Share your smarts: Overcoming the fear of a blank canvas

Forum|Forum|6 years ago
April 16, 2019
12 replies
3792 views

"Many painters are afraid in front of the blank canvas, but the blank canvas is afraid of the real, passionate painter who dares and who has broken the spell of `you can't' once and for all. - Vincent Van Gogh"

It would be fair to say that all of us at some point in our professional lives have had to deal with a blank canvas wondering if we were at our creative end, and if we should throw away everything and do something else with our lives. But we did persevere, and it was worth it in the end.

We would like to hear your stories and suggestions for dealing with a blank canvas, and how you overcome your initial jitters. Everything that you share will benefit the thousands of experience designers that make their way to this forum every single day.

We will feature the best guidance on our social media properties, with the required citations, and with your permission.

Thanks,

Preran

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dj.summitt

Inspiring

One of the best pieces of advice I ever heard was that the first stroke of a painting is the most difficult and, qualitatively, the least important. To make the first mark you have to overcome inertia. The ease and comfort of doing nothing. But the moment you start, the first stroke leads to and informs the second which informs the third. Before long you have a direction, then a perspective. You can always go back and cover the first stroke. But it will always be the one that started it all.

Joseph Labrecque

Community Expert

I've heard this sort of thing from a lot of people. Not just about creative software but any sort of project. I think the most important thing is to START. Yeah, you might start over, revise, whatever... but by that time you will have more direction and focus - and that is more useful than a blank canvas.

cmgap

Community Expert

@Joseph - using your comment as a springboard.

Don't wait around for inspiration. This quote from painter Chuck Close is a favorite:

"Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you're sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that's almost never the case."

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