspirational art? Certainly you can search online for “ideas”. But is what you find truly your creative expression?

It is imperative that an artist understands what creative expression is. Without this element you cannot have truly creative ideas. The meaning reaches into a part of who you are rather than what you do.

Discovering your full potential will not happen by accident. This will require investment into key areas of your artistic development.

An article from The Guardian detailed some artists methods to find inspiration. Yet what we hope to achieve is an art style that will work towards long term sustainability.

In the end it is this which will determine whether or not you manage to thrive within a success that you define.

How Do The Best Artists Get Creative Ideas?

The best creative ideas come by way of a process. As you continue each of the next three headings are building blocks. They must be taken together as a process.

1. Creative Ideas Begin With Education

The best artists become who they are due to personal investment. What is this investment? Let’s start with the basics such as education.

Education is a key fundamental towards setting the building blocks into place. Concepts found within Art Appreciation alone will give the artist more ideas to comb through than they can imagine on their own.

The study of art itself opens doors. Dig into the formal elements of art to see how they can be used, manipulated, and perhaps reinvented for your purposes.

This is personal investment. When more is learned we can in turn incorporate these principles into our life portfolio.

The best creative ideas always come from this kind of education, understanding, and the paths of history.

2. Artistic Creativity Is Formed By Application In Art

Inspiration is wonderful and it is required. Inspiration is much like discovering creative ideas. Yet we must move beyond inspiration and into application.

Artistic creativity is the application of what the artists has learned. This is an assembly process, it creates structure and develops ones skill.

To achieve this you must form new positive life habits. This requires real work…

You may need to paint a canvas a thousand times before you find your true art style. You may need to practice different techniques thousands of times before you find how to express that emotion.

In turn you discover ways in which you wish to use these skills. From that is born ideas that no one else will have. It is unique to you.

It becomes your process. This is a part of your true expression.

3. Discovering New Art Ideas Requires Work Not Online Search

I wrote an article on “how to find art inspiration“. If you are not careful these two will appear to be the same with different titles. Yet this is not so.

Artistic creativity is inspiration in motion. It is through action, the application of knowledge, that the artist then discovers creative ideas!

It is this that in turn creates long term sustainability that can be projected through time for your future. If you achieve this then you have discovered your true competition as an artist… it is yourself, not others.

An artists future should never be reliant upon a search to see what ideas they can come up with. This should never be inspiration.

A creative process is a structured design. Remain within the creative process. Step 3 is exactly this, repeating the positive habits to remain in continual motion for creative ideas.

One Creative Idea Does Not Make An Artisan

A kid I know decided to start woodworking in his mom and dads garage. What happened to him is a one in a billion shot, but it happened.

He was new to woodworking and among his starting machines was a lathe with other general tools. Yet he created this really cool rolling pin for cooking. It was his first real creation.

He gets the bright idea to send his rolling pin into a major HGTV personality. A short while later he receives a call with thousands of orders for his new idea.

Keep in mind his production space is a handful of one man machines where his mom and dad park their cars.

Understand that while we all might have this vision in our minds of how we hit the big time, this is never how it really happens. That is unless you are that one in a billion.

Needless to say that kid had some issues to figure out really fast. It would be a good problem to have.

A Test of Endurance Is Required For Creative Ideas

There is a lesson to be learned by this kid. He perfected something. It was something simple but he perfected it.

To make it in a world where there is an ocean of ideas surrounding you is a test of endurance. The temptation and danger is to chase trends or ideas from one to the next.

We must individually determine what is value in art.

The unfortunate part to our present world within art is that we are in danger of proving Juliette Aristides theory to be right. Art has become about art rather than life.

It is here that we see artists turn to become makers of products rather than art. Focus is lost for too many have forgotten the purpose of art.

The artistic life is a journey that we live. Being an artist means more than a profession or a position.

For an artist to continue forward with discovering creative ideas will require them to discover their true creative expression.

There are thousands of artists out there who can all do what each other does. Yet how many are truly unique? Finding the answer to this issue is what will separate you from the masses.

Go back to basics. We do not need to be able to make or create anything and everything. Our test of endurance is self cultivation through perfecting our craft.

There is where our focus should be. It is far better than being a jack of all trades but a master of none.

Problem Solving Leads To Discovery Of Ideas

I have found from my experience that creative inspiration can also come from solving problems. It may work differently for you.

Some people can go on a hike or a run and things come to them. That’s great for them. Yet real creative designs for art inspiration do not always come easy, it can require time.

When I began to do box art, the first generation needed a lot of work. Solving problems with this work rather than running to the next thing to do helped to cultivate my craft.

I learned how to not only make better box art, but also new ideas came. With its cultivation came wood hinges and small fine custom trim work.

I began to do things that people have not generally done for many years, albeit with more modern machinery. The need to solve problems in my present work pushed me to reach beyond where I was.

I wanted to perfect what I was doing. This in turn took me to new places I could not have otherwise seen or known.

The creative idea rarely comes as a single prepackaged widget handed to you with a note saying “make this”. More often than not it will come in pieces over time.

It is when you have enough of those pieces from solving past problems, perfecting other skills, that the idea can finally be put together.

Your art is important and it is about growth. It involves personal cultivation and growth. Yes it takes time.

It is the mindset of perfection that keeps pushing the limits.