How to Be Creative In Art and Tips for Making it Fun

Learn How to Be Creative in Art

One of the most frequently asked questions is how to be more creative in art. You can look at something and draw a perfect representation of it, but somehow feel left unfulfilled.

Have you ever felt this way? If you’re reading this I’m guessing you have. As artists, we all want to create something that is interesting and original.

But that isn’t all that easy to do, right? That is actually a false statement. Coming up with new and creative works of art is easier than you might think.

It just takes a bit of practice to get into the habit of thinking outside the box.

Let’s start by learning a little bit about how the brain works. And how that relates to making art.

Types of Creativity

There are four types of creativity as identified by professor of cognitive neuroscience, Arne Dietrich.

The types he identified are,

Deliberate & Cognitive

This type of creative is good at research, experimenting, and problem solving. They are purposeful action takers that are highly skilled and intelligent

Deliberate & Emotional

These types of people are driven by their emotions. They like quiet time to reflect and plan their actions.

Daily journaling is typically seen with this type of creativity. And the decision making process is usually logical and rational.

Creativity will usually happen randomly in the form of an a-ha moment, when all of the reflection and planning finally come together.

Spontaneous & Cognitive

This type of person has the knowledge and skill required to solve a problem but just can’t seem to come up with the solution.

However, the solution will come at the worst possible time. Like when you’re in bed and you wake up in the middle of the night with a crystal clear answer to the problem.

Has this ever happened to you?

These people tend to find a distraction when they are struggling to find the answer to their problem. They know they have to stop thinking about it for the solution to come to them.

Spontaneous & Emotional

These moments of inspiration happen on their own with no sense of purpose or deliberation.

No specific skill is required to experience these creative moments. But the person does need some kind of skill to turn the information into something useful.

These moments are often referred to as an epiphany and are responsible for many cultural breakthroughs. These moments of clarity happen suddenly, and all on their own.

As you can see you may not fall into one specific category. You can experience any of these types of creativity depending on the situation.

Or you may fall into one of the categories, just as an overall creativity type. Myself for example, I like to be alone and take a walk when I need to find a solution.

Do you need to know which type of creative you are? Probably not, but it is interesting to understand it. And it may be beneficial to some of you if you knew.

Creativity meaning

The use of the imagination or original ideas, especially in the production of an artistic work.

So what does that mean to us artists and creative types?

What is Creativity In Art

Creativity is thinking outside the box. Coming up with new and original ways to draw or make something.

It could be the way you use color. Or it could be a different perspective on a recognizable subject matter.

Importance of Creativity for Artists

Creativity is an important part of the human experience. It helps us deal with uncertainty and the unknown.

Creativity is the highest level of human performance that allows us to see obstacles as opportunities.

If you can train yourself to view things differently you’ll not only advance in your artwork, but also in life as a whole.

So let’s get down to the nitty gritty and learn some ways to develop our creativity.

Ways to Be More Creative In Art

The simplest way to improve your creativity with your art is through repetition. This doesn’t mean repeating the same thing over and over though.

What I mean by repetition is repeating a theme or concept while making some kind of change with each repetition.

This process is really very simple to learn how to do.

Creativity Exercises

There are a lot of different drawing exercises that will help improve your creativity. I’m going to share some of my favorites with you. These exercises are ways that you can force yourself to work outside of your comfort zone where creativity can take place.

Repetition is an extremely important part of this process. You won’t feel a shift in your creativity by doing just one drawing. Do several drawings to get the full benefit. I prefer to do seven drawings.

It’s enough to push your creativity, but not so many that you get burnt out with the exercises.

And above all else, don’t take them too seriously. Have fun and enjoy the process.

Random Line Drawing Exercise

This is a really fun creativity exercise. You simply draw a random line on your paper and then turn it into a finished drawing of something.

This isn’t an abstract line drawing though. You take the random lines that you’ve drawn and use them to form a picture.

There are a couple of variations with this creativity exercise as well.

First, is a dot to dot drawing where you place random dots on your paper. Then you connect the dots to make your line drawing.

From there you create your drawing of something interesting.

Since you have very little control over your lines, this is a great way to come up with some original characters. You could take your random drawings and use them as ideas to create your own characters.

Similar to this concept is the blown ink creatures exercise.

With this creativity exercise you drop ink on your paper and then use a straw to blow it into random patterns.

After the ink dries you add to the design to create a monster, bug, or some other type of critter or creature.

These are really fun to make.

Finding images or animals in sidewalk cracks is another fun exercise that puts your creativity to work. This is a pretty straightforward exercise where you take a photograph of cracks in a section of cement and then look for an image in the cracks.

You would then make your drawing right on the photo of the cracks.

7 Day Drawing Challenge

My all time favorite creativity exercise is to do a 7 day drawing challenge. This is really good when you want to improve your drawings or ideas for a specific subject matter or theme.

For example, let’s say you want to get better at drawing palm trees. Or you want to improve your ideas and designs.

You would commit to doing 7 palm tree drawings in 7 days. Or possibly longer if necessary. But you do need to do at least 7 drawings. And they need to be completed fairly close together for this to work.

I’ve noticed that after three or four drawings I can feel a shift in my creativity.

And it’s truly an amazing feeling.

The idea is to push yourself to experiment and try new things with each drawing. If you’ve never tried this before, you really should give it a shot.

How to Come Up With Ideas

The best way to generate ideas is by doing a brain dump or brainstorming session. Get yourself a starting point and then keep working on the same concept or idea for several drawings.

This is a great way to produce a lot of drawings in a short amount of time.