• When I get an idea for a song it would gel in my mind for weeks or months, and then one day just like that, I’ll write it. ~ Johnny Cash
• If you’re going to be an artist, real life is your inspiration. ~ Madonna
• A person creates what they defend against. ~ The Buddha
• Criticize by creating. ~ Michelangelo
• Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt
• Sometimes I think creativity is magic; it’s not a matter of finding an idea, but allowing the idea to find you. ~ Maya Lin
• Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way. ~ Edward de Bono
• When the spirit of child’s play enters into the creative process, it’s a wonderful force and something to be nurtured. ~ Joni Mitchell
• In my experience, the best creative work is never done when one is unhappy. ~ Albert Einstein
• The whole difference between construction and creation is this; that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists. ~ Charles Dickens
• Sometimes we become so entangled in the mundane facts of our lives that we forget about our creative nature until it starts nagging us with reminders of its needs or until we feel so fractured we know something is wrong. ~ Anne Hazard Aldrich, Notes From Myself, 1998
• Creativity is the firing of my soul. ~ Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
• True creativity often starts where language ends. ~ Arthur Koestler

If all you ever paint is a particular style and subject, over and over your work is going to get old looking. Try new things. It doesn’t have to be every time, and it doesn’t have to be a major change. Try a different surface canvas vs. masonite. Use a color you usually don’t; mix it with all the colors you usually use and see what the results are. Work horizontal instead of vertical. Mix it up and your creativity will explode!

Keep a Note of Your Ideas

It doesn’t have to be a sketchbook with page after page of perfect sketches with perfect perspective and full color. It doesn’t have to be a written journal with page after page of detailed recordings of your thoughts,dreams, hopes and aspirations. But you need to keep some sort of record of your ideas, things that you thought were great, inspirational photos, postcards of paintings, etc.

You’re not going to remember them all, some may be too advanced for where you are now as an artist, some may need development. It can be a box, file, journal, or sketchbook… just find a place to store those ideas for a rainy day.