Mar

16

Don't worry about finding inspiration

March 16, 2007 | Leave a Comment

[-essay, inspiration, cartoons-]

Item number 24 in an amazing, amusing amassing of help
by guest writer and artist, Hugh MacLeod

Inspiration precedes the desire to create, not the other way around.

One of the reasons I got into drawing cartoons on the back of business cards was I could carry them around with me. Living downtown, you spend a lot of time walking around the place. I wanted an art form that was perfect for that.

So if I was walking down the street and I suddenly got hit with the itch to draw something, I could just nip over to the nearest park bench or coffee shop, pull out a blank card from my bag and get busy doing my thing. Seamless. Effortless. No fuss. I like it.

© gapingvoid.com, hugh macleod, 2005 - 2007, all rights reserved

Before, when I was doing larger works, every time I got an idea while walking down the street I’d have to quit what I was doing and schlep back to my studio while the inspiration was still buzzing around in my head. Nine times out of ten the inspired moment would have past by the time I got back, rendering the whole exercise futile. Sure, I’d get drawing anyway, but it always seemed I was drawing a memory, not something happening at that very moment.

If you’re arranging your life in such a way that you need to make a lot of fuss between feeling the itch and getting to work, you’re putting the cart before the horse. You’re probably creating a lot of counterproductive “Me, The Artist, I must create, I must leave something to posterity” melodrama. Not interesting for you or for anyone else.

You have to find a way of working that makes it dead easy to take full advantage of your inspired moments. They never hit at a convenient time, nor do they last long.

Conversely, neither should you fret too much about “writer’s block”, “artist’s block” or whatever. If you’re looking at a blank piece of paper and nothing comes to you, then go do something else. Writer’s block is just a symptom of feeling like you have nothing to say, combined with the rather weird idea that you SHOULD feel the need to say something.

© gapingvoid.com, hugh macleod, 2005 - 2007, all rights reserved

Why? If you have something to say, then say it. If not, enjoy the silence while it lasts. The noise will return soon enough. In the meantime, you’re better off going out into the big, wide world, having some adventures and refilling your well. Trying to create when you don’t feel like it is like making conversation for the sake of making conversation. It’s not really connecting, it’s just droning on like an old, drunken barfly.

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about the author/artist:
Hugh MacLeod is a UK-based marketing and advertising consultant who helps his clients apply what he calls “The Hughtrain” to their own businesses. How To Be Creative is a collection of essential tips that Hugh says have worked for him over the years. He has been drawing art on business cards for many years. Now, the originals are drawn on either business cards or bristol board cut to the same size i.e. 3.5″ x 2″. He says, “I use mostly a Rotring 0.25mm rapidograph pen. Occasionally I’ll use other things- pencil, watercolor, ballpoint etc, but not often.” You’ll find his unique art & writing at his website gapingvoid.com.

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Published by permission of the author in the April 2005 issue of The Practically Creative Quarterly, theme: inspiration

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also posted in: Art - process, craft, tutorials , Crackles! , Essays - Contributors , Inspiration , Motivation , Practice & Practices , Process , The Original PCQ, 05-06


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