Painting and how to kick-start your creativity
- peter corr
- Jan 4, 2023
- 5 min read
Updated: Dec 20, 2025
Art Block
Every creative individual experiences periods of inactivity—moments when progress seems sluggish and very little is accomplished. This is just a natural part of the creative journey: a temporary block, a decrease in inspiration, or the mind and body's method of recharging and avoiding unnecessary overproduction.
Like a winter landscape of frozen fields, with all life above ground dead or dormant—that’s how I explain my general lack of engagement and purposeful activity. Somewhere deep in the psyche, in that dreamy subterranean world, reserves of latent energy are quietly restored and renewed. Of course, if you’d rather skip the gestation period, you could jump-start the whole process, cut out the middleman, and get right back on track. Here are some ideas and techniques I often use to get things moving again—think of them as nature’s own remedies.
Taking risks should be at the heart of what we do as artists. It’s hard to create something truly new without stepping into the unknown. Playing it safe might keep your work acceptable and in line with established standards, but it’s unlikely to spark surprise or excitement for you or your audience. Stepping out of your comfort zone is key, opening the door to both failure and success. And really, does failure matter? The word itself comes from Italian, originally meaning to break something apart—hardly a catastrophic idea. Sometimes you need to break things open to see what’s inside, then put them back together in a new way.
Try New Materials:
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for building skills and practical know-how, and I know that comes from discipline and repetition. But leaning too heavily on mastering one specific medium can become an unintentional limitation. Trying out new materials pushes you to rethink your approach, test your motor skills, and really observe your process. A new material might react with others in strange and unexpected ways, and that’s actually great—it keeps you from getting complacent.
Painting traditionally involves using brushes, which provide excellent control and remarkable versatility. This technique allows for the precision seen in Salvador Dalí's work or the raw energy found in Georg Baselitz's pieces. However, this same versatility can sometimes hinder spontaneity, making it difficult for unexpected elements to emerge. In this work, I utilized oil paint, cold wax, bitumen, vinegar, acrylic, modeling paste, plaster, sodium bicarbonate, linseed oil, and a heat gun. I applied these materials with brayers, palette knives, sponges, and metal scrapers, experimenting with pouring, spattering, dripping, trailing, burning, scratching, and staining. Each technique unveiled new possibilities and offered fresh perspectives on image creation.
Developing Skills
When depicting elements of the world in a painting, there are numerous methods to consider. You can adhere to traditional techniques that emphasize working intentionally with line, tone, color, and shape. Depth can be achieved through chiaroscuro, while texture can be implied with surface patterns.
Once you've developed a variety of technical skills, your artwork will naturally yield impressive results—trees will resemble trees, clouds will appear as clouds, and people will look like people. However, by concentrating solely on accuracy, you might overlook the magic that emerges from chance, from the interaction of different materials—sometimes harmonizing beautifully, sometimes clashing. Most paintings, from the Renaissance to the mid-20th century, depend on our readiness to suspend disbelief. We interpret tonal, textural, and color cues to recreate familiar elements of the visual world, eagerly completing the picture. But what if we allow the materials to take charge, compelling our recognition systems to interpret? That's when creativity comes into play, as we uncover connections and patterns. A mismatch, glitch, or decoding error should be welcomed—it’s what keeps us engaged, curious, and ready to explore, deconstruct, and rebuild. In this manner, the viewer becomes an active participant in the artwork, fully engaged in the creative process.
'Earth Stood Hard as Iron'
In the Fenlands, bleak midwinter
In medieval times, I would have been an alchemist, well, maybe, maybe not. But I have been busy reconstructing Winter Fenland fields from the base 'metals' of tar, plaster and bicarbonate of soda with a little help from the remnants of a tin of Magnolia satin sheen. I don't think it will extend my life or the life of anyone else, but I do get completely lost in the process. In practice, I'm probably shortening my life.....need to do something far less engaging if I'm going to live forever
al·che·my ˈal-kə-mē
1
a medieval chemical science and speculative philosophy aiming to achieve the transmutation of base metals into gold, the discovery of a universal cure for disease, and the discovery of a means of indefinitely prolonging life
2
a power or process that changes or transforms something in a mysterious or impressive way
3
an inexplicable or mysterious transmuting
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