How to Get Inspired When You Are Feeling a Little Creatively Burnt Out

It doesn’t matter what kind of art you like to produce, it’s possible to get burnt out when working too much or simply trying too earnestly to produce exactly the piece you dreamed of in your head.

Struggling against burnout never works well. It only creates a malaise that overshadows every attempt after that. When you’re not careful, the feeling can last for months too.

Here are some suggestions on how to get inspiration and reinvigorate your creativity after a period of burnout.

Get a Complete Change of Scene

Moving to a new city is revitalizing. The total change of scene is an affront to every one of your senses until you learn to adjust. This is a good thing. It’s just what the doctor ordered.

The last thing you need is everything being the same as before. Choose a city that is inspiring, like San Francisco. There are plenty of furnished apartments in San Francisco located to rent for a few months. The number of different districts and eclectic neighborhoods in San Fran means you’ll never get bored. There’s also a pretty serious art scene when you’re ready to explore.

Whether you’d be looking for serviced apartments in San Francisco based with everything is taken care of, or one of the furnished apartments to rent in San Francisco, it won’t take long to find something in the right neighborhood that’s perfect for you. Check out the latest furnished apartments from a site like Blueground to spot one you like.

Visit Art Galleries

While you may feel underwhelmed with the idea of painting another landscape or a portrait right now, that doesn’t mean that you’ve lost your love of art altogether.

Many cities including San Francisco have a growing art scene that is fascinating with many different influences and places to view art. Looking at great art can get the creative juices growing to get back to your blank canvas to paint something. Often, it’s impossible not to get inspired by new artists and the classics too.

It’s also possible that you might meet fellow art lovers there and strike up an interesting conversation that inspires you even further.

Take Up a Different Hobby

If you’re a painter, consider trying your hand at photography to see how you take to it. Maybe sculpting or even taking a pottery class could give you a different kind of challenge that you haven’t faced before.

Being willing to be adventurous by trying other creative endeavors that you’ve never attempted gets you out of your head. Get away from the seriousness associated with your feelings about your art right now and return to your roots when being creative was carefree and fun!

Also, when you try something new, give yourself permission to fail. Repeatedly! If you tend to be a perfectionist, make it a point to stop. Let yourself just enjoy exploring a new activity with no judgement on the final outcome. You’ll likely find it very rejuvenating for the mind.

Get Among Fellow Artists

There’s nothing like being among your own kind to soak up their enthusiasm and artistic freedom. This type of enthusiasm is infectious.

You don’t even need to tell them that you’re taking a break or feel burnt out either. They probably will sense that you’re too much in your head to be creative right now. And that’s perfectly okay. You can just tell them that you’re working through your process and they’ll probably move onto other topics.

If they have new works they’re willing to show you, that is a great opportunity to hear how the piece came together. Soaking up some of their artistic flavor and passion for their work is bound to remind you why you became an artist in the first place.

Doodle Away!

Whether you like to paint or draw, but especially if you enjoy drawing, try out some childish doodling on paper to while away the time. If you’re shying away from getting back to drawing on paper, mix things up by using an iPad and digital pen to draw using Adobe Photoshop Sketch or Pigment apps.

Making doodles lets your mind wander playfully without being serious about it. This keeps you within the artistic realm without making you responsible for the outcome. Nevertheless, within your doodles there’s room to get creative and experiment with different ideas that you haven’t tried before. So, doodle away!

Losing your inspiration when you’re drained is a natural thing. We cannot and should not expect ourselves to be creative all the time. Our minds don’t work that way. Sometimes we’ve given so much through the artistic output that we feel drained. At that point, it’s a good idea to listen and observe more and do less. This gives you the time needed to recover. Your creativity cannot stay dormant forever. Usually, it resurfaces when you feel reinvigorated once again.