[Liser Studios]

guys, i'm in the hugest slump of my life. i cannot draw worth crap. it's been about the last month that it's been like this. It really sucks. I'll sit down to draw and I can't do it, and I get frusturated and I just don't draw for another few days, possibly. It's really irritating.
Has anyone had an extended slump like this? Maybe it's cuz i just broke up out of a long term (if you consider 1 year and 4 months long term) serious relationship a month ago... i don't know. Luckily she's talkin about gettin back together who knows though

so, any suggestions? has anyone else gone through loooooong slumps?!?!??!!?

[gArGOyLe^]

hmm.. I'm not a pro artist.. (yet ) but yea it has happened to me before.. twice actually.. I'm not sure how I broke out of it though.. I guess the slump just wore off after a while.. good luck

[ZippZopp]

yeah, i've had the same thing...its weird...all of a sudden i just kinda popped back into it. Although i've been gettin frustrated lately cause i can't draw from my head to save my life!!! Give me a photo, and i'll draw it, give me something to look at and i can do it..i just can't draw from my imagination which is so frustrating to me! I'm wondering if it'll always be like this or if after a while i'll start to be able to do it

[Gimbal8]

Sometimes it feels like I've been in a slump since birth.

I frequently get into slumps. Almost every other week it seems. All of a sudden I can't draw anything right. I try not to attempt anything too seriously when I'm in a slump because it leads to too much frustration. Instead I try to make better use of my downtime by picking an object I want to be able to draw better and scribbling a bunch of views of it. It never really matters if they come out looking good or not because my brain will (hopefully) retain the basic geometry of the object so that it is a little easier to draw when I do get out of the slump. Slumps are also a great time for me to think of a bunch of ideas and make a bunch of super rough thumbnails to maybe work on later.

[daz199]

Stop drawing, go watch some movies, read some books, and come back with some fresh inspiration

[Akab]

I was reading a book originally written in 1957 called Ink Drawing Techniques by Henry C. Pitz which talks about this in the last chapter.

quote:

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[the artist] has good days when the thing he calls inspiration swings him along. On these days he knows that there is no separation between technique and content, the two are one, merged in happy conjunction. The teeming images of the mind press down the arm to the skilled fingers and seem to leap into graphic shapes on the paper in one tidal flow. But there are days when the skull seems resonant with emptiness and the fingers trace limp and meaningless shapes. He learns that no artist can command constant inspiration; it is a human limitation.

Knowing this, many artists are inclined to play a waiting game. They wait, listening for the whisper of authentic inspiration. But this policy has its dangers. It plays to his weakness. As the years go on, the waiting intervals become longer, become a settled habit; the moments of inspiration become shorter and more infrequent.

The deeply creative periods are surrounded with mystery but they seem susceptible to nourishment. Those who expectantly make demands upon them seem to have the better of it. When an artist enters his studio and picks up his familiar tools he tends to awaken the creative impulses. Facing his paper with depleted mind, but forcing his hand to begin the familiar motions often awakens the slumbering will and the mind catches fire.

There is no formula that will cure sluggish creation, of course, but the artist who persists in his pictorial intentions in spite of lassitude and other antagonistic factors is more likely to have prolonged creative periods. So the young artist should not readily capitulate merely because the inner weather is less than ideal.

There is often a tendency to think of inspiration in terms of frenzy. But there is both warmth and coolness in the molding of a picture; warm hours of dream and vision, of incubation and the excitement of images shifting, sorting, and finding their appointed places; cool moments of appraisal, judicial evaluation and clearheaded planning.

---

(phew...those sessions with Typing of the Dead are coming in handy! Sorry about it being so long...)

I can't vouch for it's truth since I've only recently read it, and a lot of things can be well written and still be untrue. But it's related to the topic, so I thought I might toss it out and see what everybody thinks.

I've been in long slumps also...usually after finishing something big, I've burnt myself out on it and really don't feel like doing anything for weeks or months. Hope you get out of your slump though, and best of luck to you and your lady friend!

[Brain]

Akab, that was a good read, and warmingly familiar in a way.

I was definitely in a slump up until recently, and am slowly trawling my way out of it. I think a really aiding factor was the Fantasy Comic Drawing short course I just finished. It was kinda open ended, more teaching process than fantasy stuff, like "this is how you draw a dragon". We learnt about layer paper (my new friend), markers, airbrushing, and the general process of creating something.

Getting off track I think. I think what I'm getting at though is learning something new, or perhaps re-learning something (perhaps in a different way). Go find a short course, or an art tutor, or a life study class, and get some new ideas and perceptions. And interact. Talk to the people and artist around you. Share ideas, techniques and interests. Discovering new people can be quite enlightening.