Every artist, sooner or later, has artist’s block. What to do? You could wrap a cord around your head, pull it hard, and hope to squeeze some ideas out of your brain. But that doesn’t work, and often results in a really bad case of “forehead rope burn.” The old adage, to stop working and do something to take your mind off of things, makes things worse. Stopping when the going gets hard is demoralizing. And it makes you hesitant to try again, after you’ve already given up once.
Here’s my suggestion: set narrower goals. For example, suppose you’re having trouble drawing a full figure of a character. But it’s just not working. Narrow your goal down to drawing just the face. Still having trouble? Narrow it down even further. Settle for a rough drawing of the face. Bring the goal down to a size you can work with. The feeling of accomplishing something, even if it falls short of your ultimate objective, is encouraging, and builds confidence, which is important when you’re taking creative chances.
One of the best pieces of advice I ever received was this: “Try to hit singles instead of home runs.” I hope it helps you, too. Until next time!