The New Year is here and I wanted to share a few of my intentions with you for upping my creativity and reducing artists block.

1.  Just get into the studio and start working…. Don’t wait for inspiration, jump right in and pretty soon art will appear.  If you don’t feel especially creative do the busy work like brushing gesso on canvases if you paint, flipping through your old sketch books, or taking your camera out and clicking a few shots of whatever….  So 2012 is my year to make more jewelry in my studio and clean it less.  My students are awesome…they won’t mind.

2. Take on only new obligations that make you happy. JUST SAY NO to things that drain you of every good thing and give back little to no reward.  (If you have a day job the reward in that is a paycheck or health insurance so that isn’t what I’m talking about here…)  I vow to choose my obligations wisely!

3. Take out the trash… I’m not talking about the stuff piling up in the can, although getting rid of that helps too… I’m referring to the mental garbage that is weighing you down so that there isn’t a place for creativity.  This might be the little voice in your head that tells you all the reasons why you can’t do something, or the committee you agreed to head up or whatever…This year no matter how hard it is I am going to take 3 giant steps out of my comfort zone, put my fingers in my ears and tell the voice inside my head “na,na, na, na…I can’t hear you!”

4. Do something FUN as often as possible.  This is really important if you work from home!  Schedule an outing once a week or at the very least plan on doing something at home that is out of the ordinary and enjoyable.  I spend my Friday’s with friends that make me laugh. We make art or in my case I doodle while we chat.  (Ok if you must know I hang out at Kaitlin’s Creative Cottage.  http://thundermoonstudios.wordpress.com/kaitlins-creative-cottage-classes/)

5. And finally, this year I am going to put some healthy food in my body and add bit more movement ….no I am not giving up anything like chocolate or coffee… I am just going to add a few more vegetables into the mix and take my old dog Kobe out for a few adventures…. I have been told that this will make me much more creative…. time will tell 😉

The earrings pictured above are from the E-Z, Artsy Earring class I am doing through Groupon and they are made from pennies….just my 2 cents worth!

Copyright © Mary Ehlers, all rights reserved.

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